Home 5 reasons to start a blog for your business
Local

5 reasons to start a blog for your business

Contributors

business blog

Whether you’ve been in business for a while or you’re a new business, you are probably looking for how to start your blog because someone told you it was the thing to do. The only thing is, you don’t understand why your business needs a blog or what the benefits are going to be. In this article, we are going to talk about 5 reasons to start a blog for your business.

1. Builds Authority

No matter what industry you are working in, there is a lot of expertise that you need to have to work there. Whenever you have a blog, you can showcase your knowledge and skills on your blog which shows people that you know what you are doing and builds your authority in the industry. Having authority in your industry translates to dollars since people are willing to pay more money to work with experts.

You can use all kinds of content to build authority. Whether you are putting tutorials on your website, answering questions that are common in your profession or showing off case studies, you will be able to set yourself apart from companies that do not have a blog with great content. It does take effort to get your knowledge out on the screen, but once you have it there, you won’t have to write the same piece of content again.

2. Keeps People Engaged

Your potential customers do not want an onslaught of offers hitting them every day, but they do like to be entertained and they do like to learn. When you put together content that either helps them learn or helps them unplug, you are going to see very soon that your blog will bring you customers.

When people feel like they are getting to know about you and how you can help them before they talk to you, it makes the sales conversation much easier. If you can get people to engage with you and  your brand before asking for the sale, you are much more likely to close the deal. This is true whether you are talking about long term contracts or a one off sale.

Writing content for your blog on a regular basis will allow you to contact your audience again through email to let them know about your new helpful resource, fun blog post or other type of value oriented post that you put on your site. This is another “touch” that will get you closer to the sale.

3. Brings In Website Traffic

When you were working with your web developer, you probably heard them talking about keywords. Your blog is a great place to start targeting the keywords that are going to bring traffic into your website. You can write content around each of the keyword terms that have been identified as one of the your best keyword options.

Don’t only target short keywords. You should go for longer keywords as well since they are less competition than keywords that are only one or two words. While they might not get as high of search traffic, the people searching for long-tail keywords are often further through the buying cycle and closer to the decision stage of their journey.

4. Great for Getting Social Shares

Everyone wants more social shares. Blogging is a great way to get more people to share your content. As long as you keep it entertaining or informative people are likely to share it with their friends that might need help with that area as well.

Make sure that your article has a place to easily click on any of the major share buttons so they are able to share the content with their following. You never know when a piece of well-written and interesting content is going to go viral, but you can do your best to make sure that it happens.

5. Cost Effective Marketing

Writing a blog doesn’t cost a lot of money. If you already have a website, you aren’t going to have to put out a lot of cash to start your blog. In fact, you shouldn’t have to put out any extra money to add a blog to your website. The only thing you might be required to do is put in some time to get it installed as well as to write your first article.

It is understandable that time is money, but when you are blogging, you are creating an asset that works for you whether you are there or not 24/7. This means that your business can be selling itself even when you are sleeping. You have to put the work in before it can get to work. If you don’t feel like you are a great writer, you can always hire a freelance writer to write your blog content. Many people find this is the best way to get their content out without getting overwhelmed.

Conclusion

These are 5 of the main reasons that your business needs to start blogging right away. After reading this information, I am sure that you can see how a blog can benefit your business. The authority you gain alone could be enough to get someone to start blogging, but the other benefits take it over the top.

You can start simple with your blog and then start building it out as you are comfortable to do so. There are plenty of platforms that you can gain access to that will make blogging easy, but WordPress is by far one of the best.

Contributors

Contributors

Have a guest column, letter to the editor, story idea or a news tip? Email editor Chris Graham at [email protected]. Subscribe to AFP podcasts on Apple PodcastsSpotifyPandora and YouTube.