Blogs have been around for 25 years – practically an eternity in technology years. In its earliest form, blogging was a way for people to post content online about their personal lives and interests. But it wasn’t long before businesses started to see benefits too.
Blogs can help businesses in three major ways:
- Get their brand voice out to the world
- Directly reach and educate target audience
- Generate quality leads and revenue
But first things first…
What Is a Blog?
A blog is a compilation of written articles and other media such as images, video, and audio, aiming to educate, instruct, or provide your target audience with insight about topics that somehow relate to your brand or brand values.
As a key form of content marketing, blogs also help businesses develop relationships with potential customers and establish credibility as experts and thought leaders. For instance, a blog for a mattress company might include content about the health benefits of sleep, considerations when choosing a new mattress, and whether bedsheet thread count really matters.
5 Benefits of Blogging
Today more than 600 million blogs exist worldwide, according to WebTribunal, a web solutions company. Why is blogging still so popular?
1. A blog helps establish a unique brand voice.
A “brand voice” is a company’s unique personality that helps it connect with customers and prospects and stand out from the competition. A brand voice can be friendly, formal, playful, serious, or any number of relatable characteristics that appeal to a brand’s core market.
Blogging can be an effective marketing tactic for crafting a brand voice, reaching and helping new prospects, and carefully guiding them down the marketing and sales funnels.
2. Blogs help build trust with customers and prospects.
Trusted business relationships take time to form. Frequently updating blogs with new, authentic content that helps followers resolve their questions or teaches them how to do something can help build trust. Blogs can be an effective way to gain credibility with your target audience, many of whom simply want to learn about a topic before committing to purchasing a product or service.
3. Blogs help attract people interested in something related to your company.
Business blogs are a form of “pull marketing” – also known as inbound marketing – which aims to attract customers and build loyalty with content, rather than push products and services to the forefront. With blogs, followers make the decision to come to you because they’re interested in a topic, increasing the likelihood they may be more interested in learning about your offerings either now or as their interest builds.
4. Blogs help boost search ranking and drive traffic.
A regularly updated, search engine-optimized, high-quality business blog can help you rank higher on search engine results. The top three organic (i.e., not paid for) search results on Google receive 54.4% of all clicks, according to a 2022 analysis by SEO blog Backlinko. Backlinks from other sites to your blog also help drive more traffic, as does internal linking between your blogs and social media posts that promote new blog posts.
5. Blogs help turn visitors into leads.
People who read your business blog are already curious about the topics being written about. Providing them with opportunities on blog posts to take another action – for example, signing up for a newsletter, attending a webinar, downloading a white paper, or requesting a product demo – can help identify those with a deeper level of interest and potential to become customers. These leads, assuming they’re marketing-qualified, can then be passed to the sales team to pursue.
How to Create a Blog Strategy
A well-thought-out blog strategy is the foundation of a successful business blog. Here are some cornerstones to consider when building or refreshing a blog strategy.
Cover topics customers care about.
As you’re setting up a content calendar to plan out blog posts and researching frequently-searched terms related to your business, also ask yourself a few questions. Why would existing and potential customers want to engage with this? What matters to them? What information do they need to be happier and more productive?
Focus on consistency and frequency.
It’s difficult to establish credibility, authority, and reliability, let alone rank high in search engine results, without a consistent content flow. A variety of research says to aim for two to four blog posts a week, though frequency will depend on your company’s resources.
Focus on quality.
In addition to a consistent publishing schedule, make sure content is factually accurate and helpful. To attract and keep your blog visitors, posts need to be well-written, engaging, and topical. They also should be free of spelling and punctuation errors.
Prioritize SEO.
Blogs that are optimized for search – based on solid keyword research, for starters – can rise above competing content. It may make sense to review already-posted content; if not properly optimized, the content could negate your efforts. Budget allowing, you may want to consider working with an SEO agency or consultant to start.
Decide who will create the content.
High-quality content requires talented writers, editors, and subject-matter experts who can clearly communicate even the most complicated topics. Do you have those resources internally? Will you need to hire freelancers or a content marketing agency?
Measure blog performance.
Blog performance should be continually monitored using web analytics tools that track, for example, the number of page views, average time spent on page, average pages per session, number of returning visitors, and goal conversion rate. Blog posts with a relatively high number of page views can help you understand what readers are interested in and inform future posts. In addition, you can follow a person’s journey, from blog visitor to sales-qualified lead to bona fide customer.
This step underscores the purpose of the blog in the first place and, perhaps, justifies an increased budget. Web analytics tools range in price, and some are free.
The Takeaway
Blogging can be an effective marketing tactic for crafting a brand voice, reaching and helping new prospects, and carefully guiding them down the marketing and sales funnels. Creating a successful blog takes planning and commitment, but over time, a reliable blog can be one of your company’s best business assets.
Photo: Getty Images
