Decades ago, blogging started up as a way for people to easily publish their thoughts and opinions online, like a diary. Since then, blogging has transformed into a massive industry, with 4 million blog posts being produced daily.
A large chunk of that number are blogs produced by businesses – in fact, more than half of marketers see blogging as a key business marketing priority.
Still not sure why blogging needs to be a part of your marketing strategy? Well, here are 8 ways blogging can add value to your business!
Words: Adriana Thani
Blog posts help your SEO
SEO – Search Engine Optimisation – refers to the steps you can take to increase traffic to your website via organic search engine results. Why is this important? Well, 70-80% of users ignore paid ads and only focus on organic results when they’re looking something up. This means that even paying for ads will probably not increase traffic to your website the way a high ranking on Google’s search results can!
You are 4 times more likely to be ranked higher on search engines if you feature a blog on your website. One reason behind this is that every blog post you produce is considered an additional indexed page on your website, which means it becomes one more opportunity for your website to appear in organic search results. The more blog posts you publish, the more pages there will be on your website for Google to place on organic search results.
The key thing here is to create high-quality, relevant keywords in your blog posts. If you sell cookies but you blog about clothes, your website will not get the kind of traffic you’re looking for! Relevant content will attract relevant website visitors, so make sure you prioritise it.
Blog posts keep your website fresh
How often do you update your home or about page? We’d hazard a guess that the answer is: not too often. This is totally fine and normal! However, Google is constantly scouring the web for fresh and new content, which means that if your website isn’t updated frequently, you’re going to lose out to your competitors when it comes to your search rankings!
Blogging is a great way to keep your website updated, and the new content allows your website to be re-discovered by Google and labelled as fresh. Google loves fresh content, and (in most cases) will rank a frequently-updated website higher than a ‘stale’ website. So consistently and frequently publishing blogs is a great way to keep your website ranking highly in search results.
Blogs can generate leads
eCommerce is hardly a new thing. In this day and age, a website is a vital part of any business strategy, and is often a main source of revenue from sales. The growth of online shopping has also driven a lot of research into how to turn website visitors into customers, which is called lead generation. Using different strategies to generate leads is a must for any business owner, and blogs are a fantastic strategy for that!
How exactly do blogs generate leads? There are a couple of ways, but one of our favourites is so simple: just make sure to include a lead-generating call-to-action to every blog post. It can be something as straightforward as saying ‘contact us today!’ and linking to your contact page!
You can also utilise long-tail keywords in your blogs, which are very useful in generating quality leads. Long-tail keywords are basically 3 to 4 word phrases that are really specific, like ‘gluten free cookies Melbourne’. When you include these words in your blog posts in a natural, organic way, Google will feature your website when people search for those keywords.
Users stay longer on your website
The longer someone spends on your website, the more it signals to Google that your website is useful and relevant to their search query. This credibility is vital in making sure your website comes up first whenever someone uses specific keywords!
Also, the more time a user spends on your website, the more likely they will engage with your brand in some way. It could be signing up for a newsletter, or it could be a sale. Either way, keeping users clicking through your website will keep them on there longer, and will benefit you in some way!
Since blogs are long-form content, users will stay longer on the website compared to, say, product descriptions. While we’re not saying all blog posts need to be really long, data suggests that long-form content simply does better on Google.
You can boost this benefit by doing another thing: make sure to include internal links in your blog posts. Internal links refer to linking to other pages on your website. It can be a specific product, another blog post, or some other landing page, but the key is keeping that person on your website for longer!
Blog posts can increase your credibility
Nowadays, most brands and businesses struggle to set themselves apart from the competition, particularly in highly-saturated industries, so you need to take every step you can in order to stand out among the crowd.
Blog posts can go a long way in boosting brand credibility and inspiring trust among customers, particularly if your blog posts are educational and enrich your website visitors’ lives in some way.
Publishing blogs are also a great way of positioning your brand as a leader and knowledgeable source in your industry. When you create content that enhances your industry in some way, you are seen as a trustworthy source of information.
This also makes it more likely that you’ll get quality backlinks (as in, other websites will link to yours), because people have more content from you to share! The stats don’t like – brands who blog receive 97% more links to their website than those who don’t.
Blog posts act as long-term content
When you publish a blog post, that web page can turn up on search engine results for weeks, months, and even years to come! That means that for as long as that post stays online, it can drive traffic to your website and generate leads.
This is especially true of ‘compounding blog posts’, which are blog posts that drive more traffic over time compared to when they were published. If you make sure to create a few of these types of posts, you could really set yourself up to yield results from those blog posts for a really long time!
You should also make sure you track your high-performing posts and keeping them updated (or ‘fresh’, as we mentioned earlier). This ensures that these blog posts continue to be constantly re-discovered by Google.
Blog posts complement your other content and platforms
Blogs are a really useful way to re-purpose and share your other content, including social media posts, images, and videos. This not only increases the longevity of those content, but also allows you to expand more upon the topic itself, allowing your community to dive deeper into the things they care about, and therefore create a deeper relationship to your brand.
Blog posts also happen to be really share-able. Every time you publish a blog post, you’re essentially creating content that people can then share on social media. This brand exposure is priceless these days, considering how more and more people prefer to get their news on social media. This is word-of-mouth marketing made easy!
Blogs allow your brand voice and identity to shine
When you create relevant content that is true to your brand, your website visitors will have a deeper understanding of who you are and what you stand for. Blogs are a versatile platform for you to showcase your brand voice and brand identity through the use of words and images, and maybe even videos!
If you make sure every blog post is true to your brand, you are creating content that will entice the right type of customer for your business. And if you keep doing this? Well, you’ll be creating a whole community around your brand that shares the same values as you do, and is loyal to your business.
If you need assistance with blog writing, Content Savvy are here to help! Feel free to get in touch with our team so we can do what we do best and put pen to paper!
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