In today’s digital age, having a business blog is no longer just an option – it is a necessity. Consider this; on average, companies with blogs produce 67% more leads a month than those that don’t. Blogs have one of the highest ROI’s when it comes to your business. A blog allows businesses to share their expertise, build brand awareness, and connect with their audience.
If you’re still unsure about whether or not your business should have a blog, keep reading to learn why it’s essential.
What is a Blog?
First, let’s start with the basics. Most of you probably already know, but a blog is an individual web page on your website where a business shares thoughts, ideas, and experiences, on various topics related to the industry through writing, images, videos, or other forms of media. Blogs can cover a wide variety of topics, including personal interests, industry news, product reviews, and more. They typically allow for reader engagement through comments and social media shares and can be written by individuals or a team of contributors.
Blogs Increase Web Traffic
One of the primary reasons why every business should have a blog is that it can increase website traffic. Every time you publish a new blog post, you are creating a new page on your website that can be indexed by search engines like Google. If you post once a week for a year, that’s 52 links to your site floating around waiting to be discovered!. This means that if someone searches for a topic related to your blog post, your website has a chance to appear in the search results.
Blogs = Links
Blogging gives an opportunity to post both internal links to other parts of your website, along with links to outside sites. This is important for a few reasons. First, internal linking gets visitors to stay on your site longer to explore as well as introduce more information to them. External links provide validity to your posts and most importantly, both types of links boost SEO. Google Ranking factors evaluate and reward posts with credible and accurate links.
The other side of linking is that every blog post is a link. Sharing your blog posts on social media can also drive traffic to your website.
Blogs Boost SEO
Speaking of Google Rankings, blogs help to fill a few of the factors that Google evaluates. Google takes the freshness of websites content so seriously that the date of the last major content update appears in the search results. Note the word major! That’s another ranking factor; magnitude. The amount changed for the content makes a big difference too.
Customer Value
Setting aside all the technical reasons why blogging is a good thing for your site, blogs are a big win with current and potential customers. By publishing informative blog posts about topics related to your industry, you can help educate your audience and provide solutions to their problems. In a world where everything comes with a price, having free content for visitors to learn about your company, product, industry or even just give tips and tricks is a win. It builds not only value but trust with your visitors.
Establish Authority
Having a blog allows your business to establish authority in your industry. By consistently publishing high-quality, informative blog posts, you can position your business as a thought leader in your field. This can help build trust with potential customers and can lead to increased sales in the long run.
Build Brand Awareness
A blog is an excellent way to build brand awareness. Every blog post you publish is an opportunity to showcase your brand’s personality and voice, which can help differentiate your business from competitors. Additionally, sharing your blog posts on social media can help reach a larger audience and increase brand exposure.
Generate Leads
In addition to driving website traffic, a blog can also generate leads for your business. By including a call-to-action (CTA) at the end of each blog post, you can encourage readers to take action, such as signing up for a newsletter or requesting more information about your products or services. This can help grow your email list and ultimately lead to more sales.
Feed Social Media
If the concept of keeping up with your social media content, blog content, website updates, etc is overwhelming, think of it this way; you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to your content. We talked about micro versus macro content and how each concept can feed the other. Think about using your social media posts to create one large, detailed post. Or start with your large, detailed blog post and break it down into smaller bites for your social media. The two areas do not have to be independent thoughts. In fact, having your social media topics and your blog topics all tie together makes your message more memorable because it’s exposed in more than once place. It’s repeating, without beating your visitors over the head.
Facilitate Customer Engagement
A blog can also facilitate customer engagement. By allowing readers to leave comments on your blog posts, you can create a conversation with your audience and build a community around your brand. Additionally, responding to comments and engaging with readers can help build trust and strengthen customer relationships.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Makes It Easy
With the emergence and increase in popularity of Artificial Intelligence(AI) content generation tools such as Chat-GPT, there is no reason to not start a blog. These platforms make writing a blog so easy and have eliminated the time and cost barriers associated with writing a blog. These easy-to-use platforms can help you to create, publish, and manage your blog in just a few clicks.
How Hammersmith Support Can Help
Do you have a blog section set up on your site? Schedule a 30-minute consultation to discuss all of your website needs. Hammersmith Support’s comprehensive monthly maintenance can help get your blog set up, get your site on track, and keep it there with monthly checkups.