by Kristal Reagan
Is blogging important for your business? It doesn’t matter what business you’re in, blogging is always a really GOOD idea. I’m not going to let you off the hook just because you may tell me that you are “not a writer” or “you don’t know what to write about”. You’re not writing a book, you’re giving your ideal clients information they need and that might be a checklist, a presentation, a quick 2-3 minute video. Sure all those things can be uploaded somewhere else and that’s great but the best place for those is embedded in your website as a blog post. Whip up a short description and there ya go. A blog post for the week!
But what’s the actual benefit to blogging? I’ve got 5 Reasons right here:
- You will gain Expert Status. If you are communicating about the things you know that will save your ideal clients time and keeping people up-to-date in your industry, making a connection with them weekly and/or daily then you will always be in the back of their minds when they need your product or service or a friend of theirs needs your product or service. People will hear your voice, they will connect with you and they will share your posts with others because you know your stuff! Think about your favorite business mentor or life coach, she’s an expert in the industry because she’s blogging, she’s out there, and she is being heard…why should your business be any different? You need to blog!
- Google LOVES it! Google loves fresh content (so do other search engines). Chew on this for a minute…Say you create your website and you are not blogging and you have only 5 pages on your site. Google only has 5 URLs to index (find and submit) for your website and what if you rarely update them? Google is not going to think your website is very important so you won’t rank as well. But say you are blogging, even if it’s just once a week, every week, for the whole year. That’s 52 weeks, y’all, so that is 52 MORE pages creating 52 MORE URLs for your ideal client to find you online and Google loves fresh content, thus you’ll begin to rank higher. You want a Google Lovin’ website right? You need to blog!
- More visibility on Social Media. Every time you publish a new blog post you are creating content that people can share on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+. This exposes your business to new faces! Not only is a blog post great for others to share on social media but it gives you great content for you to keep your social media presence going. You’ll be able to grab your best quotes and create memes (those cute little images with text that you see everywhere now). You’ll be able to ask questions and direct people to the post to get the answer. In short, your blog posts can be a great place for content for other areas of your business. You want to make social media posting easier right? You Need to blog!
- Lead Generating/List Building: These new blog posts drive traffic to your site and now that your ideal client is on your site (assuming you have a clear call to action) you can get them on your list. A call to action could be any of these:
- free ebooks,
- free fact sheets
- free webinars
- free trials
- any content that someone would be willing to exchange their information for. To be super-clear for anyone unfamiliar with how traffic-to-lead conversions work, it’s as simple as this:
- Ideal client lands on your website
- Ideal client sees the call-to-action button with a free offer behind it
- Ideal client clicks call-to-action button and redirects to a landing page where they fill in their info and submit
- Ideal client receives the free offer by redirection or email
It’s a good idea to have a call to action at the end of every post you publish. You want to build your list with your ideal client right? You Need to blog!
- Blogging makes you real. It’s a place to talk about new products and/or services, comment on news topics, or market trends specific to your business. It’s also a place to let your brand’s personality shine and show people what you are all about. Your blog should be your welcome mat into your business and website. Blogging makes your ideal client see you as a real person and not just a business name, they will feel a real connection and in today’s digital world what we want are real connections right? You Need to blog!
To sum it up, blogs are a cost-effective marketing strategy that every business should have in their marketing plan. Every post you publish is a long-term asset that helps build brand awareness, helps build expert status, promotes products and services, and helps you gain confidence in your business and Google LOVES that.
