Top 5 reasons your business needs a blog

Time to consider blogging for your business

~~ This post has been updated Jan 2021 ~~

Even though you may be in denial, regardless of the type of company you have, you need to be blogging. You may not even think of yourself as a writer, it’s still essential because your business blog provides other touch points with your customers. Blogging doesn’t need to be difficult and there are several good reasons you should do it as part of your customer outreach. With your business blog, you can:

Make more personal connections

Like social media, your blog gives you a chance to connect with your customers on a more personal level. While your website is a static page that simply tells them about your business, your blog is interactive. It’s a way to start a dialog where they can leave comments and get to know you better. Your blog gives your business a human face. Make sure that you use it that way and reply to each comment your readers leave.

Grow your expertise and credibility

One of the best things about a business blog is that it gives you an opportunity to establish your expertise and build your reputation. You can blog about things you know. For example, if you’re a law firm, blog about simple legal questions people have. If you’re a cleaning company, share some easy house cleaning tips. Your blog shows your website visitors what you know and this helps develop trust in your business.

Customize your marketing

Blogging offers a much more effective and lower cost way to promote your business than other methods. If you want to place advertisements on other sites, this costs a bit of money. Other costly methods don’t make the same kind of impact that a blog written by you makes. You also get information on your target market through their reading behavior and comments.

Reap Search Engine benefits

Adding a blog to your static website is a great way to attract traffic from search engines. The search engines favor sites that have fresh, updated content. If you write just one blog post per week, you’ll see more searches coming your way, especially if you choose a few good keywords for each post. Write two or three blog posts a week and you’ll really see your traffic climb.

Get visibility for your products and services

Through your blog, you can tell your customers about your products and services. Let them know about discounts, special offers, new inventory items and offline events that you’re participating in. You can also add a feed to your social media sites so that every blog you post shows up there as well.

If the idea of writing leaves you cold, or perhaps makes your heart race (and not in a good way), don’t despair. Blogging isn’t like writing the Great American Novel. You already have an idea what you customers need. Focus on customer wants, needs, interests, and questions. Make your posts short and conversational, as if you’re speaking directly to them. Pick something related to your business and share your expertise with them. Your business blog doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel or offer the cure for cancer; it just needs to be helpful and engaging.

So, what happens next? It’s about the doing

The first thing to note is that no matter what kind of business you run, your website needs a blog. In addition to your home page, product pages, and other information, you should also have a place where you can post new content regularly and interact with your visitors.

When you have a regularly updated blog on your site, you offer fresh content, giving your audience a reason to check back regularly. Your blog will keep people on your site. It will also help with search engine traffic, as Google loves sites that update their content often.

The only downside is that you have to post regularly, and this takes time and effort. However, if you approach it strategically, you can make blogging much easier.

What to write about on your blog

The goal of your blog content should be to offer help and solutions for the problems and issues your audience faces. If you can offer tips to help them solve their problems, you’ll build a strong relationship with them. Your site will become the go-to source of information in your niche and this will result in sales.

Start by creating a customer profile. Include demographic information so you can get to know your readers. Focus on problems they face and questions they have. Write your content with this ideal individual in mind.

Where to get ideas for your blog

Writing is just one part of the process. In order to blog regularly, you need a steady stream of good ideas for your content.

Create an idea file that you can add to as you brainstorm and refer back to when you’re ready to start writing. Start by considering things like:

• Questions people regularly ask you
• Ways you’ve helped people before
• The basics of your niche and industry
• Things you can talk endlessly on

Since you have a customer profile in hand, brainstorm the type of information this person would be looking for.

Locate idea sources

Since you’ll need to gather more ideas as you go along, locate a few good places to search for ideas to add to your list. Question and answer sites like Quora are great for finding ideas. Other places to look for ideas include social media, online forums, blog comments, and competitors’ blogs. Go to these places to see what people are talking about and asking about. Look for topics you can address.

Once you find some good places, bookmark them so you can refer to them when you’re looking for ideas.

Tips on writing great blog posts

• Write in a conversational tone like you’re talking to a friend and avoid industry jargon.
• You don’t have to be a great writer, but make sure there aren’t any typos, misspellings, or grammar mistakes.
• Use at least one image for each blog post. Images give people something to look at and make it more visually appealing.
• Avoid huge blocks of text. Break up your posts with subheaders and space between paragraphs so they’re skimmable.

Now that we’ve started to clear some of the excuses you’ve been leaning on to avoid developing your blog, which one of these 5 reasons do you think will give you the boost you need to take advantage of blogging for your business?

What are your reasons to keep resisting the benefits of blogging?