Creating a Company Blog: Why Your Business Needs to Start Blogging
More and more businesses, including your competitors, are using blogging as a new way to promote themselves.
The big question is: Why?
Blogging serves as a unique, valuable, and powerful tool that allows your business to take a different approach to traditional marketing. Delivering relevant and high-quality content to potential customers is the most tried and true method of building an audience online and creating sales leads.
However, the lack of attention that blogging receives compared to social media (a search for “business blogging” brings up just over 1 million results while “business social media” brings up 33 million) has created the notion that it is less effective – and this is simply not true.
Common Blogging Misconceptions
There are many common misconceptions about blogging that can cause business owners and marketing people to be skeptical about its effectiveness. Here are three of the biggest misconceptions and some thoughts about how they misrepresent the effectiveness of a good blogging strategy.
Misconception No. 1 – You have to do all the blogging yourself
There is no doubt that creating quality content takes time, and that you probably have limited time to spare. Fortunately, you do not have to write your own blogs.
While it is important that your blog posts represent your expertise and personality, it is perfectly acceptable to use a writer or content developer to do the actual writing. You can talk through your ideas or provide a bulleted list of ideas that a good writer can run with.
Just as with many newspaper opinion columns and even entire books, writers are used to taking a good idea and making it “sound good.” Just be sure that you are happy to have your name associated with the end result. You are still responsible for what it says, so make sure it is on target.
Misconception No. 2 – Blogging doesn’t generate business
Many CEOs don’t believe blogging could benefit their business financially. However, 82% of companies that blog daily have acquired a customer through their blog.
By using analytics tools (our favorite is Google Analytics), it’s possible to measure the blog posts people are reading that lead them to taking profitable actions on your website.
Misconception No. 3 –You have to blog every day
If your business is not looking to hire a content creator, or your inbound marketing budget is tight, you may be concerned that your blog will not be effective unless you are posting every day. On the contrary, 57% of companies that blog on a monthly basis have obtained a customer through their blog.
Why should your business blog?
Now that we’ve derailed the most common misconceptions about blogging, let’s look at why your business should blog – and what it can really do for you.
Reason No. 1: Blogging Gives You a Competitive Advantage
Instead of simply talking about what you’re selling and pressuring the prospective customer to buy from you, blogging gives you the opportunity to prove your expertise and to create awareness of your product or service. This ultimately makes blogging a powerful demand-generation tool.
A blog demonstrates your expertise by allowing you to “have a conversation” with your prospects. Initially, your blog’s content provides them with the accurate and helpful information that they need to answer the question that they have searched for.
However, it is also your audience’s comments on your blog — their thoughts and questions — that create a conversation and allow you to go one step further in establishing yourself as a thought-leader in your field.
Through showing that you’re an expert, you establish a relationship of trust with your prospects that distinguishes you from your competitors. A blog filled with content related to your prospects’ interests demonstrates that you are concerned about their needs and can provide solutions, thus setting you apart and giving you a competitive advantage over your competitors.
What happens if I decide not to blog?
If you decide not to add blogging to your marketing mix, it’s likely that your website will have significantly less traffic compared to your competitors that do blog.
While you’ll still have an online presence by simply having a website, your company will not see a significant ROI solely from that presence, and your competitors with a blog will attract more prospects and eventually acquire more customers.
Reason No. 2: More Website Traffic for Your Business
Statistically speaking, blogging is the No. 1 way for businesses to attract new and repeat visitors to their website. Approximately 92% of companies that use inbound marketing (of which blogging is a large component) increase their website traffic, and about 85% of these companies increase their traffic within a period of seven months.
Why? Because posting new and high-quality content creates new opportunities for prospects to find you online. Additionally, blog posts are effective at capturing long-tail keyword traffic (in-depth queries used to find information in search engines e.g. “lawn chairs for camping in the Adirondacks” is a long tail keyword phrase while “lawn chairs” is not.)
Blog posts that target long-tail keywords have a better chance at ranking higher on search engines.
Why is it important for blog posts to rank high on search engines?
Companies with blog posts on the first page of search results increase their website traffic by 99.57%, while those found on the second page increase by .24%, and those found on all pages after increase their website traffic by only .19%. When you earn these top rankings for terms related to your business (not just your business name), your increased web traffic gives you an opportunity to create more awareness for your company and generate more leads.
Now that you know the importance of blogging for your business, you can start one or improve your existing blog today. No more excuses, it’s time for your business to reap the benefits of having great content on your website!
What are the top reasons why you blog? What results have you seen for your business? Let us know in the comments!
