If you’re business isn’t blogging, or not posting new blogs, here are a couple of reasons why your company should blog. Granted, it’s not as easy as it was ten years ago to make an impact with your blog. There was much less competition back then. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t make an impact. One of the business blogs I manage, TKO Graphix Blog, is a print shop in Plainfield IN. The blog gets more than 3,000 visits a month.
I facilitated a brain storming session with a customer who wanted to improve their online presence. I pointed out that their website needed help, their social media efforts were inconsistent and without direction, and one way to improve their digital marketing was to blog. If this sounds familiar. If you don’t have a consistent blog and social media presence, this post is for you.
Why Your Company Should Blog
Does your business have a website? What’s its purpose? Brand identification, customer service, employment opportunities? Let’s face it, we’d all like our sites to pay for themselves, wouldn’t we? If lead generation is not your number one reason for a web presence, shouldn’t it be near the top? If you want to improve your SEO (search engine optimization), which means increasing visibility, therefore, bringing more visitors to your site, then quality, fresh content is critical. Effective blogging and sharing on social media can and will improve SEO, which leads to a higher ranking, more hits, more leads, and more sales.
Usefulness is King
I’m sure you’ve heard that content is king. However, not all content is king. Google’s search algorithms introduced in the last few years have changed how we connect with prospects via search. Marketers can no longer rely on keywords alone to spike rankings. The creation of new, quality, and useful content is rewarded. This trend should continue into the foreseeable future. More and more, the measured quality and value of your content will affect ranking.
“Yes, content curation is an effective strategy to bring prospects to the top of the lead generation funnel. Without content, sites end up languishing on page three of a Google search. Therefore, content is a critical need, right?
Bad content not only doesn’t help, it hurts your marketing efforts. When consumers open your content to disappointment they don’t follow through browsing your website. Their journey is over. Content that disappoints the consumer is bad content.” — Is Content Really King?
How Often Should You Blog?
I suggest a minimum one new blog post per week, but how do three, five, or ten blogs per week affect SEO? Zappos, the footwear online retailer, went from being valued at zero to 1.2 billion dollars in 10 years. Blogging and social media were a big part of this meteoric rise. At last count, Zappos has seven corporate blogs with multiple posts per week. Rankings are affected by the quantity of fresh, quality content shared.
“The frequency of blog posts depends on what’s best for your company. Smaller businesses have found comfort and success posting one to four times a week, while larger companies can push out daily and, sometimes, multiple daily posts.” — Hubspot — How Often Should You (or Your Company) Blog?
Who Should Write Your Blog?
If you are fortunate, you may identify in-house writers who understand the importance of good grammar, typography, and social media broadcasting. If not, outsource to a reputable social media marketing firm. Retaining an experienced and qualified social media marketing company is preferable to putting out poor quality and inconsistent content. You can also reuse and tweak presentations, press releases, articles — even emails, if they haven’t been previously shared on the interwebs.
What Should You Write About?
The best strategy is to offer content of interest or value to your target audience. If you can offer advice or help solve a problem for a business then you can make a connection. Keep in mind, social media, which includes blogging, is based on attraction not promotion; prospects have to want to go to your site. One way to accomplish this is to offer valuable information, solve problems, and help others. If you’d more ideas click here, 6 Ways to Never Run Out of Blog Post Ideas.
How Can You Promote Your Blog?
I share content on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest, but I didn’t start there. Pick one or two to begin with and learn your way around. Sharing your blog posts on social platforms and linking them to your website is a proven way to increase traffic. Preliminary research of your market to learn what networks your prospects use the most also helps.
How Can I Help You?
I know I’ve only touched the surface on why your company should blog. You could write a book on this topic, and did. So, if this post struck a nerve check out, How to Stay Ahead of Your Business Blog Forever. The book is full of action plans to create a blogging/writing system that works for you.
And please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like to discuss anything thing in this post.
Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash
