As an award-winning blogger I am naturally going to be biased, but having a personal lifestyle blog is definitely different than having a business blog, however, the results are the same.
Blogging has opened up a whole new world for me, it has created a brand (#DelawareBlogger) that simply posting on various social media platforms could never have achieved.
Every business is a brand and if you listened to yesterday’s Podcast then you would understand why Travis and I agreed that adding a blog to your social media marketing campaign is definitely a wise choice.
Connecting on an H2H level or “human to human” has become more important than B2B or B2C when it comes to successful marketing online in today’s IoT world.
The following are just 6 reasons why every business should have a blog.
Target Potential Clients
When you are consistently writing about your industry and the general services that you provide, you will attract more of your target audience. You are getting your name out and in front of more potential clients who may need or consider buying your products and or services in numbers far greater than just posting on Facebook.
2. Boost Your Website Traffic
Most business blogs are separate from the website, it’s either on a separate page or a different site entirely. Having this secondary location helps you to target new visitors and moves the traffic to your products and services through in-content linking.
3. Establish Yourself as an Industry Expert
Your blog posts can demonstrate your expertise in a particular subject area by sharing high-quality and relevant information with your readers. Over time, you can become known as a go-to resource that provides consistent and useful information to help your readers learn about new tools and resources, solve tough challenges and advance their own businesses.
4. Develop a Community
One of the best parts of a successful business blog is the communication and sharing that takes place with your reader’s comments. When you actively respond to comments on your blog it helps to create a community where you can learn more about your audience and what their needs may be.
5. Create Valuable Person-to-Person Connections
A business blog doesn’t have to be all business, all the time and it shouldn’t be. Avoid having a boring business blog by including some of your personality and personal brand, going off topic occasionally and using humor and fun. Not only does this give your blog a little individuality, but it can also make you more relatable and approachable by your readers.
6. Improve your SEO
Brands that create consistent content stay fresh and relevant and rank higher in organic searches which improve your SEO. Engaging with customers who share and click on your posts move up in the search rankings. If you’re providing quality content, your readers will want others to know so make sure to create unique content, provide answers for visitors, and then share your blogs wherever you can.
If you live in Delaware and you want to learn how to start a blog or improve on one that you currently have, head over and sign up for this Build a Blog Workshop.
I will be conducting a workshop at Delaware Technical Community College starting in September and this 3 part, 3-hour series will teach you how to start a blog; how to use social media to build traffic; and how to monetize your blog.
Let’s Chat: Do you enjoy reading business blogs?
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The information in this blog is provided “AS IS” with no warranties and confers no rights. This blog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my employer, it is solely my opinion.
Feel free to challenge me, disagree with me, or tell me I’m completely insane in the comments section of each blog entry, but I reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please.
You may also like
11 thoughts on “6 Reasons Why Your Business Should Be Blogging”
I want to know what you think, please leave a comment and share with your circle.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Good morning dear Del and thanks for this very pointed posting about the advantages of having your own web page and blog . I thouroughly agree with you. What a pity I am a little too far to attend your seminar. A big kiss. Arrivederci!
Thank you, I too wish that you were closer so we could meet and have lunch!
Oh, don’t worry. I’m an inveterate vagabond and one day I’ll just show up in Delaware to invite you for lunch. A big kiss. Arrivederci!
Okay….
Check out this post and take a quick look @ the link IFTTT. You can use Pinterest automation free of charge (get on it now while it’s free). Pinterest is currently “rumor has it” a “do-follow” SEO backlink, which means when Pinterest links to you, it adds to your Google pagerank juice.
If you create a free account over @ Dlvr.it, you can also use the Google+ posting now free of charge. They used to charge to post to G+, but since removed the fee. You can also create multiple accounts in case you want to get creative and individualize your social media automation strategy. Just be mindful that most of the social automation services in Dlvr.it are also in IFTTT.com “except Google + posting.”
Lastly, there’s another site called NextScripts.com. They have a WordPress plugin $50 that allows you to post to multiple social networks and microblogging services at once. In case you don’t want to use Dlvr.it or IFTTT for social media automation, you can purchase the plug, download it, and install to your wp-content/plugins directory inside your WordPress administrative dashboard and activate it on the fly. It will be time consuming @ first to create individual social media and other pages if you don’t already have them online, but well worth it. Be mindful to include a link to your WordPress blog in EVERY social profile you make which is good for SEO.
Once your Pinterest account is configured to the point of receiving automated postings, you may from time to time want to include a hashtag or 2 in the title of your blog posts and maybe the 1st sentence of your blogs. This will automagically get picked up my Pinterest and automatically converted to a hyperlinked hashtag. End result? Your hashtag makes your content more searchable in Pinterest and may give a small SEO boost to your blog.
Feel free to e-mail more questions if you have any.
This is great, I am going to check this all out over the long holiday weekend as I know Pinterest can bring more eyes to a blog which is definitely what I need. Thank you again!
You can also check out http://newdesign.pinbooster.com/site/html/index.html (a paid service but offers a free trial) for more information on how to automate scheduling of pins to Pinterest. If you’re not concerned about pinning to Pinterest at any specific times, you can also use IFTTT.com to pin to Pinterest for free. Be mindful to create a IFTTT recipe and use the Orange RSS app first to input the RSS feed from your blog to the IFTTT Pinterest app, then specify which board you desire your new blog posts to be automagically posted to. I’ll be discussing another 3rd party service that connects advertisers and bloggers for making money and getting traffic from Pinterest momentarily.
But if you really want to avoid monthly costs for scheduling pins to Pinterest from your blog, you can either use IFTTT or go to NextScripts.com and pay $49 to download a WordPress plugin and install on your Wp-admin dashboard that’ll easily allow you to configure the WordPress NextScripts plugin to post to as many Pinterest boards as you’d like, possibly with the ability to “schedule your pins” from your WordPress admin dashboard. Your nest option would probably be to go with the NextScripts plugin.
Hope this helps 🙂
Thank you, I will definitely do more on Pinterest.
There are many reasons small businesses need to start blogging. You have 6 really good reasons to start blogging. Branding is crucial for small businesses to compete with mid-sized and larger companies. Many businesses might not see the potential value of the seo and page rank potential of business blogging. Even if you can only sell your services locally, you can still get an edge on your competition by ranking your sites locally for your specific keyword.
Rick, you are so right however, most state that they don’t have time, however, it needs to be built into their marketing campaign.