‘Blogging is dead’. It’s a sentence I see time and time again on the internet. And yet I completely disagree. Sure, blogging is constantly evolving, and within this ever-changing landscape, the early blogs of the early noughties are no longer recognisable in the blogs of today. But that certainly doesn’t mean that blogging is dead! Here’s why your business still needs a blog in 2018!
Increase Brand Awareness
If there’s one thing that having a blog can do for your business, it’s to increase brand awareness. Although brand awareness is something that’s incredibly important for your business, it also happens to be the kind of asset that’s notoriously difficult to measure. (Unless that is, you have a blog with analytics installed!)
Well, having a blog can help you to increase recognition of your brand in a myriad of ways. These include allowing people to discover what your brand is about as well as sharing the puzzle pieces that fit together to form your story. And in a world where people are increasingly interested in the backstory, sharing parts of your businesses’ history is no bad thing.
You Can Reach Your Ideal Audience
If you already know who your ideal target audience is, then you’ve already done half the work. I say half because you’ve still got to literally reach them! And the easiest way to actually reach your ideal audience is by creating the kind of content that your perfect customer/ reader/ client will already be searching for and will want to see.
Starting a blog is a surefire way to regularly provide valuable information and reach that person who will be interested in your business! If you’re not sure who your ideal audience is yet, then having a blog and analysing the data (while remaining GDPR compliant, of course!) is a great way to work out exactly who your audience is.
Your Ideal Audience Gets to Know You/ Your Product Better
And while we’re talking about audience, it’s well worth noting that having a blog adds a more personal touch to running your business. Instead of a faceless homepage with little other than contact information and a little history regarding your company on an ‘about’ page, suddenly your audience is rewarded with a much greater picture of who you are and what you’re about.
Position Yourself As An Expert In Your Field
When you regularly write about a subject (any subject) correctly, then you begin to position yourself as an expert in the field. This is a great way of establishing your authority as someone who is knowledgeable and knows exactly what they’re talking about!
You Own Your Blog & It Can Help You Build An Email List
As a business owner, there are two online things you actually own: your website and your email list. Unlike utilising social media, where you’re at the whim of algorithms and platform changes, you are the sole owner and proprietor of the content you post on your website.
By creating a useful blog, you can drive traffic to your website, which you can then funnel into selling products or generating email leads. Yet again, however, make sure you remain GDPR compliant! And while you may not own the social media channels you’re using for brand awareness, having content from your blog to post to your channels can only ever be a good thing!
Increase Your Chances of Ranking & Improve SEO
Search engines like seeing regularly updated content. Scratch that. Search engines absolutely love seeing regularly updated content! After all, the easiest way to target new keywords and rank for more things is to add extra content and additional information to your website. And of course, one of the easiest ways to start doing that is to have a blog!
Create More Internal Links
It goes without saying that the more posts and pages your website has, the more opportunity you’ll have to create internal links. When it comes to linking internally within your site, you have total control as to what gets linked to what.
This not only helps visitors in navigating your site but also gives you the opportunity to showcase articles which may have otherwise been missed. For example, did you notice that this article is created in the form of a listicle? See what I did there!
Drive More Traffic To Your Website
If your audience comes to expect fresh, new, and innovative ideas on your website, then they’ll likely come back more often as you’ll become a go-to source of information on your given topic. Think about it. Would you rather visit a website that’s updated on a weekly basis or one where you’ve already read all of the information available?
Obviously, that was a rhetorical question! Start a blog and you’re sure to start driving more traffic to your website. From that point on, the possibilities are endless…
Leave a Reply