“Blogging is important for small businesses” is a mantra you’ve probably heard before. There are many blogging benefits, but you have to make sure they are right for you and your business. Blogging isn’t just important, it’s crucial to the success of your small business. When you begin consistently blogging quality content, you’ll start to see some (or all) of the blogging benefits below. With so much to gain from consistent blogging, can you afford not to?
1. Increase traffic to your site.
Blogging consistently strengthens SEO, since Google rewards sites that produce fresh new content. Companies that blog see 55% more traffic than companies that do not blog.
2. Establish self as an industry leader.
The titans of your industry became leaders by 1) knowing the industry and 2) talking intelligently about the industry. What does blogging do? Give you a microphone for talking intelligently about your industry. Blogging consistently can build the foundation for your image as an industry leader, and industry leaders see their businesses thrive.
3. Increase ways for customers to find you.
As you write more blog posts, you add to the number of pages indexed by search engines (on average, 434% more indexed pages for companies that blog versus companies that do not). This increases the chance that your pages will come up when potential customers search terms related to your industry. Finding your blog can be the first step in potential customers familiarizing themselves with your organization, and eventually becoming customers.
4. Opportunity to convert traffic into leads.
Every blog post can include a call to action at the end-follow us on social media, join our email newsletter for a free download, take advantage of our great service, etc. Blog posts provide another avenue to generate leads with only an hour or so of work (one study found that posting 15 times a month resulted on average 1,200 new leads each month!)
5. Strengthen social media presence.
Strong social media posts are ones that resonate with your audience and are often posts that provide relevant information. Good blog posts offer value to your audience, making them a great resource to amp up your content marketing strategy. Since 78% of small businesses attract new customers directly through social media, a strong social media presence can easily translate into strong customer acquisition.
6. Gain insight about your audience.
When you blog consistently, you’ll be able to see trends about which topics resonate with your audience. This helps you tailor the rest of your business strategies, from social media to promoting your products, more effectively to your audience.
7. Create positive feelings about your brand.
Customers who consume your content and find it valuable will feel more positive about your organization. In fact, 60% of customers feel more positive about an organization after viewing their custom content.
Consistent blogging is a tool to strengthen your business building efforts, one that small businesses cannot afford to overlook. If you lack the time or experience to build a thriving blogging presence on your site, check out our blog management package and start taking advantage of some of the blogging benefits for your business.