I had a conversation with a client recently who was struggling to get to grips with the benefits of blogging for his business, outside of SEO improvements.
It got me thinking that, as I had recently written a blog on the top ten benefits of social media, I should write a blog on, well… blogging!
Blogging has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a platform for such great titles as 365 diners in 365 days. Back then, it seemed like a bit of a fad that was great for people with the time and inclination to play about a bit, but had no place in business.
Funnily enough I can remember a time you could say the same about Facebook, or “the Facebook” as it was called back then. In the early days of the web (with all of its flaming logos and AOL subscriptions on 56kb modems) you could have put a pretty good argument forward that it had no place in business!
Before we talk about the main benefits of a company blog, let’s just think about how hard and expensive it was to get your business message out before blogging and social media existed. Back then ‘interruption based marketing was the king of the castle, and people relied on advertising and getting publicity from printed media to get the message out.
Marketing agencies sat you down in their fancy corner offices, with their walnut boardroom tables and pitched you big ideas, with even bigger price tags as they poured you a glass of 18 year old scotch. My, how the world has changed…
So, lets bring it forward to the current time by focusing on the modern day and age of marketing, and the real benefit of communicating to the world through your blog.
BENEFIT 1 – SEO
I should start with the one benefit that my client was aware of. Good quality blogs that are optimised with keyword-rich content will increase your business’ visibility in search engine results pages. Repeat after me “the more visible my business is, the more business I will get.”
Yes, SEO is the top of the Content Marketing pile, but that’s a whole other blog!
BENEFIT 2 – LINKS
Great articles that help people get the answers that they need are, as we say in the SEO world, excellent link-bait. People linking to your blog and website helps to increase its Domain Authority, helps with your SEO and also increases your brand reach.
A bad brand reach is worse than crossing the streams in Ghost Busters! For those of you too young to get the reference, try to imagine that all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Ok… it’s not quite that bad, but it’s close!
BENEFIT 3 – SHOW YOUR PERSONALITY
A great benefit to a blog is the ability it gives you to show the personal side of your business off, in a way that isn’t really appropriate to do on most company websites. Your main website should be all about the business, but your blog is where you can let your hair down and give people a real insight into your business and the people that work there.
The more members of your team that can contribute to the blog – the better. People want to get a feel for what working with your company or using your services is like.
In today’s world, people want to know that they are going to be working with like-minded people. Perhaps people just like you! Have some fun, be inventive, but most of all, be yourself. There is no point trying to communicate with the wrong type of customer match, there are plenty out there so focus on the ones you do want to work with.
BENEFIT 4 – INCREASE YOUR BRAND REACH… YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO!
Over time, all of your hard work will start to pay dividends in the form of increased brand reach. This is one of the major benefits of working hard on your online presence and blogs really help with that.
Brand reach is a benefit that just keeps on giving! With increased brand reach you also gain benefits from:
• More people knowing about you and your business. Remember they may not have needed your services when they found you, but when they do, people naturally gravitate towards businesses that they already know. A ‘virtual’ connection is almost as good as an actual one
• Increased levels of influence, due to the trust in both you and your brand. This comes from sharing your knowledge through your blog
• The results of the above :increase your brand sentiment”:https://www.one2create.co.uk/branding.html. People will want to do business with you because they feel that they know you
• Better influence which comes from the interactions between you and your potential/existing costumers. This naturally evolves from responses to your blog articles
Since the recession things have changed dramatically in business. More and more people are choosing to operate within a ‘trust economy’, where they buy from people that they trust rather than a faceless business.
We live in a world of feedback forms, customer reviews, likes, shares and comments. In this world, it isn’t a sin to give a bit of information away to help others. You can dare to be yourself and let your personality shine through, with trust becoming one of the most important currencies of them all.
Now I’m not saying that your blog is going to put you at the top of the trust pile, but it sure will help you get there my friend …
… trust me!
