Our goal is to establish connections and engage with our customers using various channels, including social media and dynamic content in marketing emails. However, one method that is gaining increasing popularity in reaching our target audience is by publishing business blogs.
What exactly is a business blog? What advantages do they offer? And considering the staggering number of 6,912,000 blog posts published daily, how can we distinguish ours from the others?
What is a Business Blog?
One of the basic explanations for a blog is:
A common occurrence found within an online publication, an article or personal commentary by one or more writers, usually focused on a specific subject.
A business blog may conform to that definition, but it will always pertain to a specific business subject, product, or service. Generally, a business blog will be showcased on a company’s website, although there are cases where it may be found on an independent commentator’s site.
If a blog appears on a company website, it will be related to a product or service provided by the company or something closely linked to what they offer. The aim of this marketing strategy is not only to educate readers, but also to enhance the visibility of your organization and ultimately encourage readers to purchase your products or services.
A business blog post can be short form or long form and is typically between 1,000 and 2,500 words. Its main focus is usually on one subject, such as ‘Marketing on Instagram’, but it may also include hyperlinks to other resources, products, websites, and blogs.
Why Should I Have a Business Blog?
Your website serves both as a marketing tool and a marketing asset, aiming to increase its visibility to a wider audience. The predominant method for people to discover websites is through search engines. Therefore, it is essential for your website to attain the highest possible rank in relevant search results. The quality and quantity of valuable content on your site significantly impact your ranking status.
In addition, there are other elements involved, such as employing SEO keywords and phrases to improve discoverability. Nonetheless, the advantageous aspect of a business blog lies in the fact that each time you or a guest writer posts a blog, you are enhancing the quality of your website with a new page. Consequently, when individuals search for a specific term like ‘How to Start a CBD Business’, they will ideally come across an educational blog that could potentially generate leads.
In addition to having your blog on your own website or increasing search traffic, it is important to note that producing informative and engaging articles can lead to other sites linking to your blog, thereby extending your reach effortlessly. Furthermore, if a reader enjoys a specific blog post, they may share it on social media platforms, expanding its reach even more.
How to Write a Great Business Blog
When writing content for a business blog, there are more factors to consider compared to writing a ‘simple’ magazine article. It is important to ensure that your blog is not only engaging but also serves as an effective marketing tool.
1. Word and phrases.
In order to begin writing, it is important to create a set of words and phrases that are frequently searched for in relation to the topic at hand. For instance, if the topic is focused on enumerating the advantages of utilizing a VoIP phone service, it would be advisable to incorporate keywords like VoIP, internet phone, VoIP phone system, VoIP for businesses, and so on.
2. Categorize.
When it comes to your blog, it is essential for it to align with your offerings or services. Additionally, it is crucial to identify suitable sub-categories within the blog section. For instance, if your company specializes in marketing and management software, it is necessary for the blog content to be directly or indirectly connected to that domain. Similarly, if you are selling alternatives to Trello, it is important to ensure that any relevant blog posts are assigned to the appropriate category.
3. Visuals.
To maintain your readers’ attention, a text-only blog is insufficient. A well-performing blog usually includes visual content, such as one graphic per approximately 300 words on average. While some visuals may serve merely decorative purposes, it is advisable to incorporate informative visuals like infographics, graphs, and even videos.
4. Keep it fresh.
If someone is searching for information on a specific topic, like cold call scripts, it is unlikely that they would be interested in reading something that was written five years ago. Due to the continuous evolution of technology and our work methods, a significant portion of what you wrote in 2016 may no longer be relevant. It is essential to ensure that your content is always current and up to date, especially for your most popular articles.
5. Optimize.
It is important to consider that not all readers access your blog from a laptop or desktop. More than half of internet users globally now browse through a mobile device. It is crucial to optimize your blog and website for mobile users to prevent losing a significant potential audience. Make sure your blog is accessible on all devices to ensure inclusivity. Conducting effective A/B testing can help you achieve this goal.
The Benefits of Blogging for Business
After starting a business, many individuals wonder if blogging is still beneficial in 2021.
We say yes, and here are the reasons why we say so.
1. It helps drive traffic to your website.
If you desire to have additional website visitors, kindly raise your hand. I share the same sentiment.
Now consider the various methods individuals use to discover your website.
- They could type your name right into their browser, but that’s for an audience you already have. They know who you are, you’re on their radar, and that doesn’t help you get more traffic on top of what you’re already getting.
- You could pay for traffic by buying an email list (don’t you dare!), blasting them, and hoping some people open and click through on the emails. But that’s expensive and, you know, illegal.
- You could pay for traffic by placing tons of paid ads, which isn’t illegal but still quite expensive. And the second you run out of money, your traffic stops coming, too.
To attract new traffic or readers to your site, you can utilize blogging and optimize your site for search engines.
This is the way it works.
Consider the number of pages present on your website. It is likely not an extensive amount, correct? Additionally, contemplate the frequency at which you make updates to those pages. It is probably not very frequent, correct?
Blogging presents an effective solution for addressing both of those issues.
With every blog post you create and publish, you increase the number of indexed pages on your website. This, in turn, enhances your chances of appearing on the search engine results page (SERP) and attracting organic search traffic to your website.
Later on, we will discuss the advantages of blogging for your SEO in more detail. However, it is important to note that blogging also serves as an additional signal to Google and other search engines, indicating that your website is active and prompting them to monitor it regularly in order to display any fresh content.
2. You can repurpose blog content for social media.
Blogging for your business can also contribute to your visibility on social media platforms. When you produce a new article, you are generating shareable content that can be circulated on various social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Pinterest. This exposure introduces your business to a different audience that might be unfamiliar with your brand.
Blog content is also beneficial for maintaining your social media presence.
Your blog can serve as a repository of content instead of constantly asking your social media manager or creating new content for social media.
The symbiotic relationship between your blog content and social channels allows you to enhance your social reach and attract new website visitors to your blog.
3. It helps convert traffic into leads.
Once you start getting traffic to your website from your blog, you can take advantage of this chance to transform that traffic into potential leads.
Every blog post you create adds another indexed page, giving you a fresh chance to generate new leads.
Simply put, the process is easy: Include a call-to-action that generates leads in each blog post.
Frequently, these calls-to-action result in offers such as free ebooks, whitepapers, fact sheets, webinars, trials, or any other content asset that individuals are willing to provide their information in exchange for.
To be explicit for those who are not familiar with the process of traffic-to-lead conversions, it can be explained as follows:
- Visitor comes to website
- Visitor sees call-to-action for a free offer
- Visitor clicks call-to-action and gets to a landing page, which contains a form for them to fill in with their information
- Visitor fills out the form, submits information, and receives the free offer
If you continue scrolling in this blog post, you will come across a call-to-action button.
Almost all of our blog posts contain call-to-action buttons, and yours should have them as well. This is how you can convert your website traffic into leads for your sales team.
It is important to remember that not all blog readers will turn into leads, and that is completely normal. Nobody is able to convert every single person who reads their blog into a lead. The key is to consistently blog, include calls-to-action in every blog post, establish a benchmark for your visitor-to-lead conversion rate, and work towards enhancing the benchmark on a monthly basis.
4. It drives long-term results.
The ideal business blogs address questions that are frequently asked by their readers and customers.
By consistently creating valuable content or articles for your target audience, you will be able to establish yourself as an industry leader or authority in their perspective.
Can you envision the potential effect of sending an educational blog post that you wrote to help a confused customer? Alternatively, consider the additional number of deals a salesperson could close if their leads stumbled upon blog content authored by the salesperson.
Although not as tangible as metrics like traffic and leads, “establishing authority” holds significant power and can be employed to gauge sales enablement.
Many choose to start a blog because, ultimately, that is the reason.
Consider it carefully:
- Suppose prospects find answers to their everyday questions via blog posts written by people at your company. In that case, they’re much more likely to come into the sales funnel trusting what you have to say because you’ve helped them in the past — even before they were interested in purchasing anything from you.
- Prospects that have been reading your blog posts will typically enter the sales funnel with more knowledge of your products and services, your place in the market, and your industry. That makes for a far more productive sales conversation than one held between two relative strangers.
- Salespeople who encounter specific questions that require in-depth explanation or a documented answer can pull from an archive of blog posts. Not only do these articles help move the sales process along faster than if a sales rep had to create the assets from scratch, but they position the salesperson as a helpful resource to their prospect — thus helping to build trust.
5. Blogging helps with link building.
When ranking a site on its search engine result page, the Google algorithm takes into account over 200 factors, including inbound links or backlinks. Backlinks are also considered by many experts and small business owners to be the third most important factor in search engine optimization.
While it is crucial to generate inbound links, the most difficult aspect of search optimization, according to 41% of SEO experts, is link building.
It would be easier to obtain relevant links if you create articles that are valuable not only to your potential customers, but also to other companies that your audience perceives as industry leaders.
When authoritative websites provide links, it indicates a vote of confidence or recommendation from other websites, reassuring Google of your trustworthiness and expertise in your industry.
Backlinks have another advantage in that they aid in the enhancement of your domain authority, thereby boosting your overall visibility on search engines.
6. It drives long-term results.
It would be amazing if you could drive traffic to your site while enjoying a trip to Hawaii, going to the gym, and sleeping for as many hours as you desire.
That’s the primary function of blogging – it brings good news through search engines.
