Is your business blogging?

Blogging. It’s something that most businesses are aware of. Business owners know that blogging is a great way to help with SEO, improve their Google rankings and reach new customers. But how many businesses out there are blogging regularly? Is yours?

When I speak to business owners about their blogs, quite often they will pull a face and say something along the lines of ‘well I know I should be blogging but I don’t have the time/don’t know what to write about/I’m not sure if it’s worth the time and effort.’ These are all valid concerns to have. Your time is valuable and for most small business owners it is taken up, and rightly so, by the day to day running of your busines. Like any aspect of business, it’s right to question whether putting your time and energy into blogging is going to be a worthwhile investment for you.

Personally speaking, I have found that blogging regularly has been one of the best tools out there that I’ve come across to grow my business. Whether your brand is product or services based, blogging regularly will undoubtedly help you to produce growth in your business.

Blogging is good for SEO

Let’s start with an obvious one. Blogging regularly really helps with your online visibility. Every blog post you write and publish is another indexed page for your website and that’s going to help with getting your business found on Google. If you’ve read my previous blog post on SEO, you’ll know that Google is all about providing the best experience possible for the user and if you’re putting out quality content on a regular basis that’s going to help the ranking of your site. Of course, when you’re writing your blog you should think about SEO and make sure that you are including the right key words in the right places. If you need any help with the SEO side of things make sure you have a read of my previous blog post ‘Top tips for producing SEO-friendly copy.’

Blogging establishes you as a topic authority

Blogging regularly about your business enables you to share your knowledge with your audience and helps to establish you as a topic authority in your field. As you showcase your knowledge and expertise in your particular area of business, not only does this help to explain to people what you do, but it also establishes your reputation and builds a sense of trust with your audience. Your audience will really appreciate you sharing your expertise and producing regular blog posts will also help you to stay at the forefront of their mind, establishing you as the ‘go to’ person in your industry.

When I shared my most recent blog post ‘The importance of storytelling in business’ I don’t think I have ever had so much engagement from a single post. The hits on my website went up, the likes and shares on my social media posts increased and I had some direct enquiries from business owners who had read my blog post and liked what I had to say. The blog post alone had triggered them to respond to my call to action and get in touch. All that from just a single blog post? It’s a pretty amazing result, isn’t it?

Blogging helps you get discovered on social media

Regularly sharing quality, relevant blog posts on your social media accounts will help to increase engagement and attract new followers. Whether your preferred platform is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, the principle is the same. Growing your following on social media will of course enable your business to connect with new customers and increase your audience. The more people your brand is reaching on social media, the more likes, clicks and shares you’re going to get and this will increase your audience and give you even more opportunities to connect with your ideal client.

Blogging helps you to repurpose your content

A blog post can take a significant amount of time and effort to put together, so it’s something that you should be able to use more than once. You can take sections of your blog and repurpose it to use in other ways. A blog post could become part of a newsletter that you’re sending out to clients, or you could strip it back to use in your social media posts in smaller chunks, or even repurpose it to become part of a podcast or video marketing campaign that you might be running. Get creative with your blog posts and think about how you can make use of the content you’ve put together in other ways. Don’t just put your blog post out there once and forget about it. Remember to share it again in the future when you might have new followers who haven’t come across it before, or if it might be relevant to a current news story or issue your customers might be having. For example, if you’ve written a great blog post sharing tips for working from home, that topic became hugely relevant to many of us at the start of lockdown, so share it again. Sharing your blog really isn’t a one-time thing.

Blogging enables your audience to get to know you

One of the main reasons that I love to blog so much is that blogging allows my writing style and personality to shine through. If you have a read of my previous blogs posts I really hope that you can get a feel for my personality and my sense of humour. By reading my blog you’ll start to discover the real ‘me’ and, as a brand that prides itself on being authentic, that is something I really value.

Are there any downsides?

As you’ve probably already guessed I’m a huge advocate of blogging, but it would be remiss of me not to mention any of the downsides, as unfortunately there are some to consider. As with any other marketing channel in business, the payoff of blogging isn’t always immediate. It takes time to build up a readership, gather momentum and establish yourself as a topic authority, but if you can persevere with your blog you will reap the rewards in the long term.

Putting a blog post together is something that does take a fair amount of time and effort. You need to spend time researching your topic and planning out your thoughts before you sit down and start writing. You also need to be able to come up with ideas for topics to write about, in order to keep the content coming. This is where working with a freelance copywriter can really help. Engaging a copywriter to produce your blog on a regular basis, I usually advise clients that one blog post per month is sufficient, means that you have one less thing to worry about and can focus your time and energy on your business. If you’d like to have a chat about how I could help your business get into blogging just drop me an email or take a look at my Services page, where I’m also offering a special blog package deal right now.