Blogging is a great way for businesses to attract potential customers, promote products and services, and share information that can help drive purchasing decisions. Here are five benefits of a blog for small businesses.
Build Brand Awareness.
One of the biggest benefits of a blog is that it allows you to build brand awareness with your target audience. By creating a blog, you can establish yourself as an expert in your field and provide helpful tips and guidance to people in your target market. This will help people trust you more and feel comfortable doing business with you. It will also help to keep you “front of mind” for people who may not be ready to buy today, but will be in the future.
Increase Organic Traffic.
Another major benefit of having a blog is increased traffic to your website. Through SEO keyword research, you can determine what topics your audience is searching, and write quality content around those topics. If you consistently create high-quality content, Google will take note and begin to direct relevant search traffic to your website.
Blog articles also provide great content for you to share over your social media channels, and for others to share for you. This can help drive additional traffic to your website from social media. You can share blog articles directly, or repurpose the content into bite-sized pieces– such as infographics on Facebook or educational carousels on Instagram.
Generate Leads.
One of the most overlooked benefits of a blog is the ability to generate leads for your business. A properly managed blog will attract relevant website traffic and help to build trust with readers. Over time, this trust often translates into new leads for your business.
This works particularly well for those selling something that requires a bit of research– like a Realtor, a software company, or a vacation tour group. Few people will buy a property, commit to an expensive software, or book an exotic vacation without doing their research. Providing high quality, trustworthy content around these topics is a great way to “warm up” your prospects and turn casual browsers into qualified leads.
Increase Effectiveness of Paid Ad Campaigns.
While increased organic traffic is one of the benefits of a blog, so is an increase in the effectiveness of your paid ad campaigns.
People are much more likely to click on an interesting article than they are a standard advertisement. In fact, many people have developed something called “ad blindness”– a form of selective attention where visitors of a website will consciously or unconsciously ignore banner ads.
Interrupting someone’s browsing experience with an unwanted advertisement is unlikely to get great results. Offering interesting, valuable content that directly speaks to your market’s needs, interests, and pain points is much more effective.
Grow Your Audience.
If you manage to stay consistent with your business blog– and consistently offer high-value content– you are likely to grow an audience. This could be in the form of growing your email list, your social media following, or, ideally, all of the above.
From a marketing perspective, there are few things quite as valuable as having an engaged audience that actually wants to hear from your brand. This translates into greater brand loyalty, higher average customer value (ACV), an easier way to reach your target audience, and– over time– more sales for your business.
Endless Benefits of a Blog for Small Businesses.
These are just a few of the main benefits of a blog for a small business. In reality, the benefits are endless. We’ve seen well-managed blogs lead to exciting partnerships, speaking engagements, press features, philanthropic outcomes, and so much more.
Curious what the benefits of a blog could be for your business? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s getting started. Browse our SEO Content Writing Services, or schedule a Strategy Session to get a custom roadmap based on your unique goals, industry, and audience.