I know what you are thinking. You’re asking yourself, “How can I possibly maintain a blog and run my business at the same time? Will I have enough quality content and creative ideas to keep my blog going?” The answer is YES.
“Every business needs a blog.”
Take some time to brainstorm ideas, see what your competitors are blogging about, and figure out what information would be helpful to your customers. By creating a long list of blog ideas that you continually keep adding to will help you have an endless supply of ideas. Take your list of ideas and prioritize it. What should you write about first?
Give yourself some time to write your blog posts. I recommend at least a full month’s worth of posts before you launch your blog. This will give you plenty of time to create more posts without feeling like you are always on a deadline.
Schedule time to write your posts. Remember, you’re still going to be busy with your daily business operations, and if you do not have a set day and time to write you may forget about it. The idea here is to keep the blog going and still give yourself the ability to write at your leisure. Trust me, you want to keep a 2-4-week cushion for your blog posts. We all know life happens and that 4-week buffer you started with can easily dwindle to 1-2 weeks. No one wants to be on a constant deadline.
But why do you even need a blog? Does your type of business need one?
You might say, “I’m an exterminator. Who wants to read about bug infestations?” Well, anyone who needs an exterminator or needs information about bug infestations- that’s who!
Every business needs a blog.
Here’s why:
- Drives traffic to your site
Regular blog posting generates more traffic. Posting 16+ blog posts per month generated 3.5x more organic traffic and 4.5x more leads than companies that only posted 0-4x a month. Blogs also generate 55% more web visitors.
- Improves SEO
Creating quality content means you have a better chance of being seen by Google. Make sure you are including keyword-rich posts with images and niche-relevant content.
The more pages you post, the more pages get indexed. Indexed pages tell Google that your site is active. Websites with blogs have 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links.
- Develop a relationship with your customers
Blogging really helps to build a relationship with your customers. You can write a great About page for your website, but blog posts have the ability to convey personality. A person’s style of writing can give you a sense of who they are and really make the reader feel like they know you.
Posting useful tips and helpful content help to keep customers engaged with your brand. After reading custom content, 60% of people feel more positive about a company.
Be sure to allow comments at the end of your blogs. This would be a great way for your customers to connect with you. This is also an opportunity for you to find out what your customers want.
- Brag about you
Use your blog to brag about yourself! Are you helping out with a community event or donating to charity? Tell us about it. Have you or your employees won any relevant awards? Share the great news! Bragging about your employees will also show customers that your brand is a great place to work. It tells us that you have a positive work culture.
Share your testimonials. Consumers want to hear about other people’s experiences with your brand or product. You can ask clients to write a testimonial and turn that into a blog post.
- Sales and Marketing
If you are posting quality content on your blog, you are going to increase your sales. Writing a blog helps companies produce 67% more leads per month.
Consumers don’t want to read ads. In fact, 70% of people prefer to learn about companies through articles, not ads.
Blogs are a great place for cross-promotion. Cross-promotion is a type of promotional marketing where your brand promotes a related or companion product. Do a blog post about a vendor you use. Have them write one about you. This increases your brand awareness through the exposure on their website and social media platforms. Think, “I’ll scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
Blogs influence purchasing decisions by 63% over magazines.
People will purchase from a brand by 131% after they have read educational content. Post great content and get more sales!
If the other statistics in this section do not cause you to want to start a business blog right now: 59%B2B marketers consider blogs the most valuable channel.
Just make sure you put a Call-To-Action (CTA) at the end of each blog post to tell readers what to do next. This will help turn leads into traffic and hopefully into sales.
- Demographics
Google Analytics is an amazing free tool. Once you narrow down the demographics and know exactly who is reading your blog, you will be able to focus your marketing efforts on your target audience.
- Expert Level
The more you educate people about your niche, the more they see you as an expert in your field. Posting educational and helpful content gets you to that status. When you establish yourself as an authority in your field you build loyalty and trust with your customers.
In my blog, 47 Ways to Market Your Business on a Budget, I suggest public speaking. With a great speech at an appropriate venue, public speaking can be one way to establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Here’s an article on more ways you can become an expert.
- Extra Money
There are several ways a blog can help you earn extra money. You can sign up to be an affiliate marketer and promote someone else’s products. Every time someone purchases that product through your link you get a commission. Let’s say you were an accountant. You could promote a calculator you love to use or software that is really helpful.
You can sell your own products on your blog. Write a post about the product. Tell everyone has great it is. This will entice readers to buy it.
When you get enough traffic to your website then you can start to sell advertising space on your blog. You get paid for allowing advertisements!
Once you have established yourself as an expert in your niche through helpful content, you can provide training courses. People will actually pay you to learn your skill set!
- Social Media Content
SHARE! SHARE! SHARE! You should be sharing every blog post on social media. Your employees should be sharing every blog post on their social media.
Sharing blog posts is an easy way to create social media content. It also allows you to reach a new audience of potential customers who may not be going to your website.
Have share buttons at the end of every post is a must! People have to be able to share blog posts on their social media platforms. The more exposure your blog posts receives, then the more traffic to your website.
In the United States, 80% of internet users interact with social media and blogs, so make sure you are interacting back! Reply to comments, answer questions, ask questions, find out what your customer likes, needs, and dislikes. Ask them for their feedback. Anything you can do to create engagement, connection, and build a relationship.
- Evergreen
So, what if you wrote that article several years ago. Don’t delete it. Blog posts continue to generate traffic to your site long after they are written. If you are writing Evergreen content- that is content that is not time-sensitive- then they continue to build traffic and leads for weeks and years later.
How many of you have read a great blog post only to find out that it was written a few years ago? And it didn’t matter- it was still relevant. You still learned something. It was still useful. Evergreen, ladies and gentlemen.
By now, I hope you have decided that writing a blog is beneficial to your business. Start small, plan ahead, and do what you can. Maybe posting 5 days a week is too much for you to take on right now. Then start with 1-2 posts. Keep building your blog idealist. Keep writing. Increase your amount of weekly posts as you get more experienced with writing posts. Every little bit helps in driving traffic to your site.
Show your personality. Create a following. Write about the areas of your niche that really interest you. Most of all, have fun with it! Good luck.
