When blogs first began hitting the internet, they were nothing more than online journals, or portfolio samples at best. Today, blogging has become a part of almost every aspect of daily life. Bloggers are making money working from home and creating legitimate businesses that bring profits as a result.
Speaking of businesses, too many of them don’t have a blog. In many cases, they believe that a static website is enough. This simply isn’t the case, not anymore. In order to truly find success and drive maximum profits, every business needs a blog. Today we’ll look at ten compelling reasons why your company should start a blog today.
Ten years ago, people were arguing about whether or not a company needed a website. Today, almost every company has one. With blogging, the idea was up in the air for a time, until business started realizing the massive benefits and potential gains that a blog could bring to their bottom line.
Here are ten rock-solid reasons why your business needs a blog today:
1. Blogs Bring Traffic (and exposure) to Your Business
If you sell products or services online, then you need a way to attract the right people to your site. A blog is designed to do this. Your company website doesn’t have enough pages, words, and information to truly rank high on various types of search queries. In other words, it’s not easy for your customers to find you.
Your blog will create new posts and pages constantly. This allows Google to index your content for various phrases and keywords, thus creating more exposure for you online and more avenues for the blog to bring traffic into your site.
2. Blogs Create a Community
Blogging opens up a two-way communication with your customers. This kind of opportunity to engage and speak directly with your audience isn’t something that a website can do. Interacting with readers in the comments or on social media when you promote your posts is important. It allows you to exchange ideas and understand them and their needs better than ever before. This also promotes a great customer experience that spreads word of your business by word of mouth.
3. Your Blog Solidifies Your Company as Industry Experts
When people want to know something, they go to a source that they believe is the authority on a subject. More importantly, they go to someone they trust. Your blog will be filled with information and value for your readers that presents your company as a trusted authority in your industry. The more you post great content that informs and teaches your readers, the stronger this effect becomes.
People will naturally gravitate to your company in the future because they will know you as an expert.
4. Blogs Grow and Strengthen Your Brand
Building a brand that sticks with your customers and creates loyalty among them is a long and difficult road, but with a blog it doesn’t have to be. As you create new posts, remember to target the needs and desires of your readers. This creates an emotional connection that forges a bond between your brand and them.
A blog also offers an opportunity to build your brand image. The values that your company embodies and supports come through when you write posts on the company blog. Through the use of storytelling, and valuable content, you can create an image that resonates with your customers.
5. Blogs are Integral to Digital Marketing Success
Internet marketing is a complex machine with a lot of moving parts. Search engine rankings, paid advertisements, and more are all part of a typical strategy. A blog fits into these elements by adding fuel to the fire. Your content allows you to be ranked easier and more frequently on search engines.
The space on your pages offers ripe opportunities to place ads (with discretion) anywhere you want customers to see them. Promoting your posts on social media also fuels your marketing efforts on these fronts by strengthening your presence on various platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
6. Your Blogs Provides Valuable Customer Feedback
More often than not, customer feedback only comes in the form of reviews and surveys that are usually done after the decision has been made. In many cases, survey responses are only done by a fraction of the customer-base. Essentially, you’re unable to receive any feedback before or during the sales process when it is most valuable.
With a company blog, customers can weigh in with their thoughts in the comments, and you can respond to their questions or concerns immediately, instead of waiting until after they’ve made their decision.
7. Blogs Inspire Innovation
As your company grows and the blog grows with it, all of the feedback and knowledge gained from writing posts and covering various topics in your industry can be used to then innovate within your own business. You’ll soon find that you understand a lot more about your customers, and your industry.
All of these things are key ingredients for innovation and growth within your company and your brand. The blog will be your testing ground and your place to go for new ideas.
8. Blogs Promote Public Relations
In the world of blogging, cross-promotion and guest posting is huge. Your company has the potential to be flexible and customizable at a moment’s notice via the blog. A strong blog can also connect with other company blogs via cross-promotion or by also linking to each other’s posts.
Partnerships like these create more authority and credibility for your company, and also benefit your readers with additional value. You may find that you can also benefit from reading other company blogs and adopting their marketing tactics.
9. Blogs Build Email Subscribers
When people see the value that your blog provides, it was be easy to convince them to join your subscriber list. The size of a list like this is a key indicator that your online business is thriving. It also opens up new leads and potential customers who are interested in your product and want to know more. A high percentage of emails that you send to these subscribers will be opened and read, resulting in more sales for your company.
The types of emails you send can be anything from exclusive articles, to e-books, to online courses. Anything you can think of, they will read. You can also send them specialized promotions, but do sparingly so as not to overwhelm them.
10. Blogs Generate Leads
The traffic that comes to your blog will be leads that you have an opportunity to convert into paying customers. The various elements of your blog will all work towards this goal. You will gain countless new customers solely from the fact that your blog exists.
Final Thoughts
There are far more than ten reasons why every company should start a blog, but these ten represent some of the most compelling possibilities and benefits for companies that decide to create one. What pushed your company to start its blog? Share your stories in the comments below!
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