Kaitlyn Hammond — April 6, 2018 — April 6, 2018
kaboompics / Pixabay
If you have a small business and work as a hairdresser, mechanic or restauranteur, the idea of creating a blog may be unfamiliar and scary. Although your specialty may not be in this area and you are not a natural born writer, you can take steps to add content to your website once you realize how much it can help you in attracting new clientele and retaining your existing customers. Would it help if we tell you that a study found that 4 out of every 10 people read online blogs?
What is a Business Blog?
A blog is simply a collection of articles that you feature on your site. Although they can be written on any topic, for help with search engine optimization (SEO), you want to write on topics relevant to your brand.
This means that you can write blog posts that provide more thorough information about the products you sell than is available in your product descriptions, or simply provide your guidance on the best use of the products or services.
Two Enormous Benefits of Having a Blog
More Efficient SEO
Having a website is not enough to allowing online visitors to find it with all of the other online clutter. Having a marketing strategy is essential to attract new visitors to your website, thereby growing your business.
To get the best results from SEO, you need to update your website with fresh content on a regular basis. This way, when the Google bots assess your site, they will push it to the top amongst Google search organic (unpaid) results. As a rule, if your site is not featured amongst the first few results on Google, it is likely you are not getting a lot of traffic.
To help Google index your site, you need to include relevant keywords (words and phrases) in your content, and there’s no better place to do that than in your blog. A source found that sites that have a blog have 43% more indexed Google pages than those that do not!
Do a Google Adwords search to find keywords that your audience may be searching for, and center your writing around them.
If your business has a local presence, consider adding location-specific keywords (Baltimore Tattoo Shop or Fairfax Mexican Restaurant) to gain foot traffic.
Become an Authority
The truth is that regardless of what industry you are in, you most likely have competitors. A key way to distinguish yourself from them and work towards getting your customers to trust you is to become an authority in your field.
Consider these people:
- Oprah Winfrey and her book club
- Suze Orman and her portfolio of financial products
- Dr. Oz and his medical products recommendations
Although people can purchase any of items from anywhere, they are most likely to listen to the advice of influencers in their given fields.
A blog provides you with an opportunity to educate your customers, making them feel confident that you are a true expert. Once you create a relationship based on trust, you can push products and services through your blog, and your clients will listen to your recommendations.
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