What is the purpose of a blog?
My clients often ask me this question whenever I suggest adding content to their websites. To be honest, it is a good question.
What is the purpose of a business blog? How can it help you and your business flourish? Is it just white noise on your website so your leads will stay on your pages longer?
No. A blog is so much more to a business than just that.
Today, we’ll discuss the importance of owning a blog on your website. But more than that, we’ll be discussing how you can make your blog effective.
What is the purpose of a blog?
A blog can be one of many things for your business. But among its most important purposes is to help you rank better on search engines. Running a blog for SEO purposes is one of the most common reasons why business owners leave space for a blog section on their website.
Let’s discuss this for a minute.
How does a blog help me out with SEO?
Some business owners often get confused when I tell them that they need a blog to rank better on search engines. It’s an easy mistake to make. I mean, if you’re selling something, why would you blog? Wouldn’t that mean your products or services would get buried under other content?
In a way, you can easily see how this could cause concern to business owners. After all, if you’re focused on selling your services or products, why would you waste time writing and publishing blog posts when you could spend it convincing leads to make a conversion?
The thing is, blogs are there to help search engines have content to index. What does this mean? Generally, it means that search engines can find you better. And it also means you’re more visible and that you have a higher chance of showing up on search results.
Think about it. Digital marketing relies heavily on content. Whether you like to admit it or not, simple ads showcasing products and services simply don’t work anymore. People’s attention spans are incredibly short and there are only three ways you can catch their attention:
Blogging for marketing purposes is proven highly effective. But more than that, it also helps your business leave a mark with a bigger audience. This helps you show up on more search results, widen your audience, and even encourage your leads to interact with you and your brand on a regular basis.
What can a blog do for my business?
Blogging can do a lot for your business. You may not realize this now, but a blog for your business is highly beneficial.
Don’t understand why? That’s alright. I’m here to let you know how a blog can do wonders for your business.
Ready? Let’s start.
A blog can help you assert your brand voice.
Whichever way you want to approach your leads and customers, your blog will dictate it for you. Running a blog is a positive way of showing your customers more about your business. What do I mean?
Think about it this way: your blog will talk about subjects that will be relevant to your business or industry. But more than that, it’s also aimed towards providing value to your customer’s lives. Setting up a blog is a good opportunity to show your customers your views on certain issues in the industry.
It shows them your expertise, and if you do it correctly, it will also dictate the voice of your brand. You can portray yourself as a professional, more of a friend, a confidant, or somewhere in between.
Basically, a blog will help you draw the line with how your customers can approach your business. It also lets them know you’re not ignorant in the industry. Plus, it’s also a great way to showcase how your products and services can prove of value to your audience.
A blog will help you gain better site activity
As previously established, a blog helps improve your marketing results. Plus, it’s a highly valuable marketing resource. Improving your SEO strategy will also help you improve your site traffic.
In fact, HubSpot suggests that websites that regularly post blog content can see a 55% spike in visitors, 97% better inbound link performance, and indexed pages of 434% more.
But how do blogs do this? Blogs keep your website relevant. Of course, you can’t be expected to upload new products, deals, or services every day.
So how do you keep your website from getting buried under the constant stream of information that pops up on the internet every second?
You post blogs. Now, I’m not saying you have to post a new blog post every minute. But it is a good practice to post regularly. For example, you could post new content each day. Or you could schedule certain days for posting content such as two or three times a week.
Now, what does the added traffic mean for you and your business? It’s simple. It leads to more potential conversions. Not only are you able to better grasp the attention of your leads, but you’re also able to gain their trust.
Your business and your brand will have the opportunity to become a valuable resource to your leads. This means they’re more likely to spend more time browsing on your website. And eventually, it will help convince them to make a purchase.
A blog helps boost visibility
Another way a blog can help you rank better and gain more traffic on your site is by boosting your visibility. Sharing blog content gives leads a reason to share your content. This is more commonly referred to as indirect marketing.
Essentially, you’ll be able to reach a wider audience, without actually having to put in the effort and monetary investment on ads. Think about it: the more blog posts or content you have on your website that isn’t directly advertising your product, the more likely you’ll see your posts shared on social platforms.
For example, if you make a post sharing the pros and cons of working from home, your audience is most likely to share it with their friends or on social media instead of a post that focuses on why your product is the best.
Of course, it’s also important to make sure you’re creating posts that are relevant to your niche or business.
Another way your blog can help you boost visibility is by giving other blog owners the ability to link to your website and blogs. This further adds to your website authority and helps you rank better in search engines organically as well.
How do I get other blogs to link to my content?
There are many ways you can do this. But I’m sharing three of the most likely scenarios you’ll be able to do so.
Don't forget to check my article: Best Affiliate Programs With Recurring Commissions
Common misbeliefs when it comes to blogging
Blogging for business and blogging for marketing purposes is a great way to boost your business. That said, while you’re trying to catch as much of your audience’s attention as possible, you need to be able to draw a line.
Here are a few things you should avoid when running a blog:
How to make sure your blog flourishes
Success to anything requires a series of steps. The same can be said for blogging. You need to make sure you are following several steps that all work in perfect harmony to help your blog become as successful as possible.
Here are my key takeaways:
As you can see, there are several things you need to do to make sure your blog is a success. Don’t feel disheartened if your first blog isn’t immediately a success. Let me tell you a secret: it rarely is. Just focus on creating quality content and sharing it on as many platforms as you can to broaden your reach.
Pro tip: To make content creation easier, I use the best article rewriter and spinner. Check out these tools. Some of them are really good. I personally prefer ChimRewriter.
Should I create a blog?
There are many statistics that point to blogging as beneficial for business. It not only drives organic traffic, but it also gives your audience a platform to interact with you. Research has proven that running a blog is beneficial to many business owners.
In fact, if you want to survive the market, blogging will help you do just that. The important thing to remember is that blogging is not a one-time thing. It’s a commitment you need to make and that there are several steps you can take to make sure your blog is a success.
Overall, I urge you to add a blog to your website. It may seem like a futile action right now, but in the long run, it will reap its rewards. Plus, if it helps you gain even just a little bit of advantage in search engines over your competition, what do you have to lose?