The internet can be a graveyard of forgotten blogs. And while your long-lost teen journals are better left in the past, your business's blog needs resurrection. With so many companies throwing in the towel too soon, regular blogging can help you rise above the pack with new business leads and quality content. Here's how regular blogging can make that happen:
Thought Leadership
It sounds like a lofty, unattainable goal but "thought leadership" isn't that complicated. When you build a blog that provides useful information, articulated clearly, and presented with some modicum of personality or flair, you're on your way to thought leadership. If you put in the time and energy to publish those resources on a regular basis, you're on your way to more business leads.
Again, thought leadership can apply to any industry. If you're an exterminator and you regularly update a useful blog that helps homeowners identify that horrifying creature crawling in their tub (it's usually a house centipede), you become a trusted source of information and opinions. Your reputation as someone that's thoughtful in the industry can increase your sales or number of clients.
Guest Posting
Influencers appreciate blogging regularly.
When you regularly update your blog, you're not only telling consumers that you're a well-oiled machine, you're communicating this to influencers too. If you reach out to another industry professional who has a large social or blog following and ask them if you can guest post on their site, they'll be more likely to oblige if you're actively publishing content too. They'll know that you're serious about your industry and have your own positive reputation to uphold. These guest posting opportunities are important because they are another way to drive traffic to your site and ultimately get more business leads.
Evergreen Potential
The internet is forever. While this may spell bad news for some personal content you probably never intended to put online, it's great news for business blogs. As a Forbes article explains, blogging and search engines can be thought of like fishing. The more lines you cast, the more fish you catch. The more blogs you write, the more search engine hits you'll likely get. Plus, you never know what piece of old content posted years ago could suddenly become applicable and highly sought after today. While you may have initially intended for a piece to be evergreen, that is, always-relevant, a current event or developing trend could thrust that topic into the headlines and search bars of millions.
Timeliness & Freshness
Blogging regularly creates a backlog of content that you can draw from and retool for timeliness. Take the 2015 viral phenomenon "The Dress." If you were an eye doctor with your own practice and business blog, you may have already written a post about the science of how humans see color. You could freshen up that piece of blog content and share it again to get more eyeballs on your business site.
Social Content
Businesses are told over and over again that social media is one of the most useful tools they can exploit in terms of building their brand. But what do you actually post? If you blog regularly, you have a built-in system of content to tweet out or share on Facebook. You can clip quotes and turn those into visuals for Instagram. Again, this backlog of written content can be broken into any number of digestible pieces for social media. With more avenues to your blog content, you increase the likelihood of gaining business leads.
Consumer Insights
Blogging analytics are actionable insights.
The more regularly your business blogs, the more data you can analyze. Even basic analytics tools can tell you where traffic to your blog is coming from and more importantly, what they're searching to get there. These can become actionable insights to build your business. For example, if you own a bike shop and regularly publish blog content, you may discover that people are searching more for "baskets" than they are "brakes." Not only can this help dictate the direction of your editorial calendar, but it can help inform what products you decide to sell at your shop.
Educated Customers
If you are providing truly useful blog content, you're building a more educated customer base. While blogs should by no means come off like an advertisement or constant product promotion, they can provide an opportunity to show a scenario in which a product is useful. For example, say you run a cosmetics company and are coming out with a new tool that exploits a recent makeup trend. You can publish blog posts that instruct possible customers on how to achieve that trending look with your product. As blog readers share that education, they're simultaneously publicizing your product.
Engaged Employees
Teamwork makes the blogging dream work.
When you commit to regularly blogging, you're also committing to a considerable amount of work. It requires manpower and creativity behind the keyboard. It may be advantageous to draw writers from all departments of your company to help with this effort. Employees can build editorial calendars as a group and bring their specific expertise to the content you're creating. While your marketing team may have ideas that they think will resonate with consumers, your customer service reps may actually have a better understanding of your target audience. Either way, when you're creating a more engaged group of employees and building content that's more likely to attract business leads.
With all these benefits in mind, it's easy to understand why so many businesses choose to consistently blog and create content. If you're wondering where you stand in terms of your business strategy, request a free Website Competitive Analysis report.
