9 Reasons Why You Should Start a Blog for Business

Does your website have a blog?

Are you already familiar with how a blog can help grow your business?

When potential clients approach me and ask what they need to be doing so they can jumpstart their business, one of the things I often ask is how they’re doing with their content marketing strategies. Do they have a website? What’s in their website? Even to this day, I still encounter business owners that have  websites without a dedicated page for their blogs.

Anyone in the online marketing industry believes in the mantra that all great marketing begins with great content marketing. Where does great content marketing begin? Of course, it’s in your blogs.

This is why it’s important for small business owners to realize the power of blogging for business. It’s basically teaching people in your industry to learn a thing or two about what will make their lives easier and more comfortable through your products and services. Blogging for business is about becoming a true resource for relevant information among those in your target market.

The long-term benefits of blogging for business

If your company doesn’t have a dedicated page for blogs yet, it’s time to get started. Unless you want to get left behind.

Here are 10 essential reasons why you should look at blogging as your new business model for growth.

1. Blogging is a great place to share your brand’s story.

There is so much story to tell about how your business got started. And guess what? People love stories! You can talk about where you got the inspiration for your product. You can share why you feel so strongly about the service that you’re providing. Loyal customers might be curious about the sacrifices that you’ve made to make your dream business a reality; and how making it changed your life for the better.

You can’t do that in one single Facebook or Instagram post, right? Imagine how you could do it with Twitter’s 140-character limit per tweet. That being said, blogging is the best way to share more about your business history, company culture, advocacies, and more. When you blog for at least once a week, you’ll never run out of ideas to share.

2. Blogging helps your business become more competitive.

Believe it or not, there are still a lot of business owners who are afraid to invest in content marketing. I’m sure you don’t want to be a part of that group.

A data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that about ⅔ of business with employees survive at least two years. About half survive at least five years. These numbers are pretty consistent regardless of industry.

If you want to be ahead of your game and aren’t scared to provide value to your customers outside merely selling your products and services, then you’re on the right track. Although you’re in business to profit, don’t forget that traditional marketing is long gone. Content marketing is the way to go now: provide value first in order to gain long-term results. Hopefully, your business will stay longer than five years.

3. Blogging inspires you to think and become more creative.

When you have a blog to educate, entertain, and inform your business, you’ll never run out of ideas. You’re always thinking about what topic you should write next that customers really care about. At the same time, once you’ve built a loyal community around your brand and blog, it will be easier to craft content because you’ll understand what people want to read and know about.

4. Blogging helps you establish a voice for your company.

With blogging, you’re giving yourself a platform for connecting and sharing with your customers. It’s the perfect, easy-to-use communication channel for you to share timely and relevant information with customers. The blog is your place to talk about your company launches, new product or service you’re working on, secret recipes to your success, your thoughts on the latest news and trends in your industry, and what makes your employees some of the best people in the world, among many others.

See how these brands finished 2016 strong with their impressive blogging; as well as fresh, innovative, and creative tone of voice in their website content.

5. Blogging helps establish your business as an authority in your industry.

Would you do everything in your power so that people will come to you for advice? If you have the right product or service for someone’s needs, will they buy to you right away?

No. The average consumer today are more well-informed. Before they make that buying decision, they’d scour the internet for the best solutions to their problems. They want the best value for their money. Your challenge now is how to convince buyers who research online to buy from you.

Blogging for your business should be your new best friend. Make them find the answers to their common questions in your blog post.

81% of consumers perform internet research before they buy. Here are more statistics about consumer behavior you should know about.

6. Blogging creates free PR.

Everyone loves free PR! With the right mix of marketing strategies, your blog posts may be the resource that journalists need to fill in their endless need of stories. When you create content that provides value to your target customer consistently, you become an authority.

Not only will your prospects talk about your blog as their go-to resource, anyone in the media will soon notice you. They would be happy to feature you in their TV shows, magazines, blogs, or even primetime news.

7. Blogging allows you to grow your email list.

Can you get majority of your sales through social media? While we’d like to think it’s as easy as that, unfortunately we can’t control social media’s ever changing trends that are as quick as lightning. Your ideal weapon for making sales isn’t really social media, it’s your email list.

Blogging and emailing goes together in an ideal marketing strategy for any type of business. With an email list, you have in your hands prospects that could potentially become your buying customers. In order to build an email list, you need to be creative and strategic with your blog posts. Some of the ways to do this is to have downloadable PDF’s, cheat sheets, infographics, and ebooks as your lead magnets within your blog posts.

When people happen to encounter one of your blog posts in their quest for finding answers to their common questions, they can download these lead magnets only when they give away their emails.

How will this benefit you? For one, you’re establishing yourself as an authority. If they’re dying to download that lead magnet, it means you’ve provided them something of value. Second, you get their email address which you can then use to nurture that person into becoming your future customer. It’s a win-win scenario.

Here’s a cool insight from The Huffington Post on why an email list is important for your business.

8. Blogging helps improve website traffic.

Blogging for your business helps build traffic to your website. Some people may be visiting your website to buy, and some are there for your value-added content. When someone visits your website via a blog post that caught their attention, search engines record that visit. The page visit is recorded as well as the length of time that individual has spent browsing over your website. When these numbers are added, you will have a clear view of your website popularity.

How does this website traffic help grow your business? The goal is to convert that traffic into sales. The more traffic you make with high quality and consistent blog posts, the higher chance you get to bring every new prospect into the buyer’s journey.

9. Blogging for lead generation is a must for any type of business.

As mentioned earlier, the purpose of increasing your website’s traffic is to turn it into leads. When someone becomes a lead, you now have full control over how you can transform this potential lead into a paying customer. After catching their attention through your educational or informative blog posts, you can now call them to an action in the hopes of turning them into customers.

Blogging as a part of your lead generation strategy is beneficial regardless of the type of business you’re into, and whether you’re a B2B or a B2C company. A well-crafted blog that’s done right will attract more visitors via search and once they’re in your email list, the possibilities are endless in terms of maximizing their emails for increasing your profits. Here are ways for turning your blog into a lead generation machine.

Taking Action

If you’ve recently started your business, now is the perfect time to incorporate business blogging into your marketing strategies. Bear in mind that you’re creating valuable content via blogging because you eventually want to sell something. You may not be making the sale overnight. But with time and effort, your content marketing strategy with blogs will produce the sales you expect after cultivating relationships with your subscribers who will likely buy from you at a later date.

So remember, every type of business is suited for a blogging.

You can share your expertise in providing solutions to the pain points of your customers through blogging.

Your compelling content is your passport to a sale without having to personally talk to a prospect. This is possible via blogging

You will grow your email list with carefully crafted business blogging.

You’ll make a sale at a later date via blogging.

Give business blogging a head start ASAP!!!