Maintaining an active blog can help a brand grow its audience while sharing expertise
Does blogging still matter for business? With the popularity of long-form social media posts along with snackable—and bingeable—video content, it’s easy to assume that traditional blogging has been eclipsed by the social feed. But did you know that businesses that blog get 55 percent more website visitors than ones that don’t? Not only does keeping an active blog help bring in site visitors but it also forges a trusted connection between potential customers and a brand, along with a slew of other benefits. We’re sharing five reasons why blogging is important and the huge benefits it can have for business.
The Benefits of Blogging for Business
Blogging promotes a brand’s products and services organically through helpful, informational content that’s related in some way to those offerings. Blogs typically reach both current and potential customers, drawing in new readers and growing a brand’s audience. On average, companies with active blogs produce 67 percent more monthly leads than companies without.
Here’s what you need to know about this powerful medium:
1. Blogging grows site traffic
Blogging is an important tool for bringing new visitors to a site and generating leads. There are 89,409 Google searches per second from consumers looking for experts to answer their questions. Consider each blog on a website as an opportunity for search engines to crawl, index and potentially showcase the page in the search results. Not all of a brand’s efforts need to focus on creating brand new content, either. Search engines are smart and respond well to pages that are updated consistently, so refreshing older content also makes a positive impact on search engine visibility.
To take advantage of search traffic, optimize blog posts for SEO around a keyword, or search query, that aligns with a brand’s services. Be sure to have SEO-friendly evergreen content. This content isn’t time-sensitive and remains relevant to readers weeks, months and even years after it was originally posted. Unlike social media posts, which usually have a short lifespan of a few days, blog posts become a passive source of traffic and continue bringing new visitors to the site over time.
According to SemRush, webinars, roundups, interviews, gated content, guides and ebooks are the most effective types of blog content. Brands should craft blogs that provide information their target audiences are looking for to try and capture site traffic from search. If the content is worth readers’ while and contains a strong call to action, they may just stick around and convert.
2. Blogging generates content for sharing on social media
Sharing blog content on social media helps build a community around a brand by providing quality informational content to readers. While building out a social media calendar with new and interesting content each week can be a struggle, maintaining an active blog provides a consistent source of new content to draw from. If you post a new blog weekly, that’s one social post every week to promote each blog.
In addition to sharing links to new posts, distill blog content down to helpful, bite-sized tips to engage with the brand’s audience on social media. Recycling your best content extends its shelf life, so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel every time. Once you’ve built a healthy backlog of blog content, pull from the archives for information and links that bring visitors back to the site. And if the brand already has a steady following across its social networks, blogging consistently is a great way to move them further along the sales funnel.
3. Blogging provides a searchable home for all forms of content
Blogs provide a home to tell stories in a complete and compelling way. On average, long-form content generates eight times more page views, three times more social media shares, and nine times more leads than short-form content. Unrestrained by character limits or photo resolution caps, blogs can deliver richer, more instructive content that forges an emotional connection with the reader. In contrast, while social media ads vie for simple, seconds-long impressions, blogs offer a higher chance of helping establish the brand as an industry authority.
Another benefit: Blogs can link to multiple pieces of related content, providing a pathway for engaged readers to learn more about a topic. Organizing each blog with categories and tags offers a way for readers to click through to related content furthering connection and engagement. Finally, many blog landing pages have a spot where readers can type to search for a specific blog or topic to find exactly what they’re looking for. Engaged readers willing to search and read content a brand has created are highly valuable since engagement is often a stepping stone to conversion.
4. Blogging showcases a brand’s expertise
Whether visitors find a blog post through a search engine or click a link in a newsletter, each post showcases the brand’s expertise through helpful content that answers audience questions. Informational content shows a brand’s expertise in an area related to its products and services. This thought leadership acts as proof that the brand knows its stuff. So make sure that blog content is well written, clear and accurate. Readers will use it to make a decision about the brand—and whether or not they’re ready to buy what it’s selling.
Finally, no matter how detailed a website is, people will always have questions about products or services. If a visitor has to leave a website to research a product, there’s no guarantee they’ll come back. So a company’s blog should be their one-stop shop for answers to commonly asked questions. There, visitors can learn all they need to make a purchasing decision, engage with the brand and decide if it offers the best solution to their problem. These product-focused blogs, rather than try to sell the product, should use an informational tone and provide educational information that helps readers make a decision.
5. Blogging helps grow audience trust
Blogging helps build a relationship between a brand and its audience. Why? Because it is an authentic medium written without the intent to directly sell a product or service but to connect with readers and provide helpful insight. An active blog positions a company as a source readers can come to again and again. Visitors are more likely to download white papers, sign up for an email list or spend their money on a brand’s services if the content helped solve their problems.
Finally, blogging indirectly sells a company’s services by putting the brand’s personality, know-how, mission and values on display. Seventy percent of people would rather learn about a company through articles than through advertisements. Some advice: Make sure to position a brand consistently across blog posts and web pages. Developing a boilerplate can help keep the language used to describe the brand consistent and is an asset when determining how you want potential customers to see a brand. People are more likely to commit to a brand they trust. That’s where empowered leads begin.
Blogging works, but only if it’s consistent. At Yakkety Yak, we know how powerful an articulate, well-researched blog can be to reach new readers and inform your audience. Contact us today to see how we can make it work for your brand.
