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Are you cashing in on the magic of business blogging?

If you aren’t – or you do have a blog but you’re posting inconsistently – then you really should reconsider. Why? Because maintaining a consistently updated blog on your website is a key contributor to growing your business.

I get it, blogging takes time – and time is something most business owners don’t have. But, if you aren’t blogging as a part of your content marketing strategy, statistics show that you’re leaving money and new leads on the table – for another business blogger to happily collect.

If you’re looking for all the reasons you should start (or maintain) your business blog, look no further. Read on to learn precisely why blogging is a magical way to market and grow your business.

Your blog will increase traffic to your site.

90% of online searches begin with a search engine.

Did you know that every time you update your website with a new blog post, it becomes one more indexed page online? In other words, each new blog post will serve as an additional prompt to search engines that your site is an active place to send people. Whereas if your site is sitting stagnant with no new content, search engines will not have as many reasons to send traffic to you.

But, a word of caution… There is a little more strategy to this than just throwing up a quick blog post. You’ll be “found” more in searches if you’re using the right key words. So, take a moment before you start writing and research the words and phrases your target audience is searching so you’ll rank higher in the feed.

You can find key words for your business if you visit Wordstream, or Google Adwords. Search your URL and a list of top google-searched key words will be generated.

Another tool is Buzzsumo. Here, you can determine which key words and phrases your competitors are using with the greatest success. Look at their page titles, headings, page text, etc. Start a list of the phrases and words that keep coming up in their most popular content.

“The writers who get the most traffic are skilled marketers… They learn quickly by analyzing the competition.”

Jon Morrow, Professional Writer and Founder of SmartBlogger.com

Your blog will make YOUR business the go-to place to find answers.

We’re living in a world overflowing with online content, and we need to make sure we are giving our audience what they want – and expects. People are accustomed to going to the internet to find immediate answers to their questions, and they will be attracted to the sites with the most valuable content they can get their hands on. Best of all – they will keep coming back for more once they’ve deemed your site to be the place to find everything they need to know about X, Y, or Z.

But, becoming the go-to place for your audience will only happen if you’re crystal clear about WHO you’re creating content for. Think more deeply than simple demographics. Get at the heart of what your customer is struggling with, what their goals are, and most importantly – how you can help them. Need help with this? Join my free 5-day email course “Content Camp” to gain ultimate clarity.

If you aren’t sure what your typical customer’s needs are, you can do some research. Go to Google, Quora, Facebook Insights, or SubReddits. Buzzsumo is handy too, because you can find out which of your competitor’s posts are performing best in terms of audience engagement.

The most important thing to do that will set you apart from your competitors is to research what they are posting with success, and create similar content… But – make your content more relatable, more credible and most essentially – more helpful.

Serving the needs of your target audience is at the core of a great content marketing strategy.

Your blog content will build your reputation as an industry expert.

When you provide your potential customers with answers to their common questions, they’re more likely to buy your products or services because they’ve come to trust what you have to say.

And, they will start to trust in your expertise when there is an archive of blog content to help with all the things they’re struggling with.

So, get creative to show your knowledge off, and to truly help your ideal customers! You can write all kinds of helpful blog posts –

• Comparisons between your products/services and other approaches
• Reviews from satisfied customers
• Profiles or interviews of leaders in your industry
• Technical support tutorials
• How-to articles
• Information about the latest industry news
• Pros and cons about aspects of your industry

By the way – if the idea of constructing full-blown blog posts week after week makes you cringe, you don’t always have to publish long-form text. Videos, infographics, images, and lists will do the trick too. And you’re in luck if you don’t see yourself as a gifted writer, because the best strategy is to offer a variety of formats to ensure you appeal to a wide range of learning styles.

Your blog will generate new leads.

Every business owner wants to increase the number of hot leads coming in! The very best way to do this is with frequent blog updates containing “calls to action” – a prompt that tells the user to take a specific action. Generally, a call to action is written as a command or “take action” phrase, like “sign up” or “click here” or “buy now”.

Example: “Click the link below to access a free (X).”

When your potential customer clicks on the link, he/she will be asked to enter their email address so the freebie can be emailed, resulting in a new lead for you!

The most irresistible freebies can take any form that is helpful, time-saving, and valuable to your potential customer. The list is endless, but some ideas are:

• Cheat sheets
• Ebooks
• White papers
• Access to webinars
• Free trials
• Infographics
• Checklists

Your blogging efforts will have a compound effect.

So, the reason most business owners neglect their blog as a marketing tool is because it takes time to do it well. But – what if I told you that if you put in the time up front, your efforts would be compounded later?

Say you take a couple hours to write a blog post on Monday. That blog post gets 200 views and 20 leads. Then you get another 100 views and 10 leads on Tuesday, and a handful more each day during the week. By Friday you may have received 350 views and 30 leads.

Was that worth your two hours on Monday? Most business owners would say yes, but if you still aren’t sure – think about this:

Your blog post will be searchable, and if you chose your key words well, it should be ranking in search engines, which don’t expire. So, for weeks and months, even years, you will continue to get traffic and leads from that one blog post, and that two hours of work!

So, stay consistent with putting out valuable blog posts, and in time, you will have a respectable archive of helpful information for future customers, which means you will be able to put new blog content out less frequently, and still keep the wheels turning on your traffic and lead generation.

Bonus: Your blog can be used for (incredibly affordable) market research!

One last little bonus about business blogging is the fact that it can serve as extremely affordable market research.

You can use your blog to test your audience’s reaction to products you’re about to release, or campaigns you’re gearing up for before time and money are spent on the full-blown launch.

Also, consider using your blog as a vehicle to being better connected to your customers. Write vignettes featuring a faithful customer (with their permission, of course), telling their story about how your product or service benefitted their life. Storytelling will make your brand stronger, and help your customers realize that you are committed to serving them, which is the guiding principle of every successful content marketing strategy.

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There’s no doubt about it – blogging can be magical for fast-tracking the growth of your business. But, if you’re still concerned about the amount of time it will take to add this to your already full plate, give me a call! We can discuss solutions for getting your blog up and running like a well-oiled machine – ranking high in search engines, driving traffic back to your site, and generating new leads for you every day.