Online marketing veterans will remember when blogging was the ultimate buzzword across the industry. Although, like most trends, its importance was sometimes oversold, there was no doubt that a popular, engaging blog was a tremendous asset to any website. If you’re doing any marketing, your company needs a business blog.
8 Crucial Reasons for Your Company’s Business Blog
The landscape has shifted somewhat since then, and social media is the now hottest game in town. Nonetheless, blogs still have their place, and if your online business isn’t engaged in blogging, you’re missing a trick. Here are eight reasons to devote more resources to this time-honored tactic.
1. It Increases Google Organic Reach (that’s a good thing)
The entire purpose of having a website is to 1: Sell Something or 2: Tell people who you are. Google Organic Reach is when your website populates on page one after a user has entered a search term. A blog is a top resource for hitting these results.
A blog lets you add new content to your site in little more than the time it takes to write it. This sheer speed of publication means it is easier to latch on to the latest news stories or trends within your niche, taking advantage of the traffic generated by a topic that may be transitory rather than evergreen. An agile blog owner can leverage fast-moving traffic trends far more quickly than a traditional, fixed corporate website.
2. It Increases Google Organic Reach (that’s a good thing)
Google loves content, and content is KING on the web. Focusing on a keyword service, an excellent demographic, and a topic is no better than hitting your website with a blog post.
3. Agile and Timely
A blog lets you add new content to your site in little more than the time it takes to write it. This sheer speed of publication means it is easier to latch on to the latest news stories or trends within your niche, taking advantage of the traffic generated by a topic that may be transitory rather than evergreen. An agile blog owner can leverage fast-moving traffic trends far more quickly than a traditional, fixed corporate website.
4. Introduce Related Content
While your leading site may be tightly focused on your products and services, a blog allows you to explore topics relevant to your niche rather than directly related to your e-commerce activities. This will widen your footprint in search engines and provide more opportunities for targeted traffic. Blog posts may not necessarily have the direct business benefits of sales pages, but they will add both depth and breadth to your site’s content.
5. Attract Natural Inbound Links
Online marketers know the vital importance of good inbound links, but product pages don’t tend to inspire other website owners to link to them. Blog posts, in contrast, allow for more exciting and original content, which can be much more link-friendly, thereby rounding out your site’s overall backlink profile.
6. A Bridge to Social Media
While few people will want to read an update about a new color of the widget being put on sale, an interesting blog post is eminently suitable for publicizing on social media. The importance of platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter means a comprehensive social strategy is necessary. Status updates about blog posts can be an essential and active part of the mix.
7. Build Newsletter List Subscriptions
Publishing a lively and engaging blog will allow you to build up an email list of subscribers who wish to be notified about future posts. A naturally built list of subscribers can be a potent marketing tool if used with discretion. A blog that regularly features genuinely valuable and interesting posts is an ideal way of attracting sign-ups.
8. Community Involvement
Blogging was the focus of comments and other types of interactivity long before the advent of social media. It is still a great way of introducing a community aspect to your site. While blogging’s simple model of comments and discussion may not provide all the flexibility of a Facebook page, the great advantage is that the activity remains on your site and is not monetized and controlled by an outside corporation.
Greater Freedom and Flexibility
For marketing, branding, and even legal reasons, the primary sales content of an e-commerce site is often tightly controlled. A blog can be a much more relaxed addition to your leading site, able to explore content ideas with greater freedom. If a post is successful and famous, the traffic can be utilized to the advantage of the site as a whole, but if a command fails to generate activity, it will soon be lost in the archives with no harm done.
Social media may be the current flavor of the month regarding online marketing, but blogging first achieved importance because it worked exceptionally well. Savvy digital entrepreneurs know it still does.