[social_warfare]
Do any of these statements describe you?
- You want to grow your business, but you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars a month in advertising.
- Your business is relatively new, and you’re working to stand out among some fierce competition.
- You’ve been in business for a while now, but you’re hitting a plateau with your growth.
- You are incredibly knowledgable about the products and/or services that you provide, and how they meet your customers’ needs.
If any of these fit, blogging might be a good fit for your business.
Blogging is a very effective tool for your marketing plan, especially when done consistently and strategically. I would argue that this is one of the simplest things you can do to start making a difference in your business. Simplest, but not necessarily the easiest.
If it were easy, everybody would be doing it. Blogging for your business isn’t a “hack” or a quick tip. It’s a tool to be used in a long term strategy for your business growth. In this post, I’m focusing specifically on written articles. There are many types of content that can be beneficial for your business, such as videos, either in addition to written articles, or instead of. Written content is an important foundation for any useful website though, so we’re starting there.
3 Reasons You Should Blog For Your Business:
1. Consistent and informative posts help you gain your customers’ trust.
Informative, relevant posts help you gain trust with any potential customers who are researching your products or services.
Let’s say you own a bike store. This is the kind of product that most people research extensively, depending on the type of bike and their budget. They will usually compare different reviews, ask friends for recommendations, and eventually try out different bikes at the store. It would be great if somebody walked into your store on a whim, and went through the entire sales process that day. That doesn’t happen like it used to, though. Today, people research. Especially for large purchases. If they can find answers to their questions at your site, you will gain more trust.
2. Relevant content on your website can help you rank better on search engines.
Regularly updated content tells search engines that your website is more likely to be relevant.
Search engines like Google and Bing are not focused on your business. They are focused on the person who is using their search engine. You have to show them that your content, your website, is the best one for that person. One tried-and-true way to help search engines show your website (without paying extra) is to have well written, consistently updated content on your website. Keywords and other factors come into play, but keywords are even more helpful when you have a lot of content for Google to pull.
3. It helps you stand out among your competition.
Check out your competition’s websites. Are they regularly updating them with well-written blog posts, videos, and the like? If not, you have an opportunity to stand out before they really get started.
If they are already on board, it’s even more imperative to get started today.
4. It’s free, if you do it yourself.
Pay-per-click advertising can run into the thousands, and there is a place for that depending on your business. However, writing a blog post doesn’t cost anything except time. Yes, time is money, and this is not an easy task. It is still the least expensive form of content marketing you can do, that I know of. Agencies can handle this task (and it’s something we do for our clients as well), but it’s not like writing your own software or building your own website. Anybody can blog. Most people benefit from having an editor spruce up and optimize their posts, but that is still far less expensive than other marketing strategies.
Blogging may be only one tool out of many, but it’s a powerful one.
Common objections:
“I hate writing.”
Record yourself instead. Use your Voice Memo app on the iPhone, or any other recording app, and talk like you’re explaining something to a potential client. Answer a question, explain a new product, go into the benefits of your services.
“My customers don’t read blogs.”
If your customers really aren’t the type that would appreciate blogging (and that is the case in some instances), written articles may not be your best primary form of content. You might be more suited to audio or video content, and use the transcripts or summaries to help search engines find your website.
If you’re not 100% sure about it, written articles are a good place to start until you can explore additional forms of content like podcasts, videos, etc.
“I don’t have time to blog.”
I don’t believe in the “I don’t have time” excuse, for just about anything. I’ve used it myself for plenty of things, but what I really mean is: that thing isn’t important enough for me to make time. That is the plain truth of it. If blogging isn’t something you find important or useful to your business, you won’t make time. If you’re not sure if it’s worth it even after the above points, maybe blogging isn’t the channel you need to use. Like I said, it is not the be-all, end-all. Video, webinars, and other types of content might be more beneficial to your business. Your customers are the most important to consider.
“I don’t know what to write about.”
There are tons of resources to help with this, but here are a couple that we use at Peak:
What questions do your customers ask on a regular basis? How can you break those questions up into various topics?
List out as many things as possible that you wish all of your customers and potential customers knew, related to your product or service. For example, if you are a massage therapist, you might have posts about what to expect at their first appointment, what they can expect after a deep tissue massage, how proper nutrition can work along with a good massage routine to keep them healthy, etc. Write or type as many ideas as you can. Don’t overthink it, just write.
This is something you can start today. You don’t have to publish blog posts every day, or even right away. You can pull up a Word document and go to town, and then post them all at once (if you’re just starting to launch your website), or schedule them out over the next few weeks if you already have a website that supports blog posts. If you’re not sure about what to do or whether or not your website is set up for this, we can help with that of course.
Happy blogging!
