Blogs are a cost-effective and powerful tool for marketing your company. They help keep people up-to-date on company news, provide vital information to people interested in your industry, improve your search engine ranking, and give your brand even greater visibility.
If you want to become an expert in your industry and build trust with potential customers, you need to provide them with valuable content that is relevant to their needs.
What is business blogging?
Business blogging helps you attract new leads, build trust and credibility, and boost your search engine optimization (SEO). When done right, business blog posts can be a powerful tool to help you achieve your business goals.
Benefits of Business Blogs
Many people ask themselves if blogging is worth the time.
The answer is a resounding yes!
Blogging can be an extremely valuable tool for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the benefits of blogging for business:
Blogs help drive traffic to your website.
The best way to get more traffic to your website is to optimize your blog posts so that they’re easy for search engines to find and index.
How do people currently find your website?
- Your brand name? That’s not applicable if you just launched your business.
- People could do a general search for your business category in your city, but that’s tough to rank for if you’re just starting out. And even if you do rank for it, you’re competing against a lot of other people who are also trying to get noticed.
- You could buy ads, but that’s expensive and not guaranteed to work.
Creating blog content is a great way to improve your website’s SEO.
Every time you publish a new blog post, you’re creating a new page on your website that can be indexed by search engines. This means that your website has a better chance of showing up on the search engine results page (SERP), and as a result, you can drive more traffic to your website.
Further in this post, you’ll read more about SEO and blogging. You’ll also find out how to make it a part of your strategy.
1. Recycle Your Blog Posts
Your blog is a central hub for all of your content. It’s a place you can go to when you need new content for your social media pages.
When you have a blog, you can create new content and then share that content across all of your social media channels.
This is a great way to get more mileage out of your blog content and to make sure that your social media followers are seeing your latest and greatest content.
This means that when you’re creating new blog posts, you’re also creating new content for your social media channels.
When you share that blog post on social media, you can share it across multiple channels at once. For example, if you have a Facebook page and Twitter account, you can share the post on both of those platforms at the same time.
This saves you time because you don’t have to create separate posts for each platform.
You can also share blog posts on social media more than once. For example, if you create a blog post today and share it on Twitter, you can share it again in a few weeks or months.
This gives your followers on social media a chance to see the post if they missed it the first time around.
Plus, it gives you fresh content to share on social media when you need it!
Blog to Email Newsletter
If you have an email list, then your blog posts are perfect for sending to your list!
Sending your blog posts to your email list is a great way to get more traffic to your website and generate more leads.
When people subscribe to your email list, they want to hear from you. They want to get valuable information from you.
Your blog posts are the perfect way to provide value to your subscribers and keep them engaged with your business.
When you send blog posts to your email list, people have a reason to visit your website and read your content. This helps increase traffic and generate leads!
Gated Content
Gated content is a piece of content that you offer in exchange for someone’s contact information (like their name and email address).
Gated content an excellent way to generate leads and grow your email list. And guess what? Your blog posts are perfect lead magnets!
You can use blog posts as lead magnets by creating a “lead magnet” version of the post and offering it in exchange for someone’s contact information.
For example, let’s say that you write a blog post about how to start a business. You could create a lead magnet version of that post that includes an overview of the steps in starting a business (like registering the business name, filing for permits/licenses, etc.).
You could then offer that lead magnet version of the post in exchange for someone’s contact information.
When you use blog posts as lead magnets, you’re providing value to your readers while also generating leads. It’s a win-win!
Create an eBook
If you have a lot of blog posts, you can use those posts to create an eBook.
You can turn your blog posts into an eBook by compiling them into a PDF document. You can then offer that eBook to your readers in exchange for their contact information.
This is a great way to generate leads and grow your email list!
Plus, it’s an excellent way to repurpose your blog content. You can take blog posts that you’ve already written and turn them into a new lead magnet or product!
Create a Video Series
If you want to create a video series from your blog posts, you can use screen recording software (like Loom) to record yourself reading the blog posts.
You can then post those videos on social media or upload them to YouTube. This is a great way to reach a new audience with your blog content!
Create an Audio Series
You can also create an audio series from your blog posts by recording yourself reading the blog posts.
You can then post those audio recordings on social media or upload them to platforms like iTunes or SoundCloud. This is another great way to reach a new audience with your blog content!
Webinars or Courses
If you have a lot of blog posts, you can use those posts to create a webinar or course.
You can turn your blog posts into a webinar or course by compiling them into a PowerPoint presentation or video series. You can then offer that webinar or course to your readers in exchange for their contact information.
This is another great way to generate leads and grow your email list! Plus, it’s an excellent way to repurpose your blog content. You can take blog posts that you’ve already written and turn them into a new lead magnet or product!
2. Convert Traffic Into Sales
Once you have a lead, you need to get that person to buy from you. This is the stage when you turn a lead into a customer. There are lots of ways to do this, but the best way is through inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that helps turn strangers into leads and leads into customers.
There are a few key things that you want to do at this point:
- Get people on your email list
- Send them helpful content that helps them solve their problem
- Offer them a paid solution to their problem
You need to make sure that you’re offering a paid solution that solves a problem that your audience has and that they’re willing to pay for.
Read our in depth guide on how to convert traffic into sales.
3. Drive Long Term Revenue
The best business blogs are usually those that answer common questions their readers and customers have.
If you can provide valuable information that helps solve people’s problems, you’ll quickly build a following of loyal readers. Over time, this can turn into more customers and clients for your business.
The impact of sending an educational blog post to clear things up for a confused customer could be significant. Salespeople could close more deals if their leads discovered blog content written by their salesperson.
- If your company’s blog posts provide answers to readers’ everyday questions, those readers will be much more likely to trust what you have to say and enter your sales funnel.
- If someone has been reading your blog posts, they will likely have a better understanding of your products and services, your position in the market, and your industry. This makes for a more productive sales conversation than one between two people who are not familiar with each other.
- If a salesperson encounters a question that requires a detailed explanation or a documented answer, they can use an archive of blog posts. Sales reps who use these articles can close deals faster than those who don’t, and they come across as helpful and trustworthy to their prospects.
4. Blogs Complement Link Building
Inbound links, also known as backlinks, are one of the 200 factors that the Google algorithm considers when ranking a site on its search engine result page. Many experts and small business owners believe that backlinks are the third most crucial factor in search engine optimization.
SEO experts say that link building is the most challenging part of search optimization, although it is essential to generate inbound links.
If you create articles that are valuable to both your potential customers and other companies seen as industry leaders by your audience, you will more easily gain relevant links.
Links from websites that are considered authoritative in your industry can be a vote of confidence to other sites and show Google that you are an expert.
One benefit of backlinks is that they help improve your overall discoverability in search engines by building your domain authority.
5. Help Share Company News & Events
One more advantage that blogging gives businesses of all sizes is a way to share their company news and stories. Blogs can include not only articles but also news items that highlight what a company is doing.
Sharing company news on your blog helps to humanize your brand and shows your audience that you are not always focused on selling.
Jobs & Hiring
For example, if you’ve hired a new content marketing manager, you can share that on your blog.
Interviews
If you want to show that you’re really knowledgeable about online marketing, one way to do that is to interview experts in the field and post the interviews on your blog. This will show that you not only know your stuff, but that you’re also good at connecting with others and getting them to share their knowledge.
Case Studies
This is a great way to show off how your products and services can help customers and give them some insight into how your business works. By writing a case study, you can also show potential customers what kind of results they can expect from working with you.
This can help to build trust with your audience and make them more likely to do business with you in the future.
Always Add CTAs
Add a CTA to all of your business blog posts. Make sure it’s relevant to the post, and make sure it’s clear what you want your readers to do.
You can use a CTA to promote a product, sign up for a newsletter, or even just learn more about your company. Just make sure it’s something that will benefit your business.
Email Newsletters
Email marketing is a great way to promote your blog to people who are already interested in what you have to say.
If you have an email list, or are working on building one, you should use it to promote your blog. Include a section in your newsletter templates that promotes your business blog. This can be a round-up of the latest blog posts or posts on one subject matter.
To build a list, create a form to gather information from website visitors. Include a sign-up form on your blog and offer something of value in return for an email address.
Guest Blogging & Link Building
Another method of promoting your blog is by writing guest posts for other websites. This option requires more work such as writing more and pitching topics, but it is worth it in the end.
By writing guest posts, you get to appear on a website that isn’t your own which essentially makes you a thought leader in your industry.
Link building is one of the most effective ways to rank on Google and increase views on new posts. It also helps create partnerships within your industry.
To start, you need to find potential sites to host your blog. You can use a tool like Ahrefs to find these sites. Then, use Hunter.io to scrape contact details from the site.
Sending out cold outreach emails can be time-consuming, so it’s helpful to use email marketing software like MailChimp.
Link building can be difficult, because you will likely face rejection from some sites.
However, if you find a site that is open to a partnership, the blog promotion process will be much smoother.
Key Takeaways
We covered 8 benefits of running a business blog:
- Re-Cycle Your Blog Posts
- Blogs Convert Traffic Into Sales
- Blogs Drive Long Term Revenue
- Blogging helps with link building
- Blogs Help Share Company News & Events
Business blogging is a great way to promote your business and attract new customers. Just make sure you’re doing it right. Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to success.
