You’re a business owner. Influencer. Marketer. Or another professional with a website. Whichever it is, you share the common goal of attracting specific groups of people to your site.
While having a gorgeous web design and pristine copy can help convert leads, it won’t do much for attracting them. You need a way to get your brand in front of your target audience.
There are several ways you can do this, from paid ads to social media blitzes. But one that’s highly effective and affordable is content marketing. Or, more specifically, blogging.
Blogging is a platform you can control and use to guide more traffic to your website. So it’s no surprise that, alongside video and eBooks, it’s one of the three primary forms of media used in content strategies.
But how effective is blogging, and is it worth starting and maintaining one? We’ll let you decide for yourself.
5 Reasons Having a Business Blog Is Essential (Especially in 2021)
It’s impossible to ignore the impact the pandemic has had on businesses and people in general. If there’s one thing we learned, it’s the value of having the internet (and reliable shipping services).
Last year positioned the web as the primary source of shopping, entertainment and communication for many. So the website owners that worked hard to build their online presence likely saw more traffic and conversions.
If you didn’t seize the moment in 2020, it’s not too late to build your website’s presence. Blogging is a great way to do it. Let’s take a look at five benefits of blogging.
1. Make a Splash in a Sea of Websites
The internet is like a vast ocean of content, flush with 1.8 billion sites and 500 million blogs. This means more competition to float to the top spot on page one of search engines. The only way to give your website a chance of being seen is to hone your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. One way to do this is with content marketing. For example, having a business blog optimized with keywords to guide your audience to your content. One study shows companies with blogs get 55% more traffic (now, that’s a splash).
2. Drive More High-Value Traffic
Maybe your website is already getting plenty of traffic using paid ads and other marketing techniques. But traffic alone is just a vanity metric. What happens if your other metrics aren’t lining up?
For instance, say your bounce rate is high, and conversions are low. This can be an indication of poor quality traffic. To fix this, you can begin blogging with your target audience in mind. Start publishing posts on topics that relate to them. And use keywords they’re typing into Google.
For example, 71% of B2B customers are consuming blog content during their buying journey. They’re looking for information about their problem and the solutions available to them.
This presents a grand opportunity to drive this traffic to your website (and convert them into customers). You can do this by creating helpful content that answers their questions, addresses their issues, and even shows how your product or service can help.
3. Generate More Leads (With More Blog Posts)
If you’re selling a product or service, then you need to focus on attracting the right traffic. With a business blog, you can choose topics (and keywords) that relate to consumers based on where they are in their journey.
For instance, a person at the start of the customer’s journey is looking for information. So you’d create posts around common questions they have. Then in the middle of the funnel, you have folks who understand their problem but need help finding the best solution. In this stage, you can focus on content, such as case studies to show how your product or service helped another customer. How-to articles are also helpful for attracting those who want solutions (whether DIY or from a pro). Just be sure to add a CTA at the bottom with a link to your product or service page to make a purchase. The goal is to show (not tell) why your product or service is the best solution.
4. Increase Sales and Revenue
When you create a company blog, optimize it, and focus on relevant, high-quality content, you’re likely to see your traffic and lead generation improve. And because of this, you’re going to see a boost in your sales and revenue.
When you embed a blog on your website, it can boost sales by 6%. And this number doubles to 12% the more you blog.
5. Own Your Platform
There are various channels through which you can publish content via the internet — social media, forums, and platforms such as Medium. And while these can help build awareness and traffic for your site, it presents a looming problem:
You don’t own the platform, so you don’t own your content.
Sure, no one can take your content and publish it elsewhere, but if the site or page shuts down, then so goes your content. You have no control over this, which is why it’s vital to have your own platform and this is exactly what having a company blog on your domain offers: complete control over the visibility of your posts.
10 Blogging Best Practices
Simply starting a blog and publishing content isn’t enough to ensure it performs well. There are specific techniques and best practices you should implement to improve the odds of getting great results.
For instance, one survey by Orbit Media Studios shows certain bloggers see better outcomes by using certain methods. This includes making posts at least 2,000 words, adding seven or more images and including video content.
Here’s a look at 10 other best practices you can explore and experiment with for your marketing strategy:
- Search for keywords with the right user intent. Some keywords are exploratory, while others show buying intent.
- Choose a niche for your blog to better attract specific groups.
- Create click-worthy headlines to capture attention (but no click-bait).
- Include meta descriptions to tell search engines what your post is about.
- Post content frequently and consistently (at least once per week).
- Write content that’s relevant to your target audience.
- Include internal links to help visitors find other relevant content and to increase page dwell time.
- Include a CTA at the bottom of every blog post (.i.e, sign up, buy now, schedule a call, etc.).
- Add other media (photos, infographics, charts, graphs, videos, podcasts/audio) to your blog posts to improve engagement.
- Make each post easy to skim with H2s, H3s, bullet/number lists and short sentences and paragraphs.
This isn’t a be all end all list of best practices, but it’ll push you closer to seeing the benefits of blogging.
Build a Blog to Grow Your Online Presence
It doesn’t matter whether you’re a business or an influencer. Hosting a blog is a great way to grow your site’s traffic. You’ll also witness a variety of other benefits of blogging that can further your business and personal goals.
But maybe you’re not a great writer and know nothing about blogging. That’s all right — you can always hire a freelancer or two to do the job for you. At Orpheus, we have a team of designers that can build your blog and writers you can use to fill it with great content.
If you’re ready to get started blogging, then reach out to us today!