Creating a Blog to Help Your Business Grow

Business blogs have most likely helped you in the past - many times! In fact, if you’re reading this article, then there isn’t much need to convince you of this fact. You may or may not feel like an expert in your field, but creating a blog for your business can bring you lots of benefits.

Let’s have a look at why creating a blog for your business is a good idea!

Increase traffic to your website (SEO)

SEO: This is probably the biggest reason you’ll want to begin a blog for your business. SEO (search engine optimisation) is one of the leading factors that drive people to your site. Having a blog is a great way to improve your search engine rankings!

Generate organic traffic

When writing articles, it’s important to keep a keyword strategy in mind. Using the right keywords will be an important factor when it comes to ranking high in the search engine results pages (SERPs). High rankings will of course lead to a boost in traffic to your website. And this will all be essentially free traffic to your website, a nice alternative to Google Ads or Facebook campaigns (of course, there is great value in paid campaigns as well!).

It’s important to remember that you keep your target audience in mind when writing your blog article (creating a buyer persona can help with that). Additionally, your keyword strategies are also very important here.

Besides the traffic boost from appearing in more Google search results, blog articles can potentially increase the amount of time spent on your page(s), another key factor in Google’s ranking algorithms. A couple really high-traffic blogs can benefit your entire domain.

Get backlinks

You’re probably somewhat active on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, right? Sharing articles there can increase the possibility that others share your article as well. That is an example of some backlinks.

Theoretically, when an article is shared on social media, it is considered a backlink. However, when an article is shared by multiple users, this is essentially intensifying the network of backlinks and thus, strengthening the SEO value of your content.

Google places a lot of value on the frequency of shares a page gets. The site that shares your article is also taken into consideration. In other words, the more Google values the website sharing your content, the more strength it gives the article. If a reputable site shares your content, then Google sees your article as deserving of more visibility.

This means that content exchanges can be very valuable for content creators. For example, if I write a guest blog for another website, I can share a lot of valuable information with that site’s audience. Sure, a lot of traffic might go to their website, but if this article also has links going back to your website (which it definitely should!), Google will see it as a 3rd website linking to your page and reward your site as well.

Getting you on Google’s radar

Google is seen as the search engine and it wants to remain that way. This is why they value sites that regularly offer new content and updates. That is also why they will crawl and recrawl those sites more often. Hosting a blog on your site is the perfect way to get Google to give your site some love!

It’s important to remember that consistency is a big factor here. Consistency in this case also means doing it for the long-term. On top of that, it’s also worth noting that this takes time. Don’t expect thousands of delirious internet users flooding your website. That is very unlikely as most blog articles don’t go viral. It takes time, so if you plan on starting a blog, don’t wait too long!

One final note before moving on to the next point: try to stay away from shady practises like keyword stuffing, a strategy that was very popular years ago. This fad has died down, but the point remains: Never think you’re smarter than Google. If you think you can fool its algorithm in any way, there’s a good chance they’ve thought of it already. If Google sees you as an “SEO cheater”, it can punish your site severely. Don’t risk it!

Speaking of Google, if you’re an online shop, you should be showcasing your stars on Google wherever possible!

Build trustworthiness with a blog

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Share your values, your story, and even your team on your blog . If you don't, someone else will. And yes, a blog also allows you to control your brand image and therefore your online reputation.

Finally, don't forget that the only "risk" you take is to see your articles shared! Again, without even talking about backlinks, or incredibly high rankings, creating high-quality content always gives you more visibility and allows you to distribute your brand image at a lower cost.

The big idea here is that by creating value that has true value, you’ll be developing a relationship of trust with your audience.

On the Internet, everything is a question of trust. We were talking about it just before: f you place your link on another site valued by Google, you get its trust in return. And Google is not the only one to operate like this; your customers do, too. Whether they first read your blog and then take notice of your merchant site or vice versa, you must create a bond of trust.

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Trust is essential to any business transaction! If you want people to give you their money, they have to trust you first.

People want a personal connection these days, and a blog adds that extra touch of warmth to your site. On top of that, you have more control of your image; you only share what you want, how you want and that includes your expertise. This can be particularly useful for businesses that specialise in a particular niche. Even if readers of your blog don’t buy something from you right away, you’re establishing yourself as a trustworthy source and this can be worth a lot in the long term.

Convert your readers into customers

When set up correctly, your blog can provide you with useful information that you can use to create targeted content to maximise conversions and boost your sales.

Google Analytics and company can give you detailed information about the people who visit your site. This is useful for two main reasons:

1. This allows you to better understand how people got to your site and tailor your marketing efforts accordingly.
   
   
2. You can use this information to create content for specific groups . You can tailor content based on age, geographic information, interests, purchase history, and more. And all of this makes it easier for you to reach people and convert them into customers. These techniques are also used in a B2B context within what is called inbound marketing.

Let me briefly summarise the advantage of inbound marketing:

• You bring customers to you thanks to the interesting content of your blog
  
  
• You qualify your “prospects” thanks to nurturing
  
  This is what we were talking about just above. The idea is to feed your prospects with appropriate and relevant content to allow them to develop their thoughts about your products and services at their own pace and according to their needs. The idea is that with enough “nurturing” they will be ready to move on the next step: purchasing from your shop.
  
  
• You convert your prospects into customers
  
  Once you believe that your prospect is interested (nurturing + scoring) in your products and have obtained enough information about them, you transfer the prospect to your sales teams.
  
  
• You make your customers your ambassadors
  
  Thanks to a quality service, your customers will talk about you which will increase your popularity either through social media, but also through customer reviews. A beautiful circle is complete!

Conclusion

As you can see, the benefits of starting a blog for your business are numerous.

One last point: If you’re really new to the world of blogging and SEO, you should either hire an SEO expert or learn as much you can about those topics, particularly SEO. Knowing how to write is a great start, but running a blog requires a certain understanding of basic SEO concepts.