Since the late 1990s, blogging has been a fun and unique way for internet users to share their interests and research their passions. In today’s increasingly digital world, however, blogging has become an essential practice for businesses hoping to grow their company and increase conversion rates.
According to research by HubSpot, 48% of businesses with a content strategy are blogging as part of that, with 56% of them saying it's effective and 10% saying it generates the biggest return on investment.
Even as attention spans seem to get shorter, blogging can still represent a pivotal role in your online presence. If you still need convincing, we explore 7 reasons why blogging is important for your business.
7 reasons why blogging is important for your business
From boosting your brand identity to helping engage your audience, find out why you still need to be blogging for business:
1. Helps you climb the search rankings
Businesses large and small understand the importance of SEO. Effective SEO practices help your website rank highly on search engines, allowing potential customers to find you with ease. Blogging is an ideal way to increase your search engine ranking when you cultivate a strong, SEO-led strategy.
While blog posts are an ideal place to include your company’s chosen keywords and backlinks, they also provide a space for you to provide real insight and actionable information for your client base.
Providing valuable content is a factor that can dramatically increase your search engine rankings, as evidenced by Brian Sutter in this article for Forbes who said:
Sadly, much of the content being published is simply not worth linking to. 75% of it is getting zero inbound links. So forget the ‘more is better’ approach…go with quality instead. Your content will generate links only if it is truly exceptional.
2. Increases customer engagement
Customer engagement and having clear streams of communication with your clients are essential for online marketing. You may be wondering why blogging is important when social media exists as an effective tool to respond to client comments and queries. Blogging, however, is a much more conversational medium and, when used correctly, can be much more engaging.
For example, the supermarket chain Waitrose uses their blog to share recipes from customers. This not only ensures customers feel engaged, as they see their creativity championed on the Waitrose website, but it also gives the supermarket a convenient and less-sales-focused medium through which to promote their products.
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3. Boosts your brand identity
Another reason why blogging is important for your business is branding. Branding no longer simply means your company logo and slogan. Branding now also includes how customers and potential clients emotionally and psychologically respond to your brand.
By using the same language style, colour scheme and motifs in your blog, you are solidifying your company’s branding that you have established through your website and social media efforts.
Fashion company Pretty Little Thing, for example, use a casual, teenage voice on their blog, attracting their target market and promoting their products by using the very same conversational language their customer base would use: ‘As per, you’ve got endless plans to attend and each requires a bomb outfit’.
Having a blog is an effective way for your business to build brand identity.
4. Stakes your claim as an industry expert
Whether you operate a niche business or have a lot of competitors, you must be able to prove your industry expertise. Customers will feel much more comfortable making an order with you or hiring your services if you can evidence that you are an expert in your field.
For example, you could use your blog to discuss recent developments in your industry, review your products in more detail or theorise on the future of your sector. This information will not only be useful and engaging to clients, but it will also prove you are a knowledgeable and trustworthy brand.
5. Collects invaluable data
Seeing how users navigate your blog can provide you with valuable data about how a customer interacts with your company. For example, if you notice a certain blog post is receiving a large amount of traffic, you can focus your marketing efforts on this topic and produce more content focused on this particular area.
Similarly, you can ask users if they wish to be notified when you post a blog and sign them up to your marketing email list. This will ensure not only that people will be notified when you release a new post but that you can send them additional content you believe will be relevant to get them to return to your site.
6. Creates opportunities to engage influencers
The influencer and paid promotional content sector is expected to exceed £13 billion. Businesses that fail to capitalise on this industry are missing out as only 3% of blogs that used paid promotion reported that they were disappointed with the results.
Effective paid promotion blogging could mean hiring an influencer to guest post on your blog or asking them to write a review of your company/services on their blog. For example, a vegan skincare brand may wish to collaborate with a vegan cooking blog to provide a variety of enriching content to a crossover audience that can pay dividends in increased exposure.
7. Drives more targeted traffic and conversions
Another way that blogging boosts SEO is by sending more traffic your way. When you produce insightful blog content, you are giving your readers a reason to return. It's also important to embed links to other pages on your website so you can build the search engine's understanding of how your site fits together so that it can index it more accurately. Linking between pages also means you direct visitors to relevant pages that could result in higher conversions.
It is recommended that small businesses trying to boost organic traffic should publish blogs 3-4 times a week and larger businesses should post 4-5 times a week. However, the key thing is making sure you blog frequently and with regularity as this prompts search engine spiders to crawl and index your site more often, helping to improve your ranking.
How important are blogs to SEO?
As you might have already gathered, blogs offer a variety of benefits for SEO. Firstly, blogging consistently allows you to provide fresh and relevant content to your audience, which search engines also prioritise over outdated or duplicate content.
Blogs also allow you to target specific keywords and phrases related to your industry or products. By writing posts on the kinds of topics and queries your audience is searching for answers to, you improve your chances of ranking higher in the results pages.
Additionally, blog content gives you something to share on social media platforms, which can increase brand visibility and drive even more traffic to your website.
Overall, blogs are an effective way to improve a website's search engine ranking, attract more visitors and establish a strong online presence.
There’s never been a better time to start your business blog
These are just 7 reasons why blogging is important for your business – but hopefully it has inspired you to begin or re-launch your company blog. After all, with more and more transactions taking place online, blogging as a business has never been more important.
Before beginning your blog, carefully consider your brand identity and how your blog is going to support or contribute to your existing marketing efforts.
✏️If you are unsure where to begin, consider a blog subscription service which takes the stress out of writing your content.
Main image credit: Anete Lūsiņa
Internal image credits: Brad Barmore, arembowski, expresswriters
