Websites are So. Last. Year.
OK, OK, they’re not, but you can’t afford to overlook the fact that what your customers are looking for is changing. Sure, websites are great for telling your audience what you do and what you can offer, but this isn’t enough to convince casual visitors to part with their hard-earned cash.
As bizarre as it sounds, business is no longer about selling. Anyone can do that. It’s about finding ways to engage with audiences, and that can often be a bit trickier. How do you make a potential customer choose you over everybody else? Well, a blog is probably the easiest (and the cheapest!) place to start.
Do I need a blog?
There will never be a time when price isn’t an important factor for customers… but that’s just it: it’s an important factor, it’s not the be-all-and-end-all of important factors. You can’t win customers on price alone; that would be too easy. Instead, customers want to see the human side of businesses. They want to see personality; they want to see you meet them in the middle. And that’s why you need a blog.
A business blog is a platform for you to express yourself and say ‘Hey, this is who we are, this is what we’re passionate about, and this is how we can help you’. It’s also a way for you to make your audience feel more involved in your brand, sparking discussion in the comments and (ideally, healthy) debate. Oh, and let’s not forget that customers trust blogs. That’s a fact that’s certainly not to be sniffed at!
Helloooo… I’m over here!
So blogging turns leads into customers. Got it. But hang on – is it possible we’ve missed a rather important step here? How are your prospects finding your website in the first place? Well, that’s another thing that blogging takes care of – assuming you’re following the unwritten rules of the blogosphere, of course.
Blogging (the good, rule-following type of blogging) does 5 things to help you boost your brand’s visibility:
- It helps you secure a first page Google rank for your targeted keywords
- It provides a whole host of possible inbound link opportunities
- It keeps you on Google’s good side (fresh, regular content makes the Google bot happy)
- It increases the number of indexed pages, giving you more chance to be seen
- It gives you something valuable to share on social media… not just another picture of an otter playing the harpsichord. Although those are good too.
Pass the elbow grease
Blogging has a multitude of benefits for businesses, that’s certain, but it really does make you work for them! We’re not going to sugarcoat it, blogging isn’t easy, it isn’t quick, and it does result in a few tears here and there. Did you know that to really see a massive boost in traffic, businesses need to be publishing 16+ posts per month? Phew. It’s something we’d rather leave to our professional writers. How about you?
