Blogging is important for small businesses but it can often seem like just another task added to your giant “to-do” list. And if writing just isn’t your thing, you probably want to stay as far away from blogging as possible!
If you aren’t aware of the tremendous up-sides that blogging offers, you may forfeit the idea of a blog altogether, or, start one and then never post again.
So I want to talk with you today about why blogging is important and how you can incorporate a “blogging” strategy into your marketing plan even if you don’t want to blog.
Benefits of Blogging
Increased Traffic - If you have an online business especially, your website is the equivalent of a brick and mortar shop. Instead of having customers who can walk into your store to see your product, you rely on web traffic coming to your website. Blogging is important as it allows you to increase the amount of traffic coming in to your website.
If you have a blog you are updating weekly, all of the extra content you are creating increases your chances of being found online!
And then, all that extra web traffic that is coming into your website has a higher potential to convert into sales or potential clients.
Increase Your SEO (AKA Free Marketing) - SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and is the process of obtaining free traffic from Google and other search engines.
Search engines favor websites that have new content being added in periodically which is what makes a blog so desirable for search engine optimization. Not only that, but by having a blog will allow you to get in front of potential customers much easier.
Without a blog, it would be much harder to get organic traffic into your website for different queries!
Here is another reason why having a blog is important. Take for example these search results when I look up “best running shoes”:
If you notice, none of these websites go directly to product pages. They all link to blog posts that are talking about the best running shoes.
Be Seen As An Authority In Your Niche - When a new visitor lands on your website, it’s important that you are able to provide them with a sense of trust and get them from “new visitor” all the way to “loyal customer”.
A blog plays an invaluable role in showcasing your knowledge to your potential customers as it positions your brand as a leader within your niche. When someone lands on your website and reads through your blog posts, you are able to develop a connection with them without having to actually speak with them.
I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t have the time to speak with every one of my visitors that land on my website each month (but I so wish I did). Instead, my blog does the talking for me. Any questions my visitors have can hopefully be answered through a blog post!
Should You Start A Blog?
Is starting a blog for everyone? Ideally, if you have a website, I say “YES! Start that blog!” but there are some cases where I think you shouldn’t keep a blog…hear me out.
Incorporating a blogging strategy can be very time-consuming. Search engines favour long-form content and if you want to start blogging, you should be aiming to publish at minimum a few long-form blog posts each month.
If you can’t commit to this, reconsider your blogging strategy. It’s better to not blog than to keep an empty blog up on your website that only has one post that you wrote last year. An empty blog feed can make it seem as if you aren’t active on your website anymore, and you don’t want potential customers to think you don’t have time to manage your site.
But what should you do if you understand the importance of blogging but still don’t really want to blog…? That’s when you will want to blog, without actually having to blog.
Blogging without having to “blog”
Write Case Studies - When some people hear the word “blogging” they run in the other direction. Let’s change it from “blogging” to “content marketing”. Content marketing is a marketing strategy where you create content in order to drive traffic and leads to your website. A blog is a form of content marketing, but can really be any type of content that you plan to update your website with!
Hire A Copywriter - If a blog is something you want to have but don’t have the time for, or truly hate writing, you still have options!
You can always consider outsourcing your content creation to a copywriter. There are a lot of websites where you can hire someone to write ghost-written blog posts for your business!
With Love | Nikki xo