You know you need a website to reach the 50%+ of customers who begin their research online. A blog may seem like overkill. It’s not.
Here’s how a blog helps your business.
1. A blog provides information to your readers.
Your standard pages are great and talk about who you are and what you do. But your blog pages are what provide information about your industry, trending topics and latest best practices/products. This is important information especially for those who might be in the early stages of the buying cycle. They might not be ready to buy yet because they just don’t know enough. Give them what they need to get ready to buy.
2. A blog provides information to search engines.
As you write articles around your primary business and industry you will be providing information to the search engines about your site. Even if you don’t write with SEO in mind specifically you will benefit. If your business is home construction your articles will be about home construction and the construction industry in general. Those articles will contain keywords and phrases relevant to these topics. And guess what! When people look for those terms you now have a better shot of showing up in their search results. (Hint: don’t be too jargony in your writing.)
In addition to these keyword-rich articles, the very fact that you are keeping your site current and up-to-date will help.
3. A blog links your offline and online marketing.
There is only so much you can say on a postcard or magazine ad. You can say a lot on your blog.
You can talk about upcoming events and promotions. During events and promotions, you can send folks back to specific, relevant articles.
If you are speaking at a trade show or community event, you can multi-purpose your comments by creating an article to share for people who couldn’t make it.
4. Establishes you know stuff.
Let’s face it, most of our pages are full of marketing stuff. But we know other stuff too. We know about our business and what’s happening in our industry.
Your blog gives you the opportunity to talk about the stuff you know so well. Just be sure you’re talking to your audience, not at them. Educate them. Enlighten them. Dare I say entertain them a bit?
5. Provides a feed.
Without geeking out on you too much, a blog will provide a “feed” for others to subscribe to among other useful tools (like automated email campaigns.) Think of it as putting your website into syndication. It opens up new possibilities for getting your content – and name – out there in front of interested people (read: potential customers).
You don’t have to be a blogger. But including a blog on your website is an important tool to help your business.
If you’d like to learn more check out these other posts: