Blogging for business is the linchpin in driving traffic to your website and, ultimately, guiding your online customers through your sales funnel.
If blogging isn’t a part of your business marketing strategy, it should be.
Blogging isn’t something you push off till later, put on the back burner, or cross your fingers and hope you can get by without doing. Blogging drives sales, and without it, you’re not just hindering your own sales pipeline, you’re actually hurting your chances at building a loyal brand following online.
Consider the following:
- 77% of internet users read blogs. (as evident in you reading this one.)
- Small businesses with blogs generate 126% more leads.
- 61% of consumers in the U.S. have made a purchase based on a blog post.
Those statistics in and of themselves make the point for blogging. But, if you’re still not convinced, here are some ways business blogging drives sales, increases your SEO, and why blogging needs to be front and center in your online marketing strategy.
Business Blogging Provides Value
What does every single business on the face of the planet need in order to be successful?
Paying customers.
And what does every single business on the face of the planet need to provide in order to gain and keep customers?
Value.
In the digital world we live in, providing value either through products, services, or content is no longer isolated to your local area. Instead, that value needs to be provided (and given) to your prospects down the street AND the prospects across the nation or even the world.
The reality is, when you provide valuable content online through blogging, you’re extending your business’s reach from local to global, opening up a much larger pool of prospects to fish from successfully.
Pro tip:
If you want your business blog to be successful and provide value, remember this: your online blog is not your personal diary. In fact, it shouldn’t be about you at all. Every piece of content you create should have a singular focus: your customer. Test each blog piece by putting yourself in your audience’s shoes and ask, “What’s in it for me?” When you can quickly identify the value to the reader, you’ll know you’re golden.
Business Blogging Does the Heavy Lifting of Sales Conversions
Imagine building a self-guided sales and marketing funnel that once completed eliminated the majority of the nurturing that’s required to land a sale?
Sounds brilliant, right?
What’s more, is it sounds just as brilliant to your customers!
Think of it this way: how many times has a business sparked your interest, and you wanted to learn more, but you weren’t ready to reach out? Did you continue down the funnel and reach out to the company to get your questions answered? Or, were you like the millions of other internet users that quickly clicked open another internet tab and sought to get your question answered somewhere else?
If you want your customers and prospects to stay in your self-guided funnel, you have to do the most important thing when it comes to blogging:
Answer the questions your audience is asking.
By consistently and frequently creating blog content that answers your prospects’ and customers’ questions, you’re able to give your company a voice on your terms while at the same time moving your audience closer and closer to the bottom of the funnel and, ultimately, making a purchase with you.
Pro tip:
Sit down with your team and make a list of every possible question your prospects and customers might have and then work to build blog pieces that answer them. (For some great advice on this, check out Marcus Sheridan’s book, They Ask, You Answer.) Next, remember that you’ll also need content for every step of the funnel: targeting and validating their pain points, providing and offering smart solutions (not necessarily yours), and lastly, content that gives the final push and highlights why your brand, product, or service is best.
Business Blogging Drives Traffic to Your Website
While so many businesses are quick to jump on pay-per-click ads, many miss the incredible boost to organic traffic that blogging for business can provide.
Simply put, for every blog you create, you’re creating an additional indexed page for your website. That means each blog is also providing more pages to be crawled by search engines giving your content (and your business) more chances to be in the search results and rank higher within those results.
Need more proof? Check these out:
- Companies that blog consistently have 434% more indexed pages. (which leads to more leads)
- B2B companies that use blogging get 67% more leads than those that do not.
- Blog traffic can increase up to 30% by writing as few as 21 blog posts.
By blogging for your business, you’ll also have the opportunity to rank for specific keywords more often. When you consider you’re pairing keywords with providing value and answering the questions of your customers, you’ve got a win-win situation.
Pro tip:
Business blogging increases your chances of discovery even more because you’re giving others a chance to link to your content. To boost that, reach out to other heavy hitters that could partner with your business and let them know of your upcoming blog pieces and ask if they’d like to link to your content.
Business Blogging Boosts Your Reputation and Authority
If you’re a new business, one of the biggest hurdles you have to overcome is proving that you know your industry and you can be taken seriously.
You have to have some sort of proof-source that builds trust and credibility with your ideal buyer.
And blogging is one of the best ways to do this because it allows you to share your expertise in a non-threatening (non-salesy) way.
People buy from those they trust, and people can’t trust you if they don’t know you. What’s your business all about? Where is your focus? Are you concerned about my needs as a consumer? All of those questions (and more) can be answered through blogging.
Increased trust = Increased sales!
The best way to begin displaying your authority and building your reputation is simply to start. You don’t need an elaborate plan with multiple people; all you need is one question. What one question can you answer for your audience this month? Start with one blog per month and then build and grow from there.
Pro tip:
If you think one blog a month has little impact, remember this: even one blog can provide your audience with multiple touches across multiple channels. Take that one piece of content and promote it on all of your social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more. You could also take it a step further and do an email with an RSS feed or by creating an email with the first paragraph of your blog with a simple “Read more” call to action at the bottom.
So, what are you waiting for? Increase your website traffic, boost sales, and grow your business when you start blogging.