Blogs come in a variety of styles and have endless possibilities. From the biggest online newspapers and magazines to setting up a free personal blog, its important and very useful. Specifically, blogging benefits your business in multiple ways and should be done by every business.
1) Leads come from Blog Posts
People search for things that are happening, how to do something or situations they need help with. All topics that could better be suited in a blog post than a page on your website. Customers who find you on the blog because of a tip or trick you gave are more likely to keep you top of mind when they need services you offer (when you make it clear what you do).
Kiss Metrics https://blog.kissmetrics.com/ is a great example of creating a blog that generates leads. Everything below they are doing extraordinarily well. It’s no question that they;
Have content to keep customers engaged between transactions
Are seen as industry experts
Create content that is valuable and shareable
Get a boost in SEO for the blog that they created
It has been noted that over half of their leads come from their blog. Good work.
2) Keep in touch between transactions
Many business that we work with do not have a product or service that is purchased daily or has a daily interaction with customers (a coffee shop). Some businesses can have months or years in between transactions. The touch point between transactions can become more automated and it will definitely be more friendly than another monthly invoice.
For example, we work with Realtors in Vancouver and have been told the average duration between transactions is 7 years. What are you doing in between to stay top of mind?
Here are some ideas:
- Start with a monthly recap of what’s happening (what were highlights about doing your job or working with clients… This promotes referrals)
- Talk about the post sale service of the products you sell (possibly a mechanical company talking about furnaces)
- Explain the benefits of keeping your product in the best shape (like a car dealership)
- Provide a list of top uses for your product (could be a kitchen appliance with endless recipies)
3) Be an Industry Expert
Following a meeting or sales call, your prospects and even current clients will start to research your discussion if they are on the fence. Its better to find something on your site that says, “Why our products and services are worth it” than going to comparison shop or request a competing quote.
Being qualified as an expert in the industry has numerous benefits, especially when closing deals and repeating your unique value proposition and client benefits. Strong brand presence online solidifies trust and gives customers confidence. To build that presence, it takes more just BS, it takes a serious look into your core values and business practice. Having this expert approach naturally makes your company feel more transparent.
4) Distribution – Articles are popular to share
Being popular on social media is much easier with shareable content. Articles about a small snippet of your business can be gems for social media. More shareable than a product or service page. You need to have the qualifying pages on your site, don’t abandon those in favor of a blog, you need both.
For example, some person might be looking for a how-to on a topic that relates to some part of your business and finds your post. They follow the advice, it works, they share it in hopes of helping out a friend who might be in the same jam, and that friend turns into a new client for you.
That might be overly simplified. Really over simplified way of how social works, but it does work,
Here are some great shareable content ideas:
Turning a process into a list or infographic
Compiling information about the past year to do an industry snapshot
Providing content that answers Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) before they are even asked.
Create a “did you know?” Post on fun facts for your industry
Map out a timeline of how a product or service you work with evolved
5) SEO Boost
While there is no exact science for blogging to guarantee a higher ranking in search engine results, having more content on your website that relates to your company certainly helps. Be consistent with you blog entries, have a schedule and stick to it. Staying on topic will make more of an impact, both for SEO and for audience engagement.
Start Blogging!
To double back to point one, we should also be clear that this post does leave you with some pointers so that blogging can benefit your business. If you run into wall, need some advice or someone to manage your company’s blog, we do that. We help companies with content and blog optimization.
There are many great platforms to choose from for blogging specifically, we choose to build and blog on WordPress due to its flexibility, endless amounts of plugins and its tenure of success as a content management platform.