5 Benefits of Blogging for Business

Some businesses consider blogging to be a labour-intensive marketing strategy that produces little reward for the time invested. Others think of blogging as involving someone sitting in their bedroom, sharing personal thoughts, opinions and grievances with the world.

These misconceptions regarding blogging are inhibiting many from experiencing its benefits. Blogging is an inexpensive way for businesses to increase their online presence, generate new leads and build brand awareness. Companies that consider blogging to be a high priority get 13 times more ROI than the companies where blogging is a low-importance activity.

An excellent return on investment is just one benefit to publishing well-written and informative articles. Here are five more reasons you should be concentrating on this form of content marketing.

Drive traffic to your website

Blog posts can be used as the foundation for your social media output, which can in turn be used to drive your target audience to your website. Creating a symbiotic relationship between your website and social media channels in this way can significantly boost your lead generation. Every blog post can be an opportunity to convert traffic into leads, especially if you include a call to action (CTA) every time. Effective CTAs range from offering free content such as an e-book or fact sheet, to a free service such as a product trial or personal consultation.

Increase your SEO

By researching the keywords, topics and categories people are looking for when they search for a company like yours, you can strategically signpost prospective customers to your site. Placing carefully selected keywords into your blog posts will positively impact your search engine ranking. Once the blog section of your company website is established, it will provide many pages of content that feature these keywords, thereby further cementing your online presence.

Google and other search engines love to see new content consistently being added to sites. They see regular updating of content as a cue that they should be checking in frequently to see what new content is surfacing on your site. This will boost your business’s position in search results.

Keep On Giving

Once a blog post is listed on your site, it remains there for weeks, months, years to come. Your posts will continue to attract traffic and generate leads for you. The more relevant yet timeless your blog posts are, the longer they will continue to be useful for SEO over time. On average, compounding blog posts make up 10% of all blog posts and generate 38% of overall traffic – a significant amount. It is therefore important not to neglect your older content. Make sure that previous posts are refreshed with up-to-date information if needed, and that relevant keywords are present.

Increase leads

Research shows that business-to-business (B2B) marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not. As we already mentioned, blogging increases the number of pages on your website. According to Hubspot, businesses with 401-1000 pages of content get 6x more leads than those with 51-100. The more pages a site has, the more leads it generates.

Set the tone

Blogging also provides an opportunity for businesses to establish themselves as experts in their field. If a prospective customer finds informative content on your site, it helps to build trust and demonstrates to potential clients that you know your industry. A positive learning experience will also help your business to stick in users minds, and will help to further increase your likability and the awareness of your brand.

Blogs can also be an excellent way of humanising your brand by showing a more personal side. They can provide a unique opportunity to set the tone and ‘voice’ of your company. This voice can then be made louder when existing or prospective clients share your blog’s interesting and relevant content on their own social media pages, which helps to widen the impact of the content further.

Convinced you need a blog but don’t know where to start? Air Social provides a blog writing service that can help you meet the goals of your content marketing strategy.

We’d be happy to discuss how we can help! Get in touch with us here.