It's no secret that content is king when it comes to performing well in SEO. But, many people start a blog to boost their site rankings without understanding why it's such an effective tool.
You can't blog just to blog; it's not enough to post a new article you've written if you haven't optimized it. You have to learn how to create a fully-optimized article if you want to reap all the benefits of blogging. That's when your efforts will really start to pay off.
If you're still wondering what blogging can do for your business, keep reading. Here are 8 things that happen when you write interesting blogs on a regular basis.
1. You Stay Relevant
Blogging establishes an ongoing conversation with users. It takes your marketing and branding strategy and makes it much more personal.
A blog is an incredible platform for establishing your brand's voice and making it mean something to readers. It's your chance to talk about important things going on in your industry and to take command of the dialogue you have with your audience. The more you write, the easier it is to stay fresh in people's minds.
This may not sound like a huge accomplishment, but it matters. Relevancy is key to establishing a strong brand identity among competitors and creating brand loyalty with every single customer you have.
2. Create Lasting Connections
Brand loyalty can't happen if you're not focused on making connections. Blogging helps bridge the gap between your products and services and who you really are. It reminds users of the team behind the business, which makes everything you do much more relatable.
From there, amazing things occur. When a user sees your brand as more of a friend than a business, they're more likely to get excited when making a purchase or reading a new post. This means they start telling their friends about your brand and using more of your products, which creates a spike in sales for you.
3. Bring Value to Users
Keep in mind that people don't buy things just to spend money. No matter the industry you operate in, what your consumers are really looking for is value.
Why not give them free, easily accessible value? That's what blogging does. It provides users with the information they need, even if they weren't aware they needed it.
This goes for construction companies that write about roof maintenance, hotels that blog about travel tips, and software services that write about IT challenges and solutions. What seems like common knowledge to you may be the information your audience is trying to find. Write about it in a blog, and you've not only able to answer their question, but introduce your brand.
4. Answer Commonly Asked Questions
Some businesses take a shortcut when addressing common knowledge. They create one FAQs page on their website, without realizing each question on that page can be turned into a blog post.
Writing blogs about the questions your business hears all the time is very powerful. It allows you to elaborate on a subject and fully educate your audience. More so, it can save time in customer service conversations because you're able to empower users to resolve many of their concerns with the information provided.
From a digital strategy standpoint, answering the "simple" questions means you have more content to use. When you're not sure what to blog about next, turn to the challenges you see many users experiencing and help them out.
5. Establish Authority
Another benefit of blogging is that it sets you apart from the competition. This isn't just in terms of high SERP rankings and boosting traffic. Every blog you write creates authority in your market.
It tells users you're the go-to person for important information. Whenever there's an industry update or a new trend happening in the market, more and more people are going to look to you for guidance.
This applies to everything. Fashion bloggers see such results as the seasons change and people want to know what's "in." Law firms with a blog can expect this if new policies affect their practices or a big case catches publicity on the news. Even restaurants are able to establish authority as cooking styles progress and palates change.
Whatever kind of business you have, stop focusing so much on out-selling your competition. Instead, try to one-up them by blogging about the next big thing first and watch how your online traffic and sales start to naturally increase.
6. Support Your Overall Site Performance
Take a second to think about traffic for a moment. Are you ranking well on SERP's but still having trouble with a high amount of bounce rates? Do you have trouble keeping users engaged on your site and creating repeat visits?
Blogging can help. Writing interesting blogs keeps users coming back. More so, it creates a connection right off the bat, which can help lower your bounce rates.
The interaction you see with your blog posts can shed light on other aspects of your website. By tracking user behavior, you may find opportunities to improve the performance of your product page or contact page. It's all connected, you just have to pay attention to what's happening on your website and adjust accordingly.
7. Provide Evergreen, Recyclable Content
As you start writing more and more blogs, you end up with a large collection of content. A lot of your old posts are then able to be recycled into new, fresh pieces of information.
An evergreen post is something that was published last year but stays relevant as time goes on. You can feature it in your weekly email blast or talk about it in one of this month's social media posts.
8. Encourage Conversions
The final reason to start a blog is to boost sales. There's no guarantee that you'll raise conversion rates with every blog post you write. But, your chances of reaching more consumers and persuading them to buy something does rise significantly when you blog.
This is when all the pieces of the puzzle come together; it's the big-picture reason to start a blog. By creating a conversation with users and establishing yourself as an authority in the market, you're getting them to trust you. Then, when they realize the value you're already providing through your blog, they become curious about what your products and services can offer.
As such, blogging makes the entire buying process feel much more natural. It takes users from recognizing a need to confirming interest with ease.
Discover the Benefits of Blogging for Yourself
It's one thing to read about the benefits of blogging and another to realize what blogging can really do. Stop debating whether it's time to start a blog or not and start writing your first post now!
If you're not sure you know how to manage your blog or optimize a post, you've come to the right place. For help with your content creation process, click here.
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