Blogs are often considered a waste of time by those that don't understand the importance of having one. They see taking 20-60 minutes of your day writing to be a complete waste of time. It is true that when you first start writing a blog the only people reading it is your very close inner circle. Over time that changes and that change have profound effects on the growth of your business in more ways than you can imagine. Let's look at the top ten ways a blog will help your business grow.
- Consistency – The internet loves consistency. Most website content is static in nature and doesn't change. When you list your products and services they may change annually but not on a monthly or more frequent basis. A blog should come out at least once per month and ideally more often. Twice a month is awesome and once a week is the holy grail of blogging. The more consistent you are the more rewarded the internet will reward you.
- Marketing – A way of getting your person or company out there is to market yourself. If you don't write and are never heard no one will ever know you exist. You need to be out with your intended audience and get your name out there. This could be for yourself, the company you are working for, or even both.
- Expertise or Authority – It is always good to show that you are the expert in your field. To do that you need to get out there. To get out there you will need to take that 20-60 minutes of time to get out there. Yes, you could share other articles and say you are the expert but that would be like going to a library and handing someone a book and saying I am an expert because I could find you this great book. If, on the other hand, you write a book and hand it to someone you are truly showing your expertise to them.
- Educating – Part of being any good "expert" is the willingness to help and educate those around you. A blog should inform, educate, and help your reader learn something they don't already know. If they already know everything you've written which could be the case hopefully you've let them know the importance of what you're talking about and they take it and run with that knowledge.
- New customers and making existing customers sticky – We all create websites to gain new customers by attracting them to our website, convert them, close them, and continue to delight them. By writing on a wide variety of topics within your industry you will bring people in and help answer the questions they have. This can be for both new and existing customers.
- Trust & Influence – As you continue to blog you are building trust with your audience. This trust turns you into a leader in your industry. By being a leader and someone that is trusted you start to become an influencer in the lives of those you are talking with. This is the start of increasing your revenue stream and the growth of your brand.
- Sales Funnel – Whether you intend to write just to educate or not part of the reason for a blog is to bring people into your sales funnel. It typically takes more than one touch to make a sale. Often it takes dozens, sometimes hundreds, of touches just to gain a new customer. If it takes a dozen touches and you blog once per month and each month is considered a touch you will convert a reader once per year. When you write more consistently you increase the chance for more touches which shortens the sales process.
- Traffic – As you've already read with consistency and answer questions people will want to read your blog articles. These articles also bring people in which increases the amount of traffic that is happening on your website. With more traffic more, people will learn about the products and services that you are offering.
- Evergreen – Blogging is a unique topic in that most are written that are not date or time sensitive. They are written to last the test of time or evergreen. Evergreen content makes no mention to dates, times, or places. Evergreen content is pure raw facts which can also mean they are shorter and more concise. This makes writing simpler as you won't be writing a virtual book but a bunch of short stories to bring people into your world.
- Your own education – The more you blog the more you learn. I strive every day to learn something new and by writing blogs I become smarter every day because of it. I get time to research subjects I don't already know and reestablish on the subjects I already know but gain a deeper insight into them.
- Meet new people – The more you blog the more people you will meet; online and offline. It is very true that many businesses succeed based on the people they know in their network. The more you write and influence others the larger your internal circle will grow.
- Search Engine Optimization or SEO – This is our favorite reason and one of the biggest reasons why you should blog. So why did we save it for last then? The simple answer is if you read this far it's time to give you the ultimate reason. Blogging will help your organic SEO. This means those using search engines will be able to find you organically (e.g. free).
Blogs are important to business and if you've noticed anything from the above you will notice that having a blog has many benefits but it is not about you. It is about informing and educating for free. You are giving a piece of knowledge that will one day lead to you becoming an industry insider and someone others will look up to. This writing will allow you to move up in the search engines for free, and will ultimately lead to more customers. A blog is not a magic bullet to instant success. It takes years of commitment that will pay off dividends to the search engines and getting your name out there.