Behold the power of a blog!

To blog or not to blog? If you want to consistently bring new traffic to your website, increase customer trust and showcase your expertise all while creating content that’s easy to share (and educational for your audience) then blogging is a great tactic for your business.

Blogs bring the web traffic

Blogging brings additional visitors to your website in a few different ways. Generally speaking, blogging can increase your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) which means more people find you online and land on your website. Here’s how that works:

Quantity

Every post on your blog creates a new web page that will be indexed by a search engine. That means, you get better search SEO. Search engines love sites with more content. Blogging bulks up your website with content. Just make sure you have something legitimate to say. Nothing is worse than the bait-and-switch when readers are sucked in by a catchy heading only to find the article has nothing to do with the topic that was promised.

Quality

Quantity of content will help boost your SEO, but quality matters too. Every post gives you the opportunity to use industry keywords that help get you found in a search. Make your posts easy to digest by breaking content up with headings and subheadings. Give your readers examples, lists, additional links–information that will solve a problem or pain point for them. Think of frequently asked questions you hear from your clients or customers and turn those into blog posts with relevant solutions and information.

Links

Blogs provide an opportunity to link back and forth both internally (pages on your site) and externally (pages on other sites). Using links to other websites gives your site credibility and increases SEO. It also shows your readers that you are looking out for their best interest and that you’re not afraid to share content across channels and promote other topics and experts in your industry as well.

Blogs offer a lot more than just increased web traffic

Blogs help you gain trust by showing expertise

A blog gives you a platform to showcase your knowledge about your industry and dive into issues that aren’t already covered on your site. And unlike social media channels, a blog gives you more room to talk in-depth about a topic or showcase multiple ideas and examples. Your blog should showcase your expertise and communicate that you’re keeping up with your industry.

Blogs are engaging

Like social media, blogs are also about conversation. Your posts should allow readers an outlet to leave comments and valuable feedback. Furthermore, blogs are highly shareable. You can share your own blog content on social media channels, and others can easily do the same. In fact, when your blog posts are shared across multiple social media sites, it gives you information on the types of content your audience enjoys and finds valuable. Use that information to write additional posts within those topic areas.

Blogs takes time

Blogging isn’t easy; it’s a commitment and it takes time. However, making a blog part of your overall content marketing strategy has a lot of benefits. You can blog your way to a better business.

We have clients who consistently see their blogs being the “top pageviews” on their websites each month, correlating to the clients’ business goals of being deemed experts in their industries and establishing trust with their clients and potential clients. Blogging has helped our clients grow brand awareness and ultimately, gain new business.

Why not start a business blog in 2014? Contact us for help getting started check out our tips on creating content calendars to keep everything together. Start slowly and build up as you’re able to. Robust blogs don’t happen over night, but their rewards are great if you keep at it and work on your plan for the coming year. Good luck!