Are you running a business and are looking for a way to increase the presence of your small business online? You might wanna rethink and start investing your time in blogging. In this article, we will see how companies can grow with the help of blogging for business and how it can help owners drive more sales.
It has been quite some time since blogging made its place in the marketing world. But it does not mean that blogging and content creation has lost its essence and effectiveness.
You, as a business owner, can turn around how people see your brand and how often people buy your products with merely blogging regularly.
In today’s competition, it is not easy to make your business or brand stand out from the crowd in the digital ecosystem. If you want to increase your business, you need to make a well-established presence on the internet as well.
When it comes to building your brand’s online presence, there are many ways with which you can do it. But which technique will work for you will entirely depend on the industry you are working in.
For example, a travel agency can yield more from social media marketing. On the other hand, an accountancy firm can build their business more effectively with knowledge sharing using videos and running ads on targeted keywords.
But there is a way which has proved to benefit almost every niche out there. I am sure you too can work with this technique and boost conversions and engagement for your website.
The method I am talking about is Blogging. Many small businesses do not value the importance of blogging and how a blog on your website can help you boost more sales on your website.
Blogging For Business Growth
Blogging for business is one of the most effective ways to grow business online and build visibility in your domain and niche. By publishing useful and entertaining content consistently, you start to build an audience around your blog, which in turn can be your leads and potential customers.
There are many other benefits of blogging as well, which we will be discussing in detail. But the most significant benefit which you get from blogging for business is increased conversions and more sales.
You might get surprised by the fact that 61% of the buyers in the US made their purchase based on a blog they read of the product. Yes, the percentage is that high!
Also, other statistics say that companies with a blog page enjoy 97% more inbound links than competitors who do not have a blog page.
If you too want to get ahead of your competition, you need to set up a blog page for your business right now if not already done.
Setting up a blog page is not that difficult. In fact, if you are running a WordPress website, setting up a blog page is like a cakewalk. Here’s how.
In the world where every company has a blog page and is blogging, you need to make sure that your content and the blog is impeccable. You need to understand that a blog is simply not a page on your website. In fact, it is the place on your website, which will be bringing in a significant amount of traffic.
If this vital part of your business website looks bland, it will not serve the purpose it is built for.
How to make your Company’s Blog Page More Effective?
There are many ways with which you can customize your website or the blog page. If you know how to code, then I am sure you already know your way around making your site look better and customize it. If you are not a tech-savvy coder, then creating a custom blog page can be a challenge.
This tedious task of creating a new and custom blog page is made easy with the Blog Designer Plugin. You can use this plugin to customize your WordPress websites blog and add multiple blog pages easily and that too, without any coding help.
There are many other customizations options that you get, which allows you to customize the blog page as you want. A good looking and well-designed blog page is the first step to driving sales from a blog. If your blog page does not look good, you will have a hard time attracting and retaining readers on your blog.
So, the first thing you might wanna do in the direction of driving sales from your blog is settings up a good looking blog page which as I said earlier, can be done easily with the Blog Designer plugin.
How does Blogging for Business helps In Driving Sales?
Now we will take a look at how an attractive and active blog page helps businesses in building a better user base and drive more sales.
1. Boosts Search Engine Optimization
One thing that all search engines want is providing useful content to readers. Blogging is one of the best ways to provide useful content and feed them to the search engines.
When you blog regularly, you give Google content, which is fresh and updated to index and rank for related search keywords. These searches help to bring in more traffic as well as it allows us to add more related keywords and target a larger user base.
Also, one of the most important factors of SEO is keyword optimization. A normal store does not have that many pages, and this restricts the users from adding more related keywords. A blog allows us to list all the targeted keywords which need to go there. You can write posts around the niche and can cover up those keywords as well. This will also help the website in appearing in more SERPs or Search Engine Page Results.
Not just for search engine optimization, if you start writing blogs which are actually helpful to the users, you might even start getting backlinks from other blogs which found your content worthy and added linked it in their blog. This will definitely help in boosting the search engine optimization and helps in building the authority of the website as well.
2. Develop Relationships with Customers
Building better relations with existing and new customers is a vital part of boosting conversions rates and building ongoing customers. Blogging for business is a great way to build a relationship with existing customers and boost your influence on potential customers.
A study tells us that 77% of the users in the US read blogs, and 23% of the engagement on the whole internet is seen only on blogs or social media. You cannot miss out on such a huge user base if you want to expand your influence in the niche.
Blogging is far better than traditional marketing as it does not tells or asks the users to buy something. Rather it explains to them how it can help them. And why they need that service or product and how it can add value to their processes.
Business blogging helps brands and businesses build authority by providing quality content. This can be useful to the users and also offers valuable insights on important niche or industry topics. This also helps in establishing your business as a knowledgeable and experienced identity in the industry you are working in.
It does take time to become an authority or a knowledgeable identity in your domain, but the payoff for the same can be significant. For becoming a trustworthy authority on your blog, you need to publish more useful and reliable content which keeps on bringing back the users for more.
3. Drives Traffic to your Website
There is no doubt that every website owner wants more targeted traffic on their websites. We all are looking for ways to bring in more traffic, which in turn helps the business by turning into leads.
There are paid strategies as well, which helps in bringing in more traffic to the blog. One of the best marketing strategies in any industry is starting a blog. Once you have a blog that is actually helpful to the users and is stuffed with keywords that most people are looking for, you will see the traffic coming to your blog.
Once you have enough blogs up and running, which can cover a wide range of keywords. You can actually see how well your blogging initiatives are doing with the help of Google Analytics. A tool which helps you see how well your website is doing in terms of users, clicks, traffic, etc.
Every time you publish a new article, you will give Google more options to send the traffic on your website and for different keywords. You will then not be limited to a handful of keywords. Rather, you can target more keywords with better search visibility to search engines as per requirements.
The power of blogging is not limited to search results to increase traffic. When you create a new and useful blog worth sharing, it can help you get traffic from social media as well. The more useful the content is, the more shares you will get for the blog post by the users who think it might be helpful to others who might find it useful.
When it comes to traffic from a blog, it is not a good practice to assume that all of the blog posts will start pouring you in with traffic. Some statistics claim that only one or two blog posts are good and helpful in bringing you traffic from the websites, but it does not mean that others should be trashed. They too build authority and does come of help in the longer run.
To generate more from analytics, you need to monitor analytics. You can do it with the tool I mentioned earlier and see which posts are actually working. You also need to update the blogs, which require time to time auditing and optimization for better search results pages ranking.
Related Read: 25 Ways To Promote Your Blog For Free (Increase Traffic Fast!)
4. Blogging for Business Influence Conversions
Another great benefit of doing blogging for business is that it helps in generating leads. This sole task of creating engaging content on your website via a blog can do a lot for your business.
The useful and engaging content you have on your blog will ensure that you get more and more visitors. This will help you in getting the step one done. Which is generating traffic to turn them into leads.
Once you have the traffic, you can pitch in CTA, popups, and other campaigns to make them your customers. I know to convert customers into leads and then into customers is not an easy task. But with blogging, you do not have to worry a lot about getting traffic. You will already be getting the targeted traffic to your website. You just need to see how you can turn this traffic into leads. This can easily be done by implementing CTAs and adding campaigns to your website.
To turn your leads into your customers, you need to first understand your customers. You need to see and know what they want to read and learn.
Your blogs should be something that they are interested in knowing and not what you want them to learn and read. The focus of your blog should be something that helps the users in learning and growing.
Consider and think of what your readers are looking for and what is important to your audience to understand before they can convert.
Knowing your audience will also help you in structuring the content and tone of your blog. For instance, you are trying to promote a product which is pretty technical for the targeted audience which is not that tech-savvy. There you need to device a content strategy that helps even a layman understand what you are trying to explain.
5. Provide Value to Readers
One important thing to keep mentioning is that your blog should not be about you. Rather, it should be what your readers want it to be, and this can easily be achieved by answering the question, “what my reader wants to read?”.
Your blog should be the answer to the question that your readers have. You can do this by writing and publishing how-to blogs, tips and tricks, product updates, news stories, case studies, and even interviews with industry leaders.
Moreover, it is not necessary that you write blogs only. If you find that your readers are interested in listening to podcasts, then you can start doing those as well. Further, you can publish the transcript of the podcasts as blogs.
When you provide valuable and useful information to your users for free, you are actually helping your brand by building a loyal reader base. They can later become your customers when it comes to choosing between you and your competitor’s product. You can even start doing testimonials posts to push those users who are considering to make a purchase.
Make sure that your blogs are not simply product promotions and pitches. You need to craft your blog as a problem solution to the users and not as another opportunity to promote. If your blogs are going to be just pitches and promotions listing your features, don’t even bother starting a blog. Readers won’t be coming and staying on your blog.
Be honest when you mean that your blog is for our readers and not for your own personal motives. Remember, when you are helping others via your blog, you are in turn helping your business by building trust, loyalty for the users.
You can promote your products on your blogs but make sure you are subtly doing this. All of your blogs should not be about your products. Rather, try to keep a ratio between your promotional blogs and the blogs which offer valuable content to your readers.
Key Points to Keep in mind while Blogging for Business
Blogging is one thing, and blogging efficiently is a totally different thing. Starting a blog will definitely help you, but if you do not know how to drive sales and make it conversion-oriented, then it will be a lot difficult for you.
You need to understand what makes a blog efficient and what makes it worth the time of your reader. Also, since you will be starting off your blog, you need to understand how to make your blog engaging enough.
In this section, we will see the crucial things that make a blog interesting and engaging for the targeted audience.
6. Be Consistent
Being consistent is one of the most important things that you need to take care of while blogging for business. If you are not consistent, it might be difficult for your readers to keep a track on when your next blog is going to come out.
Also, consistency helps you keep a track as well. Your readers will know when your next blog is coming out. You will also know when to publish the next blog post.
7. Work On Quality
The prime focus of your blog should be to publish high-quality blog posts. The quality of your blogs will determine how your blogging initiative turns out. If you plan on publishing mediocre content, then you do not need to waste your time here. It will be lost in the giant pool of blogs trying to rank on SERPs.
Focus on quality. Ask yourself why the user will be willing to read the piece of content you are publishing. How is that going to be of their use? If it carries all the facts and information, it needs to? Is there anything you can do to improve the blog?
Give your blog a read a couple of times before you publish it. This will answer the question, what all is missing from your blog and how you can improve that.
8. Promotion is Equally Important
Publishing the blog post is not the final step. In fact, you need to do a lot more than that to attract readers to your blog. You can promote your blogs on social media on your facebook page. You can even share it across community and groups with common interests on Facebook and similar platforms.
Moreover, you can do paid advertisements for your blogs as well. But it is advisable that you go with no paid advertisements in the beginning. Moreover, you can promote your blogs on social media, forums, other blogs, etc. without having to pay a single penny.
Once you start getting returning customers, it is not a sign that you can stop promoting your blogs. Instead, continue promoting your blogs. You might have to return customers, but this must not stop you from getting more customers. Always keep promoting.
9. Make your Content Engaging
Another good practice that every blog must follow is making their content engaging enough to make the reader stay.
You should add media such as images, videos, infographics, and other forms of media that can grab the viewer’s interest and attention. These parts of the blog are equally crucial as of the content. If your blog is all text, chances are that it will bore out the reader soon.
You can even use pull quotes, bold, italic texts to make the focus points pop out. It is not just that you need to use the images, graphics, etc. You can repurpose your content into other forms as well. Forms like video, audio, infographics, etc. so that you can use that data in further reaching out to other platforms as well.
Winding It up!
Now since you know how important a blog page can be for a business. I am sure you can’t wait and start a blog and leverage the power of blogging for business. You can start with elementary blog topics and then later move on to more detailed and advanced topics.
Setting up a good looking blog page, as I mentioned, is now super easy with the Blog Designer plugin. You can get the plugin from the WordPress repository totally free, and if you ever wish to extend the plugin, you can easily do it with the Pro version of Blog Designer Plugin.
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