The benefits of blogging for your business

UPDATED JANUARY 7, 2024

Wondering about blogging?

“You should have a blog,” they say.

“It will be great,” they say.

“All the big, successful businesses have blogs.”

But you’ve never really understood what a blog is, why you would need one or how you would use it. And if you don’t understand any of that, you probably don’t understand how valuable it could be for your business either.

So allow me to enlighten you!

What is a blog and how does it work?

A blog is a section of your website that contains a selection of articles.

These articles are written for your audience: the people you want to work with/sell to. And they’re designed to give these people information they’re searching for online and bring them to your website.

An example of how blogging works

Let’s say you’re a greengrocer selling local, seasonal produce.

Your ideal customers are searching for What vegetables are in season in January?

So you write a blog article called ‘What vegetables are in season in January?’ In the article, you could answer their question with leeks, parsnips and swedes.

Leeks-on-white-background — ^{Image by Elena Escagedo from Pixabay}

You could then inspire them with some ideas/recipes using those vegetables, like a hearty leek and potato soup to warm you up on a cold day. Or a smooth parsnip mash blended with butter and black pepper, which is a perfect accompaniment to slow-cooked lamb.

You’d finish the article by explaining why your vegetables are the best. Let’s say that’s because of where they’re grown, the environmental conditions and the quality of the soil. And that this gives them a superior taste and texture.

Then you tell your audience where to buy them — and, hey presto, you get customers!

You can read more about this in my article: How does blogging work for your business >>

10 reasons to start blogging

1. Blogging adds value to your website

Your website should be a selling powerhouse for your business. Its messages should be slick, streamlined and primed for conversions.

But adding too much detail on your main web pages can muddy your sales message and limit your potential. This is where a blog comes in.

A blog is a bit like an overflow. It’s a place where you can add more value for your audience by showcasing all the knowledge and expertise you bring that doesn’t belong on the main pages.

2. Blogging builds your expertise and authority

Google favours websites that demonstrate the expertise and authority of the business. The right sort of blog content can help you build both.

Expertise

Creating content that’s relevant for your business and your audience, allows you to show off your expertise. This is the knowledge and experience of your industry your audience wants and expects to see.

Authority

When your expertise is acknowledged and referenced by others, in the form of backlinks and social sharing, you start to build authority.

Posts that will help you to build your authority will be those that, when compared to the best comparable articles, are more:

Original, informative and valuable
Authoritative, insightful and analytical
Substantial, comprehensive and complete.

The higher the authority of your website, the better your ranking potential and the greater your website’s chances of climbing up Google’s results pages.

3. Blogging improves your SEO

Each new article you publish adds more value to your website, giving you more opportunities to rank for more keywords and attract your ideal customers.

Continually updating your website with fresh, original content shows Google your site is active and has new pages or content to be indexed. This gives Google a reason to crawl your site and reindex the new content. It’s this continual reindexing of your site and its content that helps to improve or maintain your ranking.

4. Blogging shows you’re current

Your blog will allow you to jump on the latest trends and talk about current issues, events and changes in your industry. This will show potential customers and collaborators you have your finger on the pulse and move with the times.

Such articles may cover:

Latest styles and trends
New technology and innovations
Changes to policy or legislation
Forthcoming events or events you have attended.

5. Blogging helps you engage your target market

Your blog is a valuable tool for engaging with your target audience. And when used in conjunction with your social media or email list, it can also be interactive.

Every time you put something out there, your followers will be reading it, leaving comments and asking questions.

This will give you a great opportunity to:

Test ideas for new products or services
Discover what your ideal customers really want
Gain valuable feedback and make improvements
Find out where your current communications could be improved
See what your ideal customers want to know and create new content for them.

For example, if a particular question is being asked frequently, you could make sure there is an answer on your website.

6. Blogging drives visitors to your website

As I mentioned in point 3, blogging is a good way to get your website ranking for more keywords. The wider the range of relevant keywords you have on your website, the more chances you have to attract your ideal customers.

Blogging can also help draw traffic to a new website. As a new website can take 6 months or longer to start showing up in the search results, promoting it is vital.

But, if your social media posts are all just links to your website, you won’t get many followers or reach.

Blogging drives traffic to your website by offering something new and valuable your audience won’t have seen from you before. And each article gives you something worthwhile and original to post on social media, too.

By promoting your content on social media, you open it up to a wider audience through reactions, comments and shares/reposts.

7. Blogging converts website visitors into leads

With every blog article you write, you have a chance to generate new leads for your business.

Not everyone who’s reading your article will be ready to buy straight away, but they might be open to reading another article, signing up for your mailing list or taking up a free offer, such as a free download or free trial.

At the end of each article, you should add an appropriate call to action that will encourage a reader to engage with you further — or buy if you think they might be ready.

Depending on the article content, your call to action might be:

Links to other articles that might be of interest
A sign-up box for your mailing list
A sign-up for a free offer or discount
A link to a landing page/sales page on your website.

8. Blogging helps you get to know your audience

Continually creating and publishing content can be a valuable learning experience.

Monitoring your results can tell you which articles are:

Attracting the most readers (post views)
Keeping those readers engaged (time on page)
Prompting readers to read more (GA4 Path Exploration)
Attracting social media engagement (reactions, comments)
Being shared on social media (shares/reposts)
Being shared on/cited by other websites (backlinks)
Converting into leads, subscribers and sales (GA4 Conversions)

Understanding what you’re doing right and wrong will help you to continually improve and refine the content you’re putting out there.

9. Blogging provides value for your audience

Understanding what your audience wants and needs to hear from you is key to making sure you’re creating content that delivers — for them and for you. Because content that satisfies their needs is, ultimately, more likely to convert them into customers.

Good content should:

Answer their questions
Help them achieve more
Guide them in decision making
Educate, entertain and inspire them
Give them the information they need.

10. Blogging promotes your business

As consumers we’re faced with advertising overload. We’re constantly exposed to ads, from the ones on our TVs, radios and other devices to the ones on our streets. But this advertising has become so prevalent that it’s become almost like background noise — easy to tune out and ignore.

Content marketing has allowed brands to offer something different to conventional advertising: value. Because when you create the content your ideal customers want to see, they’ll actively seek it out.

Promoting your business by creating content helps you:

Reach more of your target audience and ideal customers
Create genuine interest in your products or services
Provide real value rather than just sales patter
Convert and nurture warm leads.

A blog can be a valuable tool

A blog can have many benefits for your business and is a way to add real value — for your audience and your website.

But the value you get from it will depend on the value you put into it.

By this, I mean that writing a blog is an important job — one that shouldn’t just be given to a junior. The writing responsibility should be taken by someone who understands how content works and what it can do for you.

Someone who’ll: