Blogging for Business Owners
As a business owner, if you find yourself a little clueless about what exactly is blogging let alone the benefits of blogging, there’s nothing to fear. You are at the right place!
43% of business owners say they don’t know what blogging is or don’t actively blog for their business. In this age of online marketing, these businesses are likely missing out on more customers and sales.
Spoiler alert! – 55% out of the ones that do, use it as their #1 inbound marketing strategy and say they have benefited from it.
A blog is a compilation of thoughts, facts, and expert opinions relating to the business, industry or its audience. It is a written piece of information that lives online and can be accessed by anyone who visits that company’s website.
By opening different avenues for information gathering, this has made companies rethink and often reconfigure their inbound marketing strategy.
Many companies now practice a strategy where consumers come to them for information rather than them pushing sales via outbound strategies to spread awareness about their products.
This, in our opinion, is one of the biggest benefits of blogging. The change in how companies do business.
But there are 11 other amazing benefits of blogging that we wanted to share with you. And we think as a smart business owner you should know these when it comes to blogging for your customers.
The first benefit is that it establishes your business as an authority in your industry. By providing information about your products and services you are allowing people the opportunity to hear from you, providing information when they are looking to fulfill a need or solve a problem. This in return, builds trust with the consumer. By providing value when a consumer is in need will in turn result in sales. A reader that reads your blog is building a relationship with you on their own terms.
The second benefit of blogging is to create value for your customers. You want to provide a better customer experience than your competitors. We cannot stress the importance of this enough.
Blogging without thinking about adding value to customer experience is like going on a trek without shoes on. It’s pointless because you are going to get hurt.
With blogging, you’re giving your customers something for free before they make a purchase. In hopes that free information will lead them in choosing to make a purchase on their own.
Some things you could share would be a helpful checklist, ideas, recipes and so on.
The more your potential customers can get from you for free, the more loyal they will be when they become customers. Educating first before selling is always a good tactic!
The third benefit SEO. Websites of small businesses that blog regularly rank 434% better than those websites that don’t. By using keywords and quality backlinks in your blog posts will assist your website to rank higher. Remember that SEO is a long term investment.
One of the ways is to write blog posts around keywords that your customers search for. This is a great way to make sure you’re publishing relevant content. And when the search engine algorithms come crawling, they find your blog to have used the popular keyword multiple times. Due to its relevance, they determine to rank your business higher on the search results page.
There is a lot of on page and off page optimization that goes into this but this is one of the big benefits of blogging for business owners.
Fourth benefit is email collection. By asking prospective clients to subscribe to your blogs, allows customers the opportunity to be reached with promotions, specials that you have to offer. It is a fantastic funnel tool that is cost effective, and the more touch points with a customer the more likely of a conversion to a sale.
To subscribe to our blog go to: https://www.shopbayofquinte.ca/shopbayofquinte/?listing.action=contact
The fifth benefit is generating demand. By showcasing your new products and services , you are creating an urgency, a demand or an interest in your products and services.
The sixth benefit lead conversion. In the most simple terms, there are three stages of capturing a customer to your business.
- The Awareness Stage
- The Consideration Stage
- The Decision Stage
The benefits of blogging can be extended across all three. And it is even more important to understand that all three stages play an equal assertive role in converting a customer.
For example, checklists and tips in a blog post can help attract a new customer and get him or her interested in your products or services.
Additionally, “how-to” topics can be convert customers in the consideration stage that might need a little push and a little more info about a product.
And finally, testimonial marketing can help a customer in the decision stage who may need social proof before purchasing from you. Blogging is an important element of the lead conversion process.
Seventh benefit is exposure and availability. Sometimes businesses feel that their money is better spent on other components of their business. Advertising in business is a must. Digital marketing is also a must in 2019. Social media is a must and but it cannot be the only way to funnel prospective clients to your business. By far, blogging and email marketing are two of the absolute best ways to market in a cost effective manner with a higher ROI.
Eighth benefit is feedback. Blogging allows your potential customers the opportunity to provide feedback, leave comments and directly speak with you. By providing this opportunity for feedback, it allows clients/customers to tell their stories. It is a great way to generate interest.
Our final thought and the ninth benefit is about staying ahead of your competition. If your peers within your industry are blogging regularly, they are talking to customers that could be coming to you. Providing a different view, another perspective gives the consumer the opportunity to decide which business they would like to purchase from or work with.
We have witnessed first hand the power of blogging. And if the written word is something that you are not comfortable with another option is vlogging, Vlogging is a fantastic option, but ensure that the medium you use for vlogging is sharable in all platforms. Don’t limit yourself to one platform and you will have a great new way to share your business.
Add your business today to www.shopbayofquinte.ca so that you can share your blog on our site as well.
