Blogging is something many business owners don’t pay attention to but it’s essential for bringing in traffic, some would even say it’s critical.

If you’re thinking about blogging you’ll have to put some thought into it. Think about it would anyone want to read this? Would you want to read this? Nobody wants to ready bland content. Don’t be lazy, this will lead to ineffective blogging.

So what does a good blog consist of? Publishing informative, well-written articles that are well thought out. Keep your customer engagement in mind!

Blogging helps to:

• Draw online traffic.

• Nuture and convert customers.

• Keep curent customers engaged with your brand

• Makes your business more unique

• Grow interest and demand in your products and/or services

1.  Increase the Traffic to your website

Companies that sell B2C and B2B get benefits from blogging. If your blogging well you’ll start to see a traffic increase. Just keep giving your customers engaging well written content. The more frequently the better! According to Hubspot companies that blog frequently compared to companies that don’t blog or do a very little bit will see major benefits.

The obvious impact of this is the more people who visit your website the more potential for reservations/bookings, more submissions to your contact form, and more potential client inquiries.
More traffic is good for any business, as long as those visitors are likely to convert into a customer. Make sure you’re creating content that speaks to your audience and their pain points. Headlines need to be titles to properly describe your content. Don’t go for click baiting customers, you’ll see a bigger spike in traffic but also in bounce rate.

2. Attracting New Visitors

Are you thinking you don’t have time for a blog? If that’s the case what do you have time for?

If you put yourself in the consumers shoes what do you do before purchasing a product? Research. You probably use Google or a similar search engine to research every kind of purchase or buying decision, big or small. If you stumble onto a blog about what you’re looking for this can sway your opinion and ultimately play a big factor in where or whom you purchas from.

Creating a good blogging strategy will indeed take time out of your day but its going to be worth it. Customers want to read and digest rich content. An imformative blog allows your potential customers to research a solution on their own time and contact you when they’re ready to.  Some good examples are:

• A tax consultant’s business could benefit from the predictable and considerable upturn in tax-related searches at certain times during the year and provide keyword optimized tax advice

• A small clothing boutique can post weekly or even monthly about the style of the week or what they predict will be in style. 

• A home contractor could write about home improvement tips and feature before and after pictures of work they’ve completed along with descriptions of the project to entice customers.

Creating your blog with SEO best practices in mind from the beginning and be careful about promotion. This will make sure that your blog acts as a full time tool for gaining customers and potentially brining in new leads.

Make sure every time you blog it inspires action of some kind., depending on your business wants and needs.

3. More Content, More Keywords

The more you blog the more pages your website will have. Each post counts as a indexable page. Google likes to see healthy websites growing. Why? Because it means, usually, the website will have more content and keep the user engaged. Another good reason to have lots of pages is that you can start to target specific keywords for each page, in-turn gaining you more “real-estate” on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Some factors when ranking on goolge are; how many visitors are visiting that page, how long do they stay, are they sharing the content. If you’re able to produce well written, relevant and useful content while plugging in the keywords you want, you’ll start to rank and get more traffic from search engines.

4. Tell People What You’re About

Your blog can also be a dynamic and very attractive portfolio. If your company relies on proof of past work, a blog can be important to have. It’s an easy way to show potential clients what kinds of results they can expect. Some examples of these business type:

• Home Contractors

• Personal Trainers

• Graphic Designers

• Health and Beauty salons

With a simple blog and some good pictures you’ll be starting to build your portfolio in no time. 

Think about it this way. If you can publish a well written post on facebook you can publish a blog on WordPress. If you need help, there’s no place better to look for advice than google itself. There is so much free advice out there for the taking, as long as you’re ready to learn.

5. Your Business Will Continue to Get Results Long After Your Post

Months, even years after a blog post goes live, it can continue to gain new leads and customers which help you increase sales. 
Three quarters or more of blog views are for old posts says Hubspot. What’s even better is that most of those old posts collect 90% of their leads.
It’s still important to keep creating new content but old posts can remain relevant to your readers for a long time. Next time you’re researching or reading a blog check the date it was posted!
The longer a blog is out there, the more people will see it. Older blog posts gain authority/ranking over time and bring in a good amount of organic targeted traffic.