In 2020, you can’t afford to have an online business without a blog. Learn what blogging for business can do for your brand.

One of the most beneficial things you can do for your business is to have a blog. Why blog? If you already have a website that lists your products and/or services, then the hard part is done! Now it’s time to start blogging for business.

Whether you’re selling a service or a product, there are many reasons why blogs are important for your website. Blogs open up a dialogue with your target audience, establish your brand as an authority, increase sales and build an army of loyal customers. Lucky for you, starting a business blog has never been easier!

With the potential to grow website traffic exponentially and increase sales, the benefits of blogging for business are extensive. Which means, there’s really no excuse to put it off any longer.

What does blogging hold in business today? Read on to find out!

1. A Business Blog Brings Traffic to Your Site — Including New Visitors

As a business owner, your goal is to spread the word about your company. In other words, you want to cast a wide net across the internet to reel in as many people as possible, right?

If you have an online business and you add a blog section where you publish posts consistently, you’re helping to increase your brand’s online presence. This, in turn, increases visibility online and helps bring traffic to your site.

In fact, blogging for your business brings 55% more visitors to business websites than sites that don’t have a blog section! That’s a significant increase.

But it’s not enough to just post relevant content to your target audience. If you use SEO accurately, you’ll optimize your blog content to help people find your business.

Through organic search results or social media links, the blog posts you publish are a simple, consistent way to keep a steady flow of traffic streaming to your website. Once they see that you have helpful, informative and engaging content to read, you’ll hit them with a strong call to action to lead them to your product or service.

Overall, a blog adds tremendous value to your business by boosting readership and revenue. You can add more inbound links and create a full business website to your advantage (and I’ll touch on this more below).

Don’t worry, it’s much easier than it sounds.

2. Share Your Expertise and Establish Your Brand as An Authority

With your online business, you want to look like an expert in whatever your field or niche is. Have a cupcake shop? A blog is a great resource to share your recipes. Perhaps you’re in the automotive industry? Think about some of the most common questions customers ask you and write a blog answering their questions. For example:

Question: How often should I rotate my tires?

Don’t just answer that question in a blog post, answer what happens to tires over time, the benefits of a tire rotation, what happens when customers don’t rotate their tires and conclude with a call to action that sends people to your local business.

Think of a business blog as an opportunity to share your unique expertise with the world. When you do that, people will keep coming back to you because they know they can trust your knowledge. 

You can’t simply rely on website product or service descriptions to convey the depth of your expertise. This is the precise purpose of a blog for business.

With a blog post, you adequately share why you’re an expert in your field. With different articles all revolving around your business niche, you can drive home just how knowledgeable you are. 

Readers will realize that you’re an expert, and they’ll look to you for answers. More importantly, business blogs show visitors that you can help them solve their problems — and that’s exactly what they (and you!) want. Well done!

Why else does your business need a blog? Because readers often convert into customers.

3. Business Blog Posts Turn Readers into Customers

Do blogs work for business? Absolutely. A blog on a business website helps convert views into sales! However, sales shouldn’t be your primary goal when you start blogging for business. Wait, what? Isn’t that what I’ve been advocating since you first landed on this page? Yes. However, you need to see the bigger picture, here. Simply writing bland blogs for the sake of making sales can hurt your reputation as a business. 

The goal is to write engaging, informative, and helpful blog posts about your niche so that readers trust you. Blogs help you start a conversation with your viewers, and when you chat with them, their trust often converts to sales. Instead of looking at it as blog=sales, reframe it to this:

Blog = helpful resource for target audience = credibility = brand loyalty = Sales

The undercurrent of that sequence is “sales,” but you need to be a reliable source of information to generate long-term trust and loyalty. In other words, a blog for your business is a chance to share your unique voice, brand and message, instead of simply advertising your product. When you do this, magic happens.

One study on the benefits of blogging for business found that educational content makes consumers 131% more likely to purchase from a business.

This means that after viewers read engaging, informative content on your website, they’re highly influenced to become a customer. And this illustrates why blogs are important for your website. 

Bonus: these viewers can also become followers. Make sure you make all your social media accounts easily accessible on your website (or at the bottom of your blog posts) so that viewers can follow you. Then, they’ll continue to see your content, which can help convert followers into customers! 

4. Keep Your Customers Engaged

Having a blog section on your website doesn’t just help bring in new customers — it also helps keep current customers engaged. You’re not just a business looking for one sale. You’re a brand that wants a constant, steady stream of user engagement.

Why should small businesses blog? Because when you post consistent content, you remind your customers that your brand is relevant and a meaningful part of their online life.

You know you want to continuously bring customers in, but you don’t want to constantly inundate them with marketing emails and promotional content. Otherwise, you can expect unfollows and unsubscribers.

Blogging about your business niche and current affairs gives your customers a chance to engage with your brand. 

And that’s not the only benefit of blogging for business. One of the most vital components of an online marketing strategy is to consistently share digital content. Once you publish a blog post on your business blog, you can share that content into bite-sized, informational highlights across all of your social media channels. 

For example, you are reading a blog post about why your business needs a blog, right? Well, I plan to take a few key bullet points from this blog post and share it on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Having a business blog provides you the opportunity to repurpose content and engage with your audience on social media.

Plus, posting bite-sized content has a likelihood of getting reshared. So once you hit publish on your first business blog post, don’t forget to share it on social media! Not only will your business blog bring in organic traffic, but your social media accounts will pull in traffic to your blog also! 

5. Build Your Brand and Share Your Voice

As you build your online business, you’re building a brand. Branding is the single-most crucial detail that distinguishes one business from the next. Take a look at branding in action:

When I say athletic gear, what do you think of? Any number of brands might pop up in your mind: New Balance, Fabletics, Champion, Adidas. 

Now, what happens when I say, “just do it”? 

Why did your mind instantly imagine the Nike swoosh? Because that simple slogan is supported by strategically designed, memorable branding. You can apply this to your own online business and reinforce it with a blog.

Your brand should be something that people recognize the second they see it. But don’t worry, you don’t need to be a major corporation to create a recognizable brand.

Here are a few steps you can take as you design the business blog for your website: 

• Have a set color theme with 3-4 colors
• Stick to 2-3 fonts, as more than that looks chaotic and the eyes don’t know where to land
• Stay consistent with the aesthetic, which will instantly tell visitors what your brand is

The purpose of a blog for business is to establish, authenticate, and reinforce your brand voice. With a blog on your business website, there’s no guessing game; visitors know exactly what your business is about. Unlike your website, which likely has stricter copy and a concise message, you can flourish and explore on your blog. 

Meaning, use the blog as a chance to share your unique voice. With each blog post, share your knowledge and expertise, but also: flex your voice, show your personality, and lean into your brand message.

People crave authenticity, and if you’re just spewing out what everyone else is saying, they are unlikely to return. However, when you throw your hat in the ring and share your spin on things, people listen.

With this voice, you complete your overall brand packaging and show customers why your brand is relevant and unique.

6. Do I Need A Blog For My Business? The Answer Is…

If you want to establish trust, then YES. Overall, establishing trust is possibly the most important thing you want to do with your target audience. You may not immediately convert people into customers — but that’s not why you are blogging, remember? Far from it, in fact! 

You are blogging for business because your business has a voice, it has an identity, and every blog post offers insight into this entity.

The more a visitor sees your business name and reads your blog, the more you enforce that you’re truly an expert in your field (as mentioned above). When you crystallize your reputation as an authority figure, sales inevitably come.

Trust is everything with a brand, so show your visitors that they can trust you. Having a blog is one huge step in the right direction. But what if you’re not a wordsmith?

Truth is, plenty of business blogs online post consistent, relevant and valuable blog posts every week. Are the CEOs and business marketers of these companies writing every blog post? Perhaps, but it’s not common. 

As a business owner, time is short, and writing articulate, engaging and informative blog posts demand time. Anyone can throw a blog post together and hit publish, but is it helpful? Is it relevant? 

Truth is, a bad business blog can do more damage than good. This is why many business marketers seek out a blog writer for hire. In fact, 64% of business marketers outsource their blogging to a professional. A freelance blog writer can transform your blog into a lucrative sales funnel that increases web traffic, establishes trust, and builds brand awareness.

Planning to DIY your business blog? 

I’ve got you covered! Download my free guide to business blogging for beginners. I walk you through seven steps to starting a successful blog that’ll grow your business, increase visibility, and increase sales conversions.

Grab the guide here >>> How To Start A Business Blog in 7 Steps!

Ready to Grow Your Business?

As you can see, creating a blog section for your online business is nothing but beneficial. Yes, it takes a little bit of extra work and time, but this is energy well spent. When you hire a business blogger, you ensure that steady content appears on your blog every week.

Blogs are incredibly beneficial for so many reasons, and above all, they increase traffic and sales. This means that the investment you spend on hiring a blogger will yield a commendable ROI.

At the end of the day, the benefits of blogging for business are unparalleled. To truly see results, you’ll need to post consistent blog content that’s rich, conversational and supported by facts and research. I’m here to help you do exactly that!

Let’s talk about your content needs and what blogging for business can do for you this year!