As marketeers, staying up to date with new trends is a crucial part of your job, and as you will most likely know, blogging isn’t a shiny, exciting and new trend.
Despite this, it is still a staple marketing technique that you should invest a great deal of time and energy into.
For that reason, we thought we’d provide a list of positives that you will see as a result of blogging. That way if you’re not already on board you can reconsider your stance and perhaps trying blogging for your business, and if you are already blogging, it might be a little refresher for you.
Before we start, it’s important to take note of the Buyers Journey. If you’re unfamiliar with this, then in short it is a four-stage process that consumers go through before they make a purchase, it consists of, the awareness stage, the consideration stage, the decision stage, and the delight stage. At times blogging can cover all four.
1. Increase Traffic
Blogging consistently is a great way to build up traffic to your website. There’s a simple reason that this is such an effective technique, every time you publish a blog post you are adding a new page that can be indexed and scanned by a search engine. This can lead to a whole host of benefits with regards to SEO (something we will cover in more detail in a short while).
When you publish blog posts, not only are you adding another page to your website but also creating shareable content. Whether you share it to your brand socials yourself or one of your readers share it to their social network, there’s a lot of opportunity to draw in a larger audience, resulting in an increase in traffic to your website.
2. Collect data/emails
Using your blog as a platform to collect data can be really beneficial to your business. By offering the opportunity to sign up to your newsletter or blogs, you can gain email address and information on your audience. This can then be used to send them marketing and promotional communications relating to your product. With a greater number of touchpoints, there’s more chance of your audience converting.
3. Convert Leads
Following on from this, once you’ve increased traffic and provided a number of touchpoints for your audience, it’s time to convert your audience into leads. One of the simplest ways to do this is to add an effective CTA to every blog you publish, this way there’s always an opportunity to generate leads. There are numerous ways you could do this, such as linking to the product page or offering an exchange of resources such as eBooks or guides in return for the reader’s details.
4. Build a community
As already suggested, creating shareable content is fantastic for raising awareness of your brand, however, it goes much further than that. You can start to build a community surrounding your business. When you share your blogs on social media, it’s likely that your audience will interact with them. When your audience like, comment and share your content, it’s important to engage with them on social media, this way they will feel as though you are attentive and willing to build relationships. Word of this sort of online community will spread, drawing more people to your social media, and your blogs.
5. Build Authority
Through publishing high quality and consistent content that answers the questions your audience are asking, the more likely you will be viewed as an authoritative resource. Showing that you have expert knowledge in your area is key to getting potential new customers to trust in you as a business and your product. Whilst it’s not easy to measure authority, to be viewed as authoritative is still a powerful position to be in. Ensure your content is high quality, accurate, and covers necessary topics that are relevant to both your audience and product, and you will be well on your way to establishing yourself as an industry expert, regardless of the size of your business.
6. SEO
Search engine optimisation is a big strategy to tackle, and blogging can have some positive effects on how you rank. Carry out some Keyword Research and write your content about relevant topics and keywords that you’d like to target. It can also link into the idea of building authority, the more authority you are seen to have, the higher you will rank; therefore, you should ensure that you are publishing high-quality content on a regular basis.
Of course, there is much more to SEO than just blogging, such as on-page and off-page personalisation (you can read more about this in our blog The Basics of SEO ) but there are so many SEO benefits that come from publishing blog content.
Underestimating the importance of blogging because it’s not a new trend could be detrimental to your business. As highlighted, we’ve shown the benefits of blogging and how it can have a positive effect on many areas of your business, from data collection to increased traffic and lead conversion.
If you haven’t already, you may now feel that you should get started with blogging, if this is the case check out our guide on writing blog posts for any advice or top tips you may need.
