Why Your Small Business Needs a Blog

Now that you have a website, have you thought about starting a blog? Are you not quite sure if you should even start a blog because it may not be worth the time and effort to maintain? I’m going to lay out the reasons why a blog is worth the effort.

Blogs can take time (and therefore money), but the effort may be worth the increase in leads and customer engagement. Blogs can help boost search engine optimization (SEO) rankings, build credibility, increase website traffic and foster relationships with customers. This, in turn, can help influence your readers to hire you or purchase products from your small business, in addition to recommending your business to others.

In the world on the web, content is king; the more content your website has on it, the better. Plus, when you have more content, the more keywords can be inserted. The more pertinent and appropriate the content you have on your website, the more you show your knowledge of your industry.

By regularly posting quality content on your website, it can help increase the visibility and credibility of your small business to your audience. Plus, it can be interesting and useful to your readers. In addition, you don’t have to call it a Blog – you can call it News, Press or Articles.

With an already existing website, it’s easy to set up a blog and start connecting and communicating with your customers.

Reasons to have a blog:

• A Blog Can Show Off Your Knowledge

  It doesn’t matter if there are more knowledgeable people in your industry; you have unique knowledge – so share it!

  It’s always wonderful when people are willing to share their knowledge on a subject that they know a lot about. Usually when they do, there is an enthusiasm that is expressed when they talk which can be enticing to hear. Even if you aren’t the most knowledgeable person in your industry, you have knowledge about your products and/or services that others do not. That’s when it’s helpful to share your knowledge and insight. Maybe you have the gift of being able to break down complicated information in a way so that others can understand it. Using a blog to express your knowledge is helpful to others.

  Blogs not only allow you to share your knowledge, they can also help you to humanize your small business. When writing a blog, use a personal, friendly voice that people can relate to. Try to not push your products or services. If your blog article is approachable and interesting, customers will be more likely to contact you to ask questions – which may lead to a sale.

• Blogs Help Your SEO Which Helps to Build Traffic

  Writing a regular Blog helps to keep your site active which, in turns, helps your SEO.

  ATC Web Solutions loves to educate small business owners about SEO. Search engines, especially Google, love fresh, original content because it makes the web more interesting and relevant. Let’s be honest, as a small business, how often do you update your website? My experience has been that once a small business owner has their website created, they rarely update it. Google ranks your site lower if it hasn’t been updated in months. Therefore a regularly posted blog is way to help get better SEO rankings for your website and keep your website afloat in the rankings. The more you blog, the more content the search engines have to crawl and therefore index on your site. Read more about SEO. This can lead to users eventually recognizing your site as a resource of information in your industry.

  In addition, by linking your blog to social sharing sites and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, you’ll be building traffic and growing your brand. If you write interesting, keyword-rich posts, there’s a good chance that Google could serve up your posts in appropriate search results (remember to keep inserting those keywords).

  A regularly updated blog will also allow you to highlight the part of your business you want to emphasize and, therefore, the more likely it is you will attract those customers who want your products and/or services.

  In addition to writing blog articles, try posting a video as one of your blogs – videos have shown to keep readers on your site for longer which will help your SEO ranking.

• Blogs Can Set You Apart From Your Competitors

  Once you get into the routine of writing your blog, the effort will pay off.

  Since most small businesses don’t have a blog, or if they do, they typically don’t update them, having a regularly updated blog will set you apart from your competitors. Having fresh, new content shows your readers that you are invested in your business. Expressing passion about your products and/or services helps to show that you are relevant and up-to-date in your industry knowledge. A blog is an easy way to add fresh new content that gives your business a competitive edge.

• Blogs Increase Your Credibility

  A blog provides the opportunity for small business owners to connect to potential customers.

  It is one thing to list your services or display your products, but it’s another to show that you actually understand what you’re selling or demonstrate your knowledge of your services. Being credible helps people trust you, and once people start trusting you more people will hear about you and eventually that will help your small business grow.

  Over time, writing regular blog articles that are informative and reliably trustworthy will help to make you the “go to” website within the industry in your particular niche, leading to more inquiries and, hopefully, more sales.

• Blogs Nurture the Community and Build Relationships

  Blogging on your website can help to build trust with your customers.

  In today’s fast-paced world, it can be difficult to take the time to learn. Reading blogs can be a fast way for people to learn. A blog provides the opportunity for you to connect with your existing and potential customers in a different, more conversational way.

  Blogging is a good way to build trust with your target audience through quality content that they find relevant. Your blog can become a valuable space for people to communicate, network, ask questions and have questions answered in your industry.

  Plus, once you start writing, nothing is more satisfying than watching your blog attract like-minded individuals from every corner of the globe.

• Having a Blog Helps You Learn More About Your Business

  Blogging on your small business website can help to strengthen your industry knowledge.

  Maintaining a blog on your small business website means you’re constantly on the lookout for interesting news, issues and trends. Creating a blog post actually can help you prioritize and to stay up-to-date in your industry. It can help to strengthen your knowledge and prove that you are invested in the future of your industry.

  There is nothing like writing down your industry knowledge and expressing it to others – it helps you to organize your thoughts. Make it a personal challenge to write a new blog once a month!

• Blogs are for the Long Haul

  The benefits of blogging over time has the potential of boosting your SEO over time.

  So you write a post on your blog, promote it on your social channels and hopefully get some shares. After that initial traffic driven by that post to your site, the activity will slow to a trickle. And that’s the end of that, right?

  Nope. That page is now ranked in search engines. Just like the rest of the static pages on your website, this blog may continue to be visited as long as it’s on the web. In fact, a website with a substantial amount of blog content can continue to boost total traffic therefore providing the potential of a pretty substantial return on the time you invested in writing a post.

• Tips for Good Blogging

  Read the list of six blogging mistakes to avoid.

  If you have decided to start writing a blog, here are 6 tips for good blogging results:

  1. Commit Wholeheartedly – don’t do it for 2 months and then give up. Make writing and posting a blog a part of your regular business routine
  2. Make your Blog Friendly – Read more about how to write for the web.
  3. Checking for bad spelling, and grammatically incorrect sentences before posting
  4. Insert SEO keywords into your blog
  5. Add photos and/or videos to every blog
  6. Share your blog (on Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or Twitter and/or email your business contacts with the new posting)

ATC Web Solutions can help with writing your small business blog. Contact us to get help with starting to blog and to brainstorm on content ideas.