01 May 2015

Blogging: Not an extra but a necessity.

As we were contemplating what our next

01 May 2015

As we were contemplating what our next blog post should be, a client approached us asking for advice. They wanted to generate new web content with minimal effort and money while being able to build credibility and boost their SEO in an already oversaturated market. They asked if that was even possible. Our immediate response: start a blog. Thus we began writing a blog about blogs. An inception of sorts. We couldn’t pass this opportunity ourselves.

Question: How can a business/brand generate new leads and web content with minimal effort and money while building credibility and boost SEO in an oversaturated market? Also, why would a small family business spend a few hours a week or month writing a blog?

Answer: Blogging. A well-developed blog can generate new leads and help your brand’s SEO. (Click to read more about inbound web-marketing)

In today’s internet-based society blogging helps a business create a credibly powerful online footprint. Ultimately, blogging drives new traffic (or leads) and current customers to a business’ website through the new content provided in each blog post published. The new content in turn helps a business’ SEO through social media.

Blogging started in the late 1990’s as a way to share ideas, thoughts and expressions. Leave it to marketing and advertising agencies to figure out how to take blogging to the next level, by using brand promotion.

Reasons to create a blog:
1. Drives/Increases Traffic (customers and leads) to your Website and brand:

      a. How often do you update your webpages? How many pages are on your webpage? All of these headaches can be solved by blogging.
      b. Every time a business writes a blog post they add one more page to their webpage. One more ping for Google, Bing or another search engine that tells them the website is active and should be checked in on frequently.
      c. Key: You don’t want “any” traffic but the “right” traffic.

Which leads us to number two…
2. New content: A blog helps generate new content, both short term and long term content.

      a. Content creation: Each new post is one more opportunity to drive new leads to your website through organic searches. An organic search result might come up with a blog post a company wrote years earlier.
        i. Key: Personalization. Tailor to the wants and needs of the people the business is attempting to generate leads with. Create content that answers potential and current customer’s basic questions and needs.

        Think of each post as a way to generate new leads.

      b. Social Media Content: Blog posts generate content for social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, name it. Many clients stress over social media content. Blogs can help lessen the stress of posting.
      c. Drives Long Term Results: This needs to be in every blog about business blogging.
      d. Say you write a blog post today, spend an hour and a half doing it. That blog post is now ranking in search engines. Days, weeks, months, and YEARS later it is still generating traffic and leads. One or two hours of effort today can turn into thousands of views and leads in the future.

Writing relevant content leads nicely into number three…
3. Develops better customer relations and reinforces or establishes Authority (Hyperlink establishing Authority in a brand)

      a. By writing posts that are relevant and educations to your potential leads and customers you are reinforcing your brand’s authority and authenticity in that field. Imagine sending an educational blog post to a client or confused potential new lead?
        i. You position yourself as a trustworthy go-to person.
      b. When a brand publishes the right content at the right time, marketing becomes relevant and helpful to your customers, not interruptive.

4. Increases SEO/SERP: SEO is important when blogging

      a. When a potential lead searches for a professional or business in an industry the goal of any small business is to be the first in the search engine results. In a crowded market how do you do that? Effective search engine optimization.
      b. Search engines put emphasis on keywords that are used in each business market. Google (link) and others use more advanced formulas to determine the frequency in which you update your website and if others in your industry are continually updating their websites, you will ultimately be lost in the results.
      c. If you take the time to blog then you might as well utilize and take extra time to SEO. The more blog posts a business has the more traffic is generated.
      d. Tip: Tag/use common sense keywords that target your niche market, also hyperlink keywords in your website content. Never miss the opportunity to hyperlink a keyword. Hyperlinks get extra points with search engines. Where you rank in search engines matters.

Conclusion: Blogging is the smartest, fastest and most cost effective way to increase traffic flow to a business’s website.

Leave a comment
More Posts