Does blogging still work is the question I’ve received a few times lately. I believe that blogging not only works, but is still a relevant strategy for increasing brand awareness, sharing information and positioning you as the expert in your industry. According to Demand Metrics, websites with blogs get 67% more leads than those who don’t.
Is your business blogging? Why not? Let me guess, you don’t have enough time, not sure what to write about, or writing isn’t something you’re good at. You don’t feel users will want to read your content. All really lame excuses… If you are in business providing products and services whether you are for profit, non profit, B2B or B2C…you should be blogging for several reasons.
Blogging for SEO
Search engine optimization is just one of those strategies that you must do if you intend to get online traffic from Google and other search engines. SEO is keyword focused and driven by content. Most websites have target pages that reference main services and products. Those pages should be, and are usually optimized for certain keywords. It’s best practice to only target one or two main keywords per page. Most of the time, those terms have high traffic and high competition. It’s easier to rank your website with a long tail keyword.
Blogging presents the opportunity to create content optimized for the long tail keywords. You can go into detail and showcase experience, examples and expertise about the product or service. Over time, you may create different types of blog posts, that support your main services. For example, you could start with a “how to” post, then create a “benefits of” post, and end with a “promotional offer” post, all supporting one of your products/services. This would be an additional 3 pages of content added to your website, all supporting one of your main pages.
Blogging for Link Building
Blog posts are great for link building opportunities. When researching and crafting your post, consider including the following types of links.
- Inbound Links. These links are created when other websites link to your website. The goal is to acquire as many of these as possible, as long as they are relevant to your industry and from reliable sources. When you publish a great post, others will link to it if it can benefit their audience.
- Outbound Links. These links are created when you link out to a different website from your website. The purpose of this link is normally to give additional resources or even give credit. For example, my mention of Demand Metrics in the first paragraph was an outbound link.
- Cross Links. These links are created when you link to other pages on your website. These create signals that the page being linked to is relevant. Since blogging is a strategy for SEO, this post is linked to that page. See how I did that.
Those are just three types of links you want to include in every blog post. You could also link to videos, infographics, ebooks and other resources.
Blogging to Showcase Expertise
What industry is your business in? Healthcare, real estate, retail, business services, etc… In most businesses, there are plenty of opinions about how to do things, and best practices. A blog post on your website gives you the chance to showcase your expertise about the product/services you offer. You can discuss current events and give your professional opinion. You can provide tips and tricks that others may not be aware of. You can highlight case studies and other details that prove your expertise in the subject matter.
Perhaps there is a big change in the industry. With the blog, you can educate users on how to deal with it, best practice for using it, or whatever you wanted to present about the issue.
Blogging for Social Media
Every company wants to be active on social media. They want likes, followers, and engagement. However, most companies struggle with developing content that is thought provoking and engaging.
When you create a lengthy blog post, similar to this one, it creates opportunities for social media content. For example, within this post alone, I covered 5 different ways to use blogging. SEO, Link Building, Showing Expertise, Social Media and Company Updates. Those subheadings could be the text, layered on a relative image, and called a meme. At a minimum, that is 5 different social media posts that can be redistributed across Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram from this one blog post. All of which should of course link back to the post itself.
The key is create a friendly title, accompanying hashtag (#BloggingStillWorks) and then post consistently. You also want to make sure the blog post is shareable.
Blogging for Company Updates
If your company is successful, then you are growing. Blogs create chances to showcase company growth. Perhaps you all hit a major milestone. Write about it, take some pics, post it. Perhaps you landed a new sponsor or new client. Write about it, take some pics, post it. Perhaps you renovated the office or acquired new company vehicles. Write about it, take some pics, post it. Did you hire anyone new? Which employees birthday is this month? Write about it, take some pics, post it.
Blogs posted on your website, give your visitors new information about the company that they may not have known. It shows the users that the company is alive, well, and growing. It also becomes a reference point that is documented, dated, and indexed by Google to be searched and found by anyone.
So yeah…blogging still works. Most businesses, entertainers, non profit organizations, and others can benefit from posting relevant blog articles to their website.
In typical SEO Rapper fashion, and penned a few bars about blogging. I used Offset and Cardi B’s song, Clout. Check it out.