It seems appropriate to start this blog with a post about starting a blog. After all, that’s one of the things I’m supposed to be good at doing.

So what’s the big deal about blogging?

When I first started blogging, it was at the request of a friend who had us email what were essentially diary entries to him to be uploaded to his early 2000’s website. I don’t remember if I wrote three or four posts before I lost interest. It took me many years to figure out that a blog can be more than a glorified diary.

When I started my social media internship back in 2014, keeping up a company blog seemed like a waste of time. After all, Facebook and Twitter and Instagram were the shiny new toys I had been training to use. Pictures and short bursts of text and creating a community. Websites were interesting, but back then I didn’t know much about building them. I was asked to put together a few blog posts near the end of my stint there. I did, but the reason behind it remained a mystery.

Years later, I did learn what the point of business blogging was. In fact, there are a lot of points in its favor.

Build a Relationship with Customers

If you’re putting out content for your audience, you’re making yourself a resource to them. Rather than spouting a litany of “buy this buy this buy this!” with self-promotion, a blog presents information and connects to your audience. You establish a connection, and can even grow a community through interaction with your audience in comments.

People connect to people. People like stories. A blog offers both of these. Blogging is somewhat informal, allowing you to let your personality shine through as you discuss topics that are both interesting and relevant to your business.

Link Building

Remember those social media accounts I was so enamored of during my internship? People like images and people like links. Linking to the material on showcased on our company’s sites helped to bring in new customers and brought them right where we wanted them.

Blog posts can catch people’s attention and be used to link back to your main site, which in turn can increase your search engine visibility. In fact, if someone is interested in the post and thinks their friends may be too, they can share your link to their own audience. Free advertising? Yes, please.

Content Creation

If you’re doing social media marketing, you need content. Your blog can provide that content without having to create something separate. I’m not saying your Facebook page should just clone your blog posts. That still takes some work to make it work well, but your blog and your social media feeds can work in tandem.

In fact, the flow can go both ways. You have content created for your social media channels. Instagram photos, tweets, pins, and pretty much anything else you have on hand can be used in a blog post. After all, different channels have different audiences. Cross-utilizing content gets it in front of more eyes and more appealing to a wider array of people.

Saving time and effort, all while getting more people to your site!

SEO/SERP

Google’s algorithms take a site’s content and the frequency of updates into account. Regularly posting to your blog will keep you looking fresh in their eyes, giving you a boost in search rankings. It’s one of the easiest ways to improve search engine rankings that I have ever encountered.

Another plus to business blogging is inbound links. Since your posts will be covering things that are related to your company, you’ll probably want to include a link or two that points reader to an appropriate page on your site. That helps increase your traffic, and with luck it will increase your sales.

There are so many reasons to run a blog for your business. If you want to learn more about blogging, including information about setting them up and operating them, reach out to me.