26 Real and Solid Successful Business Benefits of Blogging
Do you blog for your creative business?
Are you answering the questions people are asking? Do you know that people want answers 🧞 before they whip out their credit card💳 and buy?
Yet, the benefits of blogging as part of your content marketing strategy cannot be overstated.
Business blogging is like the Swiss Army Knife of marketing.
Blogging is The Most Powerful Marketing Tool
Publishing articles on a website’s blog is a direct way to educate people. It is a two-way conversation, a trust builder, a brand enhancer, and a search engine rankings tool and should be your main lead generation machine.
Here is the deal:
Article writing on your website’s blog is a part of content marketing. And publishing on your blog role should be your primary focus.
One significant benefit of blogging is generating earned media and blogging is a competitive advantage.
“Blogging and blogs has democratized the ability to publish thoughtful commentary, build a noteworthy community and equalize influence along the way”Brian Solis
Don’t worry, I am Urban Renström, there is always science and research involved in everything I say, teach, and demonstrate.
26+ Benefits of Blogging as Part of a Content Marketing Strategy
- Blogging is free
- Educating Future Customers
- Answers the questions people are asking about your service
- Blogging starts the conversation
- Publishing helps demonstrates thought leadership
- Blogging and article writing builds your authority
- Strengthens credibility as part of the E-E-A-T
- Blogging is social
- Blogging is rich, dynamic, and fluid
- Blogging is words.
- Blogging builds a community
- It personalizes, and
- Humanize your business
- Blogging expands the natural reach of your business
- Expands your influence
- Article writing to share ideas
- Comments from people give you suggestions
- Blogging is permission centric
- Generates leads
- Blogging helps with SEO
- It is a link magnet
- Brings traffic
- The benefits of Blogging is it strengthens your brand reputation
- Blogging is a differentiator
- It is a competitive advantage
- It helps with inbound marketing
- It is a resource, an asset and a proven business model
- The blog answers customer queries
- Is a customer service tool
- Blog build loyalty
- Blog posts have a long lifespan
- Blogging can generate opportunities e.g. speaking gigs, interview requests
- Blogging is free, did I mention that?
In the Land of Social Media Does Blogging Have a Place?
“…a common line I often say about why people should blog is that if you don’t tell your story then who will?”
Wayne Sutton
The benefits of blogging are that article writing is the most powerful marketing tool in a marketer’s toolbox. And blogging matters because you are answering the questions people are asking about your products and services.
Tell me which single business (marketing) tool can do all this.
Use a blog to help build relationships, tell stories, create opportunities to get found, build your brand and helps to educate, inform and even recruit employees.
blogging for content marketing, content marketing, blogging
Consumer behaviour has changed and business needs to embrace this change. People don’t want to feel like they are being “sold” something. People want to relate and interact with you.
A blog is the active, dynamic and alive side of your business. It’s outreach to people’s side. It’s the ’we are doing something here and we are letting you know about its place.
Here is another perspective on the benefits of blogging and its usefulness.
Blogging anchors your work and builds a community, a vivid and fuller picture of whom you are and why you are doing what you do.
“A blog with consistent, truthful and helpful content will allow you to bridge that gap between distrust to trust.” Neil Patel
Clients need to know you, like you and trust you before they will buy from you.
“Some of the most successful blogs exude passion for their subject matter very well. It’s what sets everything in motion, pure passion”
Carolyn Scott-Hamilton
You too can Blog to be an Expert (aka make money)
These technology bloggers have blogged their way to becoming an expert in their field.
- Robert Scoble
- Brian Solis
- Jeremiah Owyang
- Pete Cashmore (Mashable)
- Michael Arrington (Tech Crunch)
- Megan McCarthy (ex-Wired, Valley Wag)
That last part is critical; “they have become experts in their field”. Their focus was on publishing long-form, brilliant articles that put their talent and knowledge on display. They did not focus on themselves.
Blogging is The Most Powerful Marketing Tool is Super powerful for SEO
Google LOVES fresh content as much as backlinks.
The more you publish, the more pages get indexed by Google.
The more pages indexed the better chances they will be found and the more website traffic you will get. Creating a storehouse of blog posts on your site is the tailwind that will fill your sails with leads, powering your business.
So naturally, the more content you have the more likely you are going to have something that a reader wants to read and share with friends.
The two main SEO purposes of blogging are:
1. Blogging builds up content on your website and each post counts as another indexed page in the search engines.
2. Blogging helps you rank (as long as it’s done the right way) for long-tail keywords – which is awesome.
Actionable Marketing Takeaway for Blogging
A rounded content marketing strategy includes article writing on a blog.
The top-line benefit is
A) Answering the questions people have regarding your product or service.
B) Getting free traffic from search engines
C) Credibility from publishing.
D) Earned Media
Blogging is a powerful marketing tool. Communicating with potential customers, building trust and loyalty, increasing website visitors, SEO, thought leadership, reputation building, etc. The list is greater than 26. A business that is blogging reaps the rewards, those that don’t miss out.
And some last numbers about blogging.
- Nearly 40% of US companies use blogs for marketing
- Companies that blog have 55% more visits to their website
- B2B companies generate 67% leads/month more than those that don’t
There is value in blogging for your small business. But blogging alone won’t magically give you traffic and leads. Your blog must be optimized, promoted and rich with content. Blogging is not easy, but, there are big rewards also.
Content Marketing for Non-Techies: Your Priority Reading List
In earlier📆 articles we learned that #3 Website Content is Important to answer the questions 🤔 people ask. Those answers drive traffic 🚥to your website. This #2 How to Write Website Content post and this How to #5 Write Content for a Website approached writing ✍️ from different angles and reasons. We learned the importance of creating 🧱a #1 Variety of Web Content, in different modalities, because some people read 🔠, some watch 📺 videos, and some listen to podcasts👂🏻. This back-to-basics post walked through the best #4 Web Content Management System ⚙️to use to publish a website. We also learned that refreshing and #6 updating your website content keeps pages and rankings in search engines. This leads to the question of where and #7 how to find content to publish on your website.
What experiences are you having with blogging or your blog? I would love to hear your comments below.
Image credit: Hector on Unsplash