Every Reason To Start Blogging For Your Business
Blogging in the 2020s is a far cry from the early blogs of the 1990s. What was once a way for people to share their random interests or passions with the rest of the internet, has now become one of the greatest marketing tools of our time.
When done well, blog writing as part of your digital marketing will play a pivotal role. Awesome blogs are hugely valuable to both your business and importantly your customers.
Let’s take look at the benefits of blogging for business and why you should jump on the bandwagon (if you haven’t already).
Table of Contents
Why’s blogging for business a thing?
Put simply, blogging for business is the product of:
A) The rapid expansion of the digital world. It’s made blogging accessible to anyone and everyone who wanted to get on board.
B) The customer-driven desire to consume longer content from businesses, rather than see traditional advertisements.
A recent study showed that a whopping 70% of consumers actually prefer to get to know a company through their blog articles rather than ads.
And here’s another hefty stat (thanks OptinMonster) to prove that blogs are big business – approximately 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month!
You get the picture, right? Blogs are a big deal.
So, let’s crack on and look at why a blog could be great news for your business.
Why your business needs a blog
In the technology-charged, digitally-obsessed world that we live in, running a business means having to connect and engage with your customers online. And that means investing time and effort into creating a strong digital profile for your business.
Having a great website is one thing, but consistent blogging for your business is a whole other level. And one that comes with a whole load of benefits for relatively little cost.
Let’s have a look at exactly what ‘s so great about a blog for business.
Fun fact: Businesses who prioritise blogging are 13 times more likely to experience a positive ROI from their marketing efforts.
So what kind of return on investment (ROI) can you expect?
Content costs 62% less than traditional marketing, but generates 3 times as many leads, according to Demand Metric.
5 benefits of blogging for business
1. Helps your website get discovered on search engines by consumers
Regular blogging with quality content is one of the most efficient ways to climb up the rankings on the likes of Google. And we all know that if you can smash it with your Google rankings then your business will benefit.
The process of ranking well is down to a digital marketing technique called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Wondering what all the hype is about SEO? This is our real life case study on the impact SEO had on a business.
2. You’ll reach and speak to more customers, fast
As a marketing channel that’s naturally conversational, blogs are a superb way of starting a conversation and encouraging your customers to engage with your brand.
It helps to build trust in your brand and can positively influence how potential customers see you – especially if you publish content that’s specifically relevant to your customers.
Top tip: Using user-generated content on a blog can be a great way to get customers to become a part of your business story.
3. It gets your brand out there
As well as starting conversations, blog content can play an important role in increasing brand awareness for your business. With more brand awareness, the more chance you have that your readers recommend you and your fancy new blog content to their family, friends and colleagues to enjoy too.
For blog posts that embody the look and feel of your brand (logo, colour scheme, tone of voice, etc), potential customers reading them will become familiar with your brand, its identity, its personality, and its voice.
Just make sure that all the content you’re posting stays true to your business and the brand your building.
4. Become the market leader in your sector
The great thing about posting interesting, relevant content is that it not only helps customers by providing them with useful information, it also establishes your business as a source of knowledge.
Customers are much more likely to buy from a company they trust and see as an expert in their field. If you publish useful content regularly, you’ll become a ‘go to’ source for information – and that means more traffic to your website and (hopefully) more conversions.
5. Shareable blog content = more website traffic
Who doesn’t want to drive more traffic to their business website? Er, nobody. And that’s why blog content that gets shared is so great. It increases the amount of traffic to your website. The challenge is creating the good stuff that your audience wants to share. Maybe even what your competitors want to share too!
That’s right, those in your industry or field may take great enjoyment in your content and share it too. This would be awesome as this is what’s called a backlink – special link juice that gives your website huge kudos with Google and the other search engines (as long as the linking domain is decent – makes no sense? Not to worry, it’s kinda a big deal, that’s all you need to know).
Take some time to see what type of content your audience tends to share, which will help you figure out your own blog content strategy.
Pros and cons of using a blog for marketing
There are oodles of great reasons to start blogging for your business today.
To make sure we’re giving you the whole picture, here are the pros and cons of blogging for your business:
Pros of a blog for marketing
- You can boost traffic, SEO performance and increase sales with quality blog content.
- Build trust and credibility with new customers
- As long as your blog content is good you will see a great ROI on the content you produce. Blog content could result in enquiries and hopefully sales.
- A business blog is quick and easy to set up.
- If you already have a business website, a blog shouldn’t cost you any extra to add.
- Modern blog setups are quick and easy to start publishing on.
Cons of a blog for marketing
- Blogging for business takes time and effort to research and create the content.
- Creating blog content is a constant process that requires ongoing resource.
- If you’re new to blogs writing, then you’ll need to learn what makes a good blog – we’ve actually covered this lower down under ‘The 7 steps you need to write a good blog’.
- Results often take time so you’ll need to be patient.
- You’ll need actively market your blog content if you want people to see it.
- With millions of blogs out there, you’ll need to sometimes be difficult to stand out and achieve results.
The 7 steps you need to write a good blog
Blogging is a time consuming task, but it’s an essential ingredient to market your brand, business, service or product online.
So it’s key that you do it right. I’ve created a 7 step infographic to help you to get it right.
Sure, we blog for our clients all the time, but it’s also something that you as the industry professional can do yourself. If you have the time, of course.
Full version
- Structure your ideas.
Every blog starts from an idea. That idea develops into something more, and hey presto, you’ve got a topic for your blog.
Don’t get too carried away. Decide on what you want to say and how you’re going to say it.
Remove unrelated ideas and ensure your blog’s topic and objective is focussed, relevant and direct.
- Put your reader first.
People’s online behaviour differs to any other method of communication. They scan and skim read, which is why blogs need to be written concisely.
That doesn’t mean the blog needs to be short. You can still be concise and produce blogs that are 8,000 words long.
Write what is necessary.
Remember, you’ve got around 8 seconds to keep their attention.
It was Jakob Nielsen who said website visitors are like wild animals. Much like a hungry wild beast searching for prey, they won’t waste time with their victim.
They will go for something which is easy pickings!
- Write in a conversational manner.
You will have a broad target audience, as do most brands.
Writing in a conversational manner will allow your readers to relate to your brand.
The last thing you want to do is put a wedge between yourself and your readers.
Writing in a conversational way means:
- You can create a genuine connection with readers.
- You will have more freedom to show off your personality.
- The editing process becomes easier (less grammatical rules to follow).
- Fewer writing blocks to knock through – just write how you would talk.
- Use short sentences.
Short sentences are key when writing a blog. They’re easier to understand and much more inviting to read.
Each sentence should have one thought. Ensure your sentences don’t stretch beyond 15 words.
Free online tools like the Hemingway App are great for checking sentence structure to ensure your content is easily digestible.
- Use short paragraphs.
Paragraphing is essential. Our brains take smaller chunks of information in better than something long and complex.
You’ll find many bloggers embrace short paragraphs.
A paragraph on a blog can be as small as a single word or sentence.
- Use simple words.
The core focus of your blog is to communicate with your users.
The simpler the words the better – write as if you were speaking to someone in a room with you.
Avoid jargon. You want to be seen as an expert or thought leader.
Your job is to ensure every user can gain value and knowledge from your information.
- Be clear.
Every single word in your blog must have a reason for being included.
If there’s any sentence that can be misconstrued, rewrite it.
If there’s an irrelevant sentence, remove it.
If there’s something missing, take your time to include it.
An extra tip for you!
- Embrace headings.
This is a writing secret of mine, so don’t go telling too many people!
Headings will help you to structure your blog, improve your copy’s readability and entice skim readers.
Headings are also crucial to search engine optimisation (SEO). It’s how Google will crawl your content to decipher exactly what your blog is about, allowing it to index the page accurately.
<h1> Heading 1 – the title of the blog. 1 per page. </h1>
<h2> Heading 2 – there can be multiple h2s. It’s a snappy intro to the paragraph. </h2>
<h3> Heading 3 – think of h3s as your subheadings to the h2. </h3>
These are the main three headings we use in our blog writing. But you can also use…
<h4> Heading 4 </h4>
<h5> Heading 5 </h5>
<h6> Heading 6 </h6>
Your blogs may look something like this:
Heading 1
(introduction)
Heading 2
(paragraph)
Heading 3
(paragraph)
Heading 3
(paragraph)
Heading 4
(paragraph)
Heading 2
(conclusion)
Sources:
Hemingway App – http://www.hemingwayapp.com
Wild Animals – https://www.nngroup.com/articles/information-scent/
7 ideas to successfully blog for your business
We’ve already mentioned a few of them, but here are our top tips for success in blogging marketing:
- Do your homework so that you understand what type of content your customers want to see and which topics you should cover.
- Plan your content so that you know what you’re going to post and when, and include seasonally-relevant content wherever possible.
- Embrace video content to bring your content to life in a way that your audience will love – video is now the most popular type of format for consumers according to a recent study.
- Be visual by using images and infographics where you can to help you tell your story – we’ve even got some tips to create an engaging blog. A blog about blogging with an infographic to make it more engaging… there couldn’t be a better example!
- Create genuinely valuable content that is relevant to your customers and put together using well-written copy and high quality media content.
- Post regularly to build momentum, which will in turn help improve your SEO performance and create an ongoing conversation between your business and your customers.
- Measure your blog’s performance so that you can understand what customers are (or aren’t) reading and watching on your blog, and learn from it to create better content in the future.
Don’t have the time or ability to write a blog for your business regularly?
Don’t have time to set up and write a blog yourself? No problemo, you can hire someone to do the legwork for you. And you won’t be alone. According to OptinMonster, 64% of B2B marketers outsource their blog copywriting. B2b marketers and business owners outsource to expert freelance blog writers!
Thousands of businesses pay experienced copywriters to create business blog content, and often those writers also come up with the ideas for content too.
To find out more, check out our handy guide on how to outsource content marketing for your business.
How much does a blog writer cost?
For a fully researched, professionally written, and fully search optimised blog post, you can expect to pay around £120 – £150 for a blog writer to produce a blog. Their hourly rate is usually around £50.
Good to know: The average blog post takes 3.5 hours to write. That 3.5 hours translates into a 1,000 word blog up to a 1,500 (if you write super, super fast!) word blog post.
Blogging is a key part to every successful digital marketing strategy. Here’s why blogging is so important for your business.
Did you just fall off your chair at the cost?
We get it, for startups and small businesses it’s tough to afford a quality copywriter.
We beg you not to go cheap – that is NOT the solution here. Pay peanuts, get monkeys (sorry cheap writers).
Instead, put in the extra effort yourself and start blogging.
“Are you made?! I’m not a writer.” No, you’re not, but you’re an entrepreneur or marketer, so you’re creative.
What if there was a way you could write like a pro?
That’s where this blog cheat sheet can help you.
In this blog cheat sheet, it’ll help you to plan, think and write like a professional copywriter.
Frequently Asked Questions, Answered!
Does blogging help your business?
It does if you do it right. Simply writing a blog with a half-hearted attempt and no marketing effort won’t achieve very much.
On the other hand, if you take time to craft great blog content and make the effort to market it properly, you could see a big boost in your online traffic, customer engagement, brand awareness and sales revenue.
How do I promote my business through blogging?
The best ways to promote your business with a blog are to firstly create great content that’s relevant to your customers and then get it out there. The most popular ways to promote blog content are:
- Share blog links on your social media channels
- Send a regular marketing email with blog links to your contacts
- Add links to your blog posts on the main pages of your website
- If you’ve collaborated for a blog post, ask collaborators to share it with their network
- Consider paid promotion with promoted posts on social media or paid ads that link to relevant blog posts
How do I start a blog?
It’s funny you should ask that. As if by magic, we happen to have already prepared an article on that very topic. Get your blog off up and running with our guide on how to start a blog in 5 steps.
Need help starting your blog?
Starting a blog is usually easy enough. It’s writing the blogs that’s more of a challenge. The main difficulty we see with startups, SMEs and even the biggest brands out there is that finding content opportunities regularly is tough. You have to have a really creative mind to put together a blog content strategy.
The team here at TJ Creative are experienced in creating and delivering high quality blog content for businesses. Even better, we’re creative thinkers – giving us the advantage to explore topics you can write about, as well as use SEO tools to see what your customers want to know about!
Get in touch and let’s have a chat about how we can help you create a kick-ass blog to generate readers and sales for your business.
Got a question for us?
We’re just an email, call, text or social message away!