Regardless of whether you are a massive corporation trying to branch out to a newer customer base, or you are a small business owner looking to plant some roots and grow via the digital world, blogging is an amazing tool to fulfil your goals.
Be it a Restaurant, or an online cosmetic store, writing at least a couple of articles a month can help you garner a lot of traffic and immensely boost your sales. Read along to find out how blogs can help you grow your business.
More Traffic to your Site
When you think of all the people that visit your site on a given day, how do you think they find your site? Well, it is usually one of three ways:
- They are your old customers and are aware of the products or services you provide.
- They happen to stumble onto your site via random links or recommendations.
- They find your site after a search engine directs them to it.
More often than not, the only way to consistently garner a new audience is via the third option. This is where blogs can help you out immensely.
A good article drafted with proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can potentially attract thousands if not more people to your site on a daily basis. Say, you have written a blog on Android Snapdragon with a well-optimised keyword density and uploaded it to your site. Now anytime a user searches for information on Snapdragon your blog will show up on the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Each one of these new visitors will discover your website and have the potential of learning more about the products or services offered by your business.
Advertise your Products with the help of Blogs
Blogs are an amazing tool for promoting your products when done currently. Well, what do I mean when I say, ‘done correctly’? See, you can’t really make a blog on ‘The Top 10 websites to buy hand-woven Plush Toys from’ and then list your website on the top. That would be seen as insincere by your audience, and even hurt your business in the long run.
The proper way of promoting your products through your blogs would be to elaborate more on the product and then offer the readers a link to your store page. Consider this example. You make a comprehensive list of the ‘Ten Best Niche Summer Perfumes’ and elaborate on their notes and composition in your blog, and at the end of each perfume’s description, you put a link to the product page of that perfume which they can purchase from your website. That way the reader has the option of making an educated decision and is more inclined to purchase something from your store since they trust your judgement.
Take a look at this blog to better understand what I mean. The author concisely articulates why they would use each of the sunscreens and then inserts a link to its product page so that if a reader is willing, they can go ahead and make the purchase.
Repurpose your Blogs for Social Media
In today’s day and age, you need not wonder where your potential customer base is. Almost everyone is on some form of social media and can thus be reached through it. Repurposing your blogs to be reposted on Social Media can garner you a lot of free publicity and earn you a host of new customers.
Consider this, you are running a restaurant in a somewhat lesser-known part of the city. You are sure that you have great food and a cosy ambience, so you take a few pictures of your dishes and write a blog on ‘The seafood dishes you need to try this summer. Sure, you will get a lot of new customers just from the people who visit your website via the search engine result page, but you can just take the pictures from your blog and post the seafood list on an Instagram Story or a Facebook post along with the link to your blog.
If the photos are appealing enough, people will start sharing your post among their networks. This will help you reach out to a massive part of the community that you did not have access to before. So, this simple blog that you composed in less than an hour has reached hundreds of people in a day and is attracting new customers to your restaurant.
Educate your Audience about your Products
There have been a lot of times when I needed a particular product but had no idea about which one of the thousands of options I was supposed to choose from. Often you will find that your customers are conflicted about which product to choose and are unable to make a decision by themselves. A blog can easily help you mitigate this problem.
Say, you run a Motor Shop and have a myriad of products each a different variant or from a different manufacturer. A person who isn’t too experienced with motorcycles wants to purchase Engine Oil for his vehicle. If you have a blog where you dive into great details about each of the different versions of Engine Oil you have in stock, and how they are suited to different vehicles with different engine capacities or if some have more durability than others, the reader can educate himself and then make a purchase accordingly.
This is especially more relevant if you specialise in customised products. If you are a Custom PC retailer, you can have blogs on each of your products where you can elaborate on their specifications and the task load, they can optimally handle. You can even have articles comparing the seven best budget systems you have, or which rig is going to be the best for editing videos. Such blogs can provide a reader with a host of new information and allow him to make the most well-informed purchase. And barring any faults after-sale he is going to be a happy customer who is going to recommend a lot more people to your site.
Take a look at these blogs as an example to see how ‘Origin PC’ educates their audience on the latest technology that is housed in its beastly machines.
Educate your Audience about your Services
Much like products, there are a lot of people who are in doubt about which service they should avail from a particular business. Having a blog where you not only get the option to advertise your services but also educate your audience about what that service entails, is a great way to kill two birds with one stone.
Consider you are an esteemed Interior Designer looking to expand upon your customer base. With your years of expertise, you can produce blogs that delve into the details of kitchen renovation and what steps to take first, what colours to consider matching with beige walls, or what sort of furniture people should consider for small apartments. All of these little details will help people get a better idea of the service that you provide and educate them on what to ask of you so as to not waste your time or theirs.
Blogs Serve as your Portfolio
Much like how you would include a sample of your previous works while applying to a new job, your blogs can do that for the future customers that visit your site. These writings contain the depth of your knowledge in great detail, and you can go the additional step of sharing your personal experiences with your readers. That way they get an insight into your professional life and start trusting you and your opinions. Later if they are in need of similar services to the ones you provide, they would not hesitate to contact you.
Consider this example. You are an experienced lawyer, and you have taken the time to write your own blog. Here you share with the world various legal advice, and stories of the several cases you have fought and won. Any reader that goes through your blogs can see your competence and the amount of experience you have. If they happen to come across any legal trouble, they now know a trusted advisor whom they can hire.
Blogs, therefore, serve as an excellent method of attracting clients in the future.
Blogs help you Build Credibility
Just as we discussed previously, blogs can help your clients acquaint themselves with your personal experience and knowledge. Similarly, blogs also have the potential of establishing you as a credible source in your field and earning you a voice in your community.
If you ensure everything you post is from a hundred per cent verifiable source and are not afraid to revert your previous statements when proven wrong, people will quickly start trusting you as a valid source of information. Plus, your opinions will be held in high regard and gradually you will earn your well-deserved respect in your community.
Let’s take a look at this website. Founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst, ‘Tomshardware’ hardly had any readers at first. But as time went on, their unbiased reviews and accurate comparisons quickly established them as a genuinely credible source of information in the world of technology. So much so, that even big tech YouTubers refer to the site’s blogs from time to time.
Blogs help you Build a Network
With the credibility that you have earned from your blogs, you can actually utilise it in a lot of different ways. Be it selling products, offering services, or branching out and connecting with more people within your field. This is especially potent if your blogs centre around a certain niche that not the vast majority of people are concerned with.
In this scenario running a blog can help you collaborate with other bloggers and influencers in your niche and can be mutually beneficial to both parties. Remember, cooperate not compete.
When you form a good relationship with other bloggers, they can use backlinks to your blogs to demonstrate a point or share some information you initially came up with. This is a great way to grow your reach to more and more people, and as a result, grow your business.
Blogs signal activity
Just as the title suggests blogs can help indicate that your website is very much alive and functional. If you consistently and keep posting blogs, it will signal search engines that your website is still very much operational and will thus help you show up more in search engine results pages.
This not only helps you with more traffic to your site, but it prioritises your site higher when anyone searches about the products and services you offer. And like we discussed earlier more people visiting means more potential customers. So, try and post a blog at least twice a month to indicate your site is alive.
Blogs are a Long-Term Investment
A well-composed piece of writing on your website that was drafted with proper search engine optimization can still bring in readers ages after it was posted. Say you posted an article about the ‘Top 10 Places to visit in Hawaii’ in 2015. Even today if someone is browsing the internet looking for places to visit in Hawaii, your article is going to be one of the materials available to them.
Thus, even something uploaded almost seven years later can bring you, new visitors, to your site, to whom you can advertise your products and services.
To Sum it all up…
If you have read this far, I certainly hope I have been able to convince you why you should start a blog for your business and the multitude of ways it can help you and your company grow. Not only is the increased traffic from Search engine optimised articles beneficial in the short and long-term, but you also get access to a host of other advantages like advertising your products, educating your audience, and building credibility. Hire SEO Expert.
When you think of it there is no reason not to run a blog, it isn’t too time-consuming and can often be delegated to other people, and the sheer benefits you get far outweigh any cons you can think of. In today’s digital market, there is competition everywhere, and blogs provide you with an excellent opportunity to get a head start! Hire Remote Resources.
