There are more than just the obvious benefits for blogging when talking about marketing your business. In this benefits of blogging for business guide, we look at the main benefits blogging will have on your business growth.
Pleasing The Mighty Google!
Most business owners realise that Google is only likely to send new traffic to your website if you actually take the time to add new and relevant content to it on a consistent basis, hence the reason that blogging is such a good marketing tactic.
If you put your website live with five to twenty pages, then leave it exactly as it was when you went live, you can expect what you deserve; nothing.
A dead, static, never growing or changing website will not attract more visitors to it, and even if it did, they are hardly likely to be impressed by a baron dessert of a website.
So not only does a blog give you more chances of being found by your potential clients, it also provides a range of other benefits, often not really discussed or considered.
What are the hidden benefits of blogging aside from the long tail keywords which generate new clients mentioned in my last blog post?
Let’s take a look at some of them.
1. Blogging Ensures That You Are Seen As An Expert Small Business Owner
People these days don’t want to deal with a business which is the same as every other business out there. If you are selling a service solely based on the fact that you know some people need it, and other people are selling the same service with absolutely no differentiators between you, then you can only sell your service based on price. Ouch! Who wants to sell a service at the lowest price possible?
I see this happen time and time again, in so many different sectors.
“I can only charge this much for service X because that is all my competitors charge”.
This rule is only ever true if you have taken no time or effort to differentiate yourself from the competition, which is an insane thing to do when selling a service. Ask Tesco how they feel about this now the likes of Lidl and Aldi have taken a grip on their market simply by charging less.
Blogging regularly about the issues in your service sector give you a real opportunity to differentiate yourself from the competition. Airing your opinions and views proves that you are an expert in the type of service that you provide.
Being an expert allows you to charge a premium for your service. Being an expert means that more people are likely to recommend your services. Being an expert makes really good business sense, so it is why it is number one on my reasons why your business needs a blog and why you need to be blogging regularly.
2. Media Coverage For Your Business
If you blog regularly, not only will you be discovered more by Google, and in turn by more of your perfect prospects, but you will also be discovered by your industry sector media.
When they need a quote about a hot topic in your sector, how do you think they find someone if they do not already have a contact in that sector?
They head to Google just like you or I do. If they keep finding your website over and above anyone else in that area, who do you think they will call to ask for a quote?
I have always said that PR is invaluable for your business. Usually it does not bring an instant windfall of new clients, unless there is a live story which creates desire for your services, but it is an excellent method for converting more of your website visitors into people who make contact with you instead of leaving your website without taking any action.
Once you have obtained your media coverage, it becomes an integral part of my Two Minute Trust Builder system, designed to convert more of your visitors into new clients.
So the second hidden benefit of blogging is obtaining media coverage for your business.
3. Authenticity
Another additional benefit of blogging is that you are seen as authentic. There are a lot of people providing the same service that you provide already. When it comes to choosing someone to help them, do you think your clients want someone who is just going through the motions, or someone who really cares about the service that they provide?
If you blog regularly about the core issues affecting your service industry sector, your personality will come out. You will be seen by your clients as authentic, real and someone who has real passion for the service that they provide.
Running through their minds will be “Wow, this person not only walks the walk but he/she talks the talk too. He/she really does care about the service that they provide. Why would I choose anyone else to help me now?”
4. Attracting The Right Staff To Your Business
Another benefit of regularly blogging is that not only will you be discovered by potential clients but you will also keep being seen by potential employees too when they are researching competitors and also trying to improve their own knowledge in their sector.
If you add a careers page to your website, and on that page you include an email database capture form (I use AWeber), you can build a list of people interested in working for you.
The next time a position opens up in your company, one quick email to that list and you will more likely than not generate your next staff member without paying a large percentage of their salary to a recruitment company (apologies to all recruitment companies reading this – take heart in the fact that most business owners won’t implement the recommended idea here, despite the imminent business sense contained within it).
5. You Can Charge More
I might repeat that part again… blogging allows you to charge more for your services.
If you are seen as the expert, found by more people, seen as authentic and become THE person that your prospects want to help them, it is then far easier to charge a decent price for your services.
If you spend your time blogging, it becomes an awful lot easier to sell your services for a fair and reasonable price, as opposed to constantly dropping your prices to compete with everyone else because you have not spent the time differentiating yourself from everyone else out there.
Why Blogging Is So Cost Effective As A Marketing Platform
For the reasons mentioned above, it might not surprise you to hear that blogging is a core part of my marketing strategy.
It may also not surprise you to hear that for many of my clients, blogging is either their best or second best performing marketing strategy that they undertake.
It brings more people to their website and generates more enquiries for their services than all or most of their other marketing activities.
Blogging works so well, both in terms of the time invested and the minimal investment required when compared to other marketing activities.
You write a blog post once and it sits on your website forever. If it is well written, and sufficiently detailed, it will generate visitors to your website each and every month thereafter.
Even if a blog post is not responsible for driving more traffic to it, each blog post proves the depth of your expertise, thereby converting more of your visitors into clients.
You might pay £50 for a blog post (in terms of your time invested or paying someone to write it for you), but if it brings even one client in it repays you, and if it delivers many clients to you in due course, it will repay you many, many times over. When you multiply the effect of one blog post by 52 if you manage to write just one blog post each week, you can see how blogging can dramatically improve your business for the better.
Blogging really should be a key part of your marketing activities.
If it isn’t, now would be a good time to start.
If you do not yet have a blog, or need to know more about blogging, simply enter your details below. It really can be very cheap to obtain a blog and incredibly effective.
If you want to grow your business easily and consistently, download my free one page marketing plan to see how to do so: