The benefits of blogging for business are often either ignored, missed, or just neglected.
Go on, Netflix and Chill on your couch while your competitor skyrockets their businesses via “blog posts”. Literally.
Why believe my words? You shouldn’t.
How about a real-life case-study of a company called Marconet, which got itself over 2500% traffic boost just with blogging and SEO! (Marco’s competitors be beating themselves, right?)
Ah, did you notice what happened here? Because of their blogging decisions, they just got themselves mentioned here, getting marketed to you, and that wasn’t even my intention!
This is one of the case-studies, out of the thousand others.
As we talk more of the benefits of blogging for business, I’ll be sharing many other real-life, verifiable examples throughout this piece.
Let’s get started then?
What is blogging for business?
I’ll keep it utterly simple.
You own a business. Any business. A “blog” is your very own magazine, on the internet. You can publish anything you want, anytime you want.
A business blog generally includes details about your products, your future plans, maybe your history? Anything which you see fit to promote your business in any way.
What are the benefits? Well, there are too many. I’ll get you a basic idea throughout this piece.
Top Benefits of Blogging for Business
The most common benefits you can reap off your business blog include:
- Pitch yourself
- Trust
- Control
- Establish authority
- Make free sales
- Get more backlinks
- More exposure
- Collect E-mails (and turn them into money)
- Reconnect with lost leads
- Personalization
- Lifelong benefits, all of them
- Gather feedback
1. Pitch yourself
What if I said you can instantly increase the number of your local leads/sales by over 50% if you used blogging?
According to Netcafy, 88% of users who search for a local business online visit the store or call them within 24 hours. Don’t you want to increase your walk-ins?
So, imagine you own a local plumbing company. Or, even an international jewellery business, “blogs” will give your business a chance at being found.
Also, according to Statista, 48% of users begin searching for products on a search engine before actually buying it.
So yes, users totally use the internet to find companies and products. Why not make them find yours?
2. Trust
What if I told you all your other marketing efforts are nearly going to waste without a blog?
So, you’ve put up big hoardings and neon lights around the city? Throughout the whole country maybe? Well, you do know what’s the first thing people do when they hear about a new brand/company/service, right?
They Google it! Obviously. Without a blog, chances of you being found on the web are slim. That’s just how SEO works. Less blog posts equal less keywords, less keywords equal less ranked pages which equals you being found less!
So, imagine you search for “company X” on Google, and nothing comes up. Or, a one-page website pops up. Will you trust the company? Purchase something off them? Probably not.
I did read somewhere that websites with a “blog” generate 126% more leads than those without one. Now, if that’s not a major reason to have business blogs, I’m not sure what is.
3. Control
Did you know 55% of people search for reviews and recommendations before making a purchase?
So, when they search for “Your product + review”, would you let independent reviewers control the fate of your company? Or, would you bring those searches to your own blog, and then redirect them to reviews handpicked by you?
Do note that it’s of utmost importance that you only show the real reviews, from real users. But, at least you can choose which reviews your users see, right?
On a more serious and common note, it also helps with minimizing negativity. Imagine one of your products or services fail. Or, just get a lot of backslash in the media/social media/news or just on other blogs.
A blog post is actually one of the easiest way to share your side of the story. Put forth your points, solutions, suggestions or reforms. And, because it’ll be on your official business blog, it’ll often be quickly picked by news agencies and magazines.
This in turn results in more publicity, even though somewhat negative. A wise man once said, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity”.
It’s cheaper than a press conference, and often more effective.
How can a “blog”, create “authority”? Right? Hey, I get it. That’s a legitimate question. Well, I’ll get you real-life examples to answer that very question.
Take a look at this blog post from Visme. It does quite a few things. For starters, it educates readers on Infographic creation. Then, it promotes itself subtly, in a very professional, non-pushy manner. And finally, it used graphics created using Visme throughout the article, to showcase the possibilities and potential.
It even offers an “embed link” which will get it tons of free backlinks. We’ll talk of that later.
For now, any reader reading the post will likely be t