No matter how big your business gets at the end of the day you are either green and growing or ripe and rotting. One of the easiest ways to grow your business is often one of the most underutilized tools you have at your disposal. Take a moment to think about some of your favorite shows, websites, magazines, etc. What is one thing they all have in common? They all continuously put out new content that you find valuable in some way or another. Our clients work the same way. One way to guarantee happy clients, both current and prospective, is by providing them with new valuable content.
What Are The Benefits
Now, you may be thinking that is easier said than done. However, take a look at some of the top companies and how they approach their business. One thing they ALL have in common is that they take advantage of blogging. Blogging is a free form of digital marketing that can also act as evergreen content for your business. Have a new product coming out? Why not write up a few blogs describing the issues that the product can fix and why your readers need to have it? No matter what your business focuses on education is almost always needed for potential and current clients. Don’t get me wrong, some businesses have to do a lot more educating than others, but they ALL need to educate their clients.
Why It Pays To Blog!
If you are that business owner that believes the proof is in the pudding then why not take a look at these tasty numbers. Companies that blog receive 97% more links to their websites. When it comes to active visitors to your company website companies that blog receive 55% more visitors. Blogging is a proven way to generate the most traffic to your business when done correctly. One of the best ways to make sure you are blogging to your advantage is by being consistent in your posts. Businesses that publish content regularly receive eight times more traffic than businesses that blog every once and awhile.
How To Stand Out
What makes most companies jump on the blogging bandwagon is the benefits of cost reduction. In most businesses the largest cost is in marketing. In this digital world it can be difficult to stand out among the sea of ads that is constantly streaming in the background. Blogging helps reduce overall marketing cost by more than 60%. Because most, if not all businesses, have a website all they have to do is post on their already existing sites. Posting is the easiest part, all you have to do is upload the content onto your current platform. A large portion of companies use WordPress which was started as a blogging platform!
What is The Catch?
Are you asking yourself “Why isn’t everyone doing it?” One of the most common reasons that businesses don’t blog currently is that they don’t know what it is. What with all the different acronyms out there, B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to customer) it can be easy to get lost. Another common reason that prevents businesses from taking advantage of the gold mine blogging can be, is time. There never seems to be enough time for anything these days. Which is why we as business owners have to weigh things out by their ability to yield a high return on investment (ROI). For companies that are unable to devote the time it takes to write can hire a ghostwriter.
A Simple Solution
Hiring a ghostwriter can help solve a number of reasons businesses don’t currently blog. It takes care of the time constraint and the issue of not being good at writing. You can even tell the ghostwriter to choose topics that fit your target demographic or focus on your brand. Thus, effectively checking off the last most common reason businesses don’t take advantage of blogging. Ghostwriters can be extremely affordable and easy to find. You can even have them repurpose the same article in a number of ways, this gives you even more content while taking even less time.
Breaking Down The Numbers
There are even more added benefits to blogging for your business. For example, SEO’s (search engine optimizers) run this world and one of the easiest ways to increase your business’s rank is through blogging. Business websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages! When you throw in keywords that are most commonly searched for into your blogs your numbers go up even faster. With the popularity and need for SEO recognition in business you can even find ghostwriters that specialize in SEO maximizing. If you don’t want to go the route of a ghostwriter, (personally I have always been that person who doesn’t like to pay for something I can do myself) you can look up keywords on your own to use.
The Art Of Simplicity
There is an ample market for every business online. With over 409 million active readers who read an average of 22.2 billion blogs a month it would be in your company’s best interest to blog. Blogging can also be a great way to collect emails (that can later be used for marketing funnels). Let’s go back to the promotion of an upcoming product. Blogging about the product cannot only build up hype on the product itself you can also use the same blog to trigger an email campaign for it. By reading the blog you know that the read has expressed interest in the product itself. Knowing that you can lead them to more info on the product and even offer presale or discounts on the product. The options on multi purposing your blog content are limitless.
Maximize Your Exposure
To maximize exposure there are a few things you can do to get the most out of each post. Readers like posts with lots of visual interest. An average of 43% of readers admit to skim blogs. This means you need to add visual interest with pictures, infographics, and even videos. 36% of readers prefer list-based headlines and content. For example, who didn’t love How to lose a guy in ten days? We as consumers have been conditioned to rank things use that to your advantage. Choose topics that you are passionate about, this helps you to stay focused on the content and provide more valuable content. It also makes it much easier to write. If you are going to use keywords (because you want the highest ROI) try to stick with one or two keywords. This will help prevent the article from feeling disjointed.
My Little Secret
One of my best kept secrets is how I use my company’s social media platforms to promote my blog posts. By promoting your blog in multiple places you extend your reach and exposure even further. One of my favorite social media platforms to do this with is Pinterest. I create multiple pins all with the same information just a different look and feel and tie them all back to the blog post. Doing this helps me gage which setup visual draws my audience. It is amazing what a difference it can make. The same post can have 400 views with one cover and 6 thousand on another. Try it out, it will blow your mind. Posting on all of your platforms helps to establish continuity throughout all aspects of your business. Doing this helps to strengthen your company’s brand.
Share The Love
Lastly, my number one suggestion to expand your business exposure through blogging is by posting as a guest on other blog platforms. There are tons of blogging sites that take on guest bloggers. This means you have direct access to even more potential clients. It also helps to establish you as an expert in your field. When readers see you featured in multiple places it helps create a better feel for your knowledge and experience. It also helps customers to get a better feel for your brand and vision. In fact, 70% of consumers learn about a company through their articles rather than their ads. Clearly, it pays to blog for your business. What is stopping you from taking your business to the next level?
Are You Ready?
Blogging has the ability to help you dramatically increase your business traffic. Don’t believe me? Be sure to subscribe to my next article that will break down the top five reasons every business needs to be blogging. If you are a health and wellness expert looking for help to become the next major influencer in your field, I would love to hear from you. I offer an online course that can help you do just that. For more information, book a one-on-one consultation call with me. If you are the best at what you do and no one knows you exist, how many people can you help?
