Business blogging has become common place in the Internet marketing landscape. In fact, not running a business blog is typically seen as a detriment to your inbound marketing efforts. But it wasn't always like this - back in the early days of the blog, it was seen as a public diary for Internet users that wanted attention. There was even a sort of "anti-social loser" stigma attached to "bloggers." That's certainly not the case anymore.
Businesses quickly realized that the blog could be a very useful component for their content marketing - the success of business blogging turned the use of a blog from a useful component into the foundation of all content marketing strategies. The reasoning? At the most basic level, business blogging was not only easy to do, it was also highly effective at increasing a brand's visibility and credibility - and it continues to be effective to this day.
The Benefits of Business Blogging
Visibility and credibility are two vital factors to the success of a business, especially smaller companies that are just starting out. The following are reasons why business blogging is so effective at achieving these goals:
- Blogging is affordable - Even smaller companies with limited marketing budgets can set up a blog to help grow their business. Unlike other forms of marketing, like running ads on TV, blogging is inexpensive. All you need is a blog to post content to, which you can do through sites like WordPress. Then, all you need to get started is someone to write content and someone to promote said content.
- Blogging is easy - Once your blog is set up, all you have to do is write your content and post it. You don't need to be a computer expert - no coding knowledge is required. As long as you have some basic understanding on how to use the Internet, you should't have much trouble setting up a blog.
- Blogging builds brand authority - The more content you post on your business blog - as long as its high quality and relevant to your brand - the more of a reputation you'll build for being an expert within your industry. This happens as you earn more readers and your blog begins to be shared at a higher rate. Other businesses within your industry will eventually catch wind of your content (if you're strategy is effective) and may even ask you to write guest blogs on their site. By building your brand authority through your content, you'll not only earn respect within your industry, but you'll build up trust and loyalty among your readers.
- Blogging increases brand exposure - Posting to your blog and linking to it from social media helps to bring in more readers, who can in turn share the content with their friends and family on social media for even more exposure. Additionally, by optimizing your blog for SEO, you can increase visibility of your blog on Google's search engine, thereby attracting more organic web traffic.
Tips for Successful Business Blogging
While business blogging can be amazingly effective at increasing the visibility and credibility of your brand, you have to do it right in order to achieve results. Simply churning out poor quality content onto a blog that isn't promoted won't do a thing for visibility or credibility. The following are a few tips to help boost your chances at increasing visibility and credibility:
- Focus on writing good content - It all starts with your content. You can't earn credibility with poor content, after all. Write content that is informative and relevant to your target audience. Focus on providing solutions to their problems by targeting their pain points instead of just writing promotional material.
- Post regularly - Post to your blog at least 3 to 4 times a week. This way your audience won't forget about you. Make sure that you post at the same time on the same days so that your readers know exactly when to visit your blog for new content.
- Make your blog shareable - In addition to posting links to your blog posts on your social media pages, make sure that you also add share buttons to each blog post. This makes it easy for readers to share your blog content on their favorite social media page with just a click of a button.
- Provide opt-in forms - Add calls-to-action at the end of your blog posts that link to landing pages containing opt-in forms. This allows you to capture your leads and to nurture them via email marketing.
- Connect with influencers - Find other brand authorities within your industry through social media and begin connecting with them. They may end up sharing your blog content, thereby boosting your exposure.
Business blogging has proven to be one of the most effective inbound marketing strategies when it comes to increasing the visibility and credibility of your brand.