Why does your business need a blog? I could go on and on about why businesses can benefit from publishing a blog, but I’m going to narrow it down to the top 10 benefits listed below.
1. Direct marketing and promotion
While businesses should never use a blog solely for self-promotion, it’s not forbidden to include marketing messages now and then. If your business is offering discounts or coupons that benefit your consumers, then there is no harm in talking about them on your business blog. Similarly, you can talk about your products and link to your online catalog. Just remember that at least 80% of your online content should not be self-promotional.
2. Establish expertise
Use your blog to establish your business as the go-to place for information related to your industry, products, and so on. If you publish great content on your business blog, others will notice and share that content. In time, you’ll develop a reputation as an expert in your field with reliable and authoritative information that is useful. That’s the kind of content and expertise that people actively seek.
3. Generate publicity
Again, if your content is amazing, people will talk about it. They’ll leave comments on your blog, share your blog posts on Facebook, Twitter, etc., and they’ll blog about your content with a link back to your own blog. All of that conversation and linking helps to build your online brand and is a powerful form of publicity.
4. Build relationships
The most powerful part of social media marketing is the ability that social Web participation gives a business to build relationships with consumers, business partners, and so on around the world. Relationships outlive short-term promotions and are an essential part of any long-term business strategy.
5. Seem more human and less corporate
Since blogs are typically written in conversational tones, the blogger’s personality can shine through and give a business a human side that consumers respond to positively.
6. Help people
If you offer tips, tutorials, and useful information on your business blog, people will appreciate that help and come back to your blog again and again. Eventually, that traffic and word-of-mouth marketing related to your helpful content leads to sales.
7. Spread accurate information
There is no doubt that at some time someone is going to say something negative about your business on the social Web. A business blog offers you a platform to publish accurate information without trying to control the online conversation.
8. Search engine optimization and search engine reputation management
A blog is an amazing tool for search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine reputation management (SERM). The content you publish on your blog creates a myriad of entry points to your blog that search engines can find and allows you to optimize content so the best information about you ranks high in search engine results related to specific keywords.
9. Feedback, research, and questions
Use your business blog to ask consumers questions, get feedback about your products and services, and to do research about new products and offerings. Once you build your blog audience, you’ve got an “always on” focus group. Use it to your advantage!
10. Position your brand and business in relation to your competitors
Define your business niche, analyze what your competitors are doing online, and then use that information to position your own brand and business online. Establish your differentiators and use your business blog as a tool to ensure consumers understand your brand promise.
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