Is blogging worth it for your business?

Is blogging worth it for your business?

Even as passionate believers in content marketing, we accept that some businesses get lots of value out of blogs, and for others it's not worth it.

But what factors make the difference? Find out, then decide for yourself whether your business should invest in a blog.

How does a blog add value to a business anyway?

Quick recap before we dive in: - why do blogs work at all for business?

1. A blog raises your visibility and brand awareness.
2. You can demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. 68.5% of internet users think blogs add credibility to a website.
3. You've always got something to talk about. Use the content for email newsletters too, so you keep in touch with your clients and contacts.
4. You can use your blog posts as content to share on your social media accounts. 60% of bloggers re-use their content in other places.
5. A quality blog will help your SEO and lift your site traffic. The research says a blog can increase traffic by 2000% - we've seen increases of 3000% and more.

(By the way, all those statistics come from our blogging infographic - check it out if you want to know more.)

A quick explanation on that last one - how a blog improves your SEO:

• Every blog post you publish is an extra page, with extra keywords.
• As you publish more pages, Google will see a collection of articles related to an area of expertise.
• As each blog post is optimised for different keywords, they will show up in Google results for different (but related) search queries. So many more searchers see your post and click through to your site.

Which businesses get the most out of having a blog?

Any business can get value from a blog in the ways listed above. But the businesses where blogging is most worth it are those where the blog drives customers as well as traffic.

What are the characteristics of those businesses, and how well does yours fit?

1. You're selling something which depends on knowledge or expertise

Usually this means you sell a service, to businesses, consumers or both. You might be a:

• professional such as lawyers, accountants, engineers, coaches and consultants
• trades business, including electricians, builders, carpenters and stonemasons
• specialist health service, from chiropractors and physiotherapists to acupuncturists and masseurs
• 'creative' service from interior design to event planning to landscapers
• specialist business-to-business service like web development, IT support, recruitment and training

Whatever service you deliver, when you convince potential clients that you have more expertise than your competition, you'll get more customers. Blog posts are a great way to do that.

You could also be selling an expertise-based product. Think hand-crafted or custom-made items. Jewellery, art, luxury furniture. Custom-designed wedding dresses. Personalised gifts

2. You service clients from a wide geographic area

This is related to the SEO benefits of a blog and how you get more website traffic.

A lot of your traffic from Google will be searches by people in the same city you operate in.

If you service the entire Sydney area, you'll get website visits from the Sydney area. All of them are potential clients. Blogging is very likely to be worth it.

If you service the North Shore and Northern Beaches only, you can't convert as much of that traffic to enquiries or customers. It's not about how good your website is, it's about whether you can serve the customer at all!

So if you're one of these smaller hyper-local businesses, is it worth blogging? Like so many things, it depends.

• Do you have plans to expand to other areas? Blogging is a long term strategy. If your long term strategy is expansion, now's a great time to start investing so you have the traffic when you want it.
• Do you have local partnership and sponsorship arrangements? If you're involved in the local community, blogging about sports, events and people is a great way to generate local interest. You can build a high profile in a small local area which you service.

If neither of these is the case, look carefully at the time and effort you'll need to invest. You may find you get better results from other activities. Proactively seeking positive reviews is a common one. You could also post regularly (business updates, promotions, client feedback and questions) to your Google MyBusiness account rather than running a blog on your site.

3. Do your customers need a high degree of trust before they commit?

Some purchases are low risk decisions. A take-away meal. A dry cleaner. We assume the service will be at least OK - and if it isn't, there's no significant loss. We just go somewhere else next time.

Other buying decisions require a lot more consideration and a lot more trust. Cost is one factor - the more expensive something is, the more likely we are to do lots of research before deciding. But it's not just about the money - it's also about how important that service is to us, practically or emotionally.

Do we trust the accountant or mortgage broker with our financial information? Is that physiotherapist going to make us better or damage us? What about a family lawyer when considering divorce?

Blogs build trust and relationships - especially if you include real-life stories and examples! (Here’s?one we wrote for Streamlined Organising about the paperless office. Andan anonymous but real life tale about?the risks of buying strata property.)?These stories show how you work with clients to make things better for them. They're not quite word of mouth or a referral, but they're pretty close. And they're more interesting than yet another 'What is xxx?' post like all the others in the search results!

So is blogging worth it for your business?

• Is your knowledge and expertise important to how you service customers?
• Do you have clients across a reasonable geographic area?
• Do they need to trust you before they buy?

If you answered yes to two or more of these questions, chances are a blog is worth it for you. And since it's a long term build, I recommend getting started straight away. Happy to help if necessary!

If you answered no to everything, think much harder about the value you'll get out of a blog. A blog will still build brand, raise profile and showcase your expertise - but it may not be the most effective way you can invest your marketing dollar.

If you're still not sure, let's have a chat and work out the best options for your situation.