How Blog Writers Can Help Small Businesses In 2023

Small businesses have it tough.

There are about 400 million small businesses worldwide. And according to figures from the World Bank, they are responsible for providing 50% of jobs worldwide. So small businesses are vital to the health of the global economy.

Yet no thanks to market forces and other factors, they are more likely to fold than their larger competitors.

As a small business owner, you have ample first-hand understanding of the struggles of staying in business. Hopefully, you probably already have an ally in customer-oriented blogging operations.

In case you haven't noticed, blogging is a game changer for small businesses on the global business landscape. When handled right, blogging can improve your lead generation by up to 67% and get your website as many as 97% more links.

So why do so many small businesses struggle if blogging was that great?

The fact is that modern businesses that struggle in 2023 need to go about their blogging operations the right way.

What does it mean to go about blogging the right way?

To put things in perspective, let's look at some of the blog-related issues that small businesses struggle with.

Keep reading.

Why Some Small Businesses Struggle

?There are a ton of issues that small businesses struggle with. For the most part, these issues are specific to the industry and the nature of the business in question. That said, we will look at issues coordinated blogging operations can solve.

Here goes!

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1. Getting New Customers

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Businesses can only survive with customers. Beyond mere survival, for small businesses to thrive and grow, they need to get new customers.

Now that’s the hard part.

The global business landscape is more competitive than it has ever been. What with the gains of digitalization and the post-Covid recovery of businesses across industries.

?The implication is that in 2023, most small businesses will set themselves up to offer more value. What’s more, these businesses have found cost-efficient ways to offer said value.

Then there is the constant threat from the multinationals who have established brands and can exploit all of the economic, cultural, and political trappings of being household names. For businesses like yours that haven’t attained such status, you’d need to struggle to “scrape” (for want of a better expression) as many customers as possible.

2. Lead Generation

The issue of lead generation is linked to the issue of getting more customers. There are multiple offline methods of getting new customers. But things have changed, and all thanks to digitalization, there are more effective ways to do that, and one such way is lead generation.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is about attracting prospects to your small business and converting them into customers over time.

Small businesses need help generating premium leads to convert site visitors into customers. The battle for customers is now an online affair, and small businesses have to optimize their online presence to stay relevant.

Lead generation is essential to getting more customers. However, building a brand that customers can relate to is just as important.

3. Brand Building ?

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In business, optics is everything. By optics, we mean the impressions you give customers. It is particularly important to give people the right impression about your small business in 2023.

That's because the internet has made our world a global village, and social proof goes a long way in getting your business out there.

That's why it is important to build a brand with the right kind of reputation. To do this, you'd need to establish yourself as an authority in the industry that you provide services. As you know, authority figures make fewer mistakes and are always quick to turn such mistakes into wins for their businesses.

Small businesses need help building brand awareness and creating a reputation that differentiates them from the competition.

When they do, they find out that maintaining this brand awareness is just as tough as creating it in the first place.

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Why You Should Get Your Blog Content Operations Right

Did you know that as many as 77% of people who surf the internet read blogs? Now, that’s a whole lot of traffic that your business can exploit.

But here is a caveat.

Most people who read blogs online do not do so for the sake of doing so. From my experience, people read blogs because they are looking for valuable and actionable information. It helps when this information is presented to them in a manner that arrests their attention for as long as possible.

So, the trick is to craft engaging blogs that provide valuable information about your business. Once you can compellingly portray your products and services, you are on the right path to increased lead generation.

That explains why blog content creation is a key part of digital marketing in modern business. Why else would 76% of content marketers worldwide use content to generate leads in 2022?

The fact is, your business can never go wrong once you get your blogging operations right. The million-dollar question becomes, "How do you get your blogging operations right?”

It’s simple.

Get a professional blog writer!

Once upon a time, anyone could throw up a couple hundred words and publish them as a blog post.

Not anymore.

These days it takes a lot of effort, experience, and expertise to craft content that keeps people reading a piece of content for more than 52 seconds. There are just too many distractions online.

If you want to leverage the benefits blog content offers small businesses, you'd need a professional blog writer.

The Argument For CHAT GPT

One of the most recent buzzwords flying around in the online space is Chat GPT. Truth be told, it is more than a buzzword. It is a game changer that will revolutionize how many things are done in the future.

Even content writing!

How so?

Well, CHAT GPT is essentially an AI chatbot with extremely impressive capabilities. Imagine being able to write about anything under the sun just by issuing a series of commands to a chatbot! What I find interesting is that you don’t have to be a techie to get CHAT GPT to work wonders.

Just hold a regular conversation like you would have with a waiter at your favorite restaurant, and voila! You'd get a large volume of content in a matter of seconds!

Try this for size. I got an essay on Michelangelo's favorite pastimes in a fraction of the time it took a teller to run up my bill at a supermarket.

That’s how great CHAT GPT is!

CHAT GPT and Blog Writing

So I get the buzz about using CHAT GPT to provide blog content. Some folks even believe that CHAT GPT can and will replace content writers in a few months.

I'm not Nostradamus, so I can't claim to see the future.

What I can see is that you would be shortchanging your business if you left your blogging operations in the "hands" of a chatbot.

Now that’s not to say that CHAT GPT is useless.

No.

Rather, it is an effective tool that could be used to create great content. For instance, it could be used for advanced research and generating inspiration for content.

But when it comes to creatively informing people and connecting with them while at it, you need a human that knows their onions.

Even the best AI tools(CHAT GPT is arguably one of the best out there)struggle with tasks that require emotional intelligence and creativity. There is something about the human experience that AI tools can capture. And when it comes to creating blog content that resonates with people, you need all the empathy and creativity you can get.

Let’s illustrate my point further. Here's CHAT GPT's result on my request about "Michelangelo's pastimes."

If you wanted a blog post about Michelangelo's pastimes, you'd want something a lot more creative than this.

A professional blog writer would turn this stark information into an interesting piece complete with images, wit, imagery, stats, and a conversational tone. The resulting blog would inform your readers without boring them and convince them to do something that grows your business.

Now, some folks further argue that AI tools can help you create loads of content in less time than humans would.

Here’s my take.

That might work in a world where quantity is more important than quality. But when it comes to effective blog content where the quality of your content is of utmost importance, you need more than AI tools.

It would be best if you had a professional blog writer.

?Why Your Small Business Needs Blog Writers

We have already established that blog writers are "must-haves'' for small businesses that intend to stay in business. But do you understand why?

Here’s the part of the article where we deal with that. Let’s dive right in!

1. They Know The Right Buttons To Push

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Blogs writers who know their stuff (that’s why they are called professionals) understand how people think. And that's not because they are clairvoyants(some might be), but because they do all kinds of research.

Blog writers can leverage their research on your target audience's demographics to push the right buttons.

By buttons, I mean those emotional "levers" all humans have that power some of our decisions, even the most logical ones. A seasoned blog writer knows the right kind of content to produce at the right time at each stage of the buying cycle.

2. You Get To Build A Community

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Humans are social animals that love company. And our community-oriented nature carries on to our internet activities. Guess what communities are built on?

Ideas. Authority figures.

How else do social media influencers get such cult-like followings?

Simple.

They establish themselves as thought leaders, and people who think like them naturally gravitate toward them.

A professional blog writer understands this principle and can help you achieve the same feat.

How?

Well-written blogs provide vital information about solutions to pain points that people struggle with. Now when you can establish yourself as an authority in that space, people will see you as the go-to source for the solutions they need. The better your blog gets at providing increasingly valuable information, the more internet users gravitate to your blog.

If your blog maintains the momentum long enough, you build a community of readers, and ultimately, your customers increase.

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3. Your Website Ranks Better

Websites are the new storefronts for businesses. And like with physical storefronts, people are drawn to classy-looking storefronts. But perhaps what makes these people repeat customers are the goods and services provided by the store. Once the customers are satisfied, they often market the store, and in a short while, business starts to bloom.?

Websites work with the same principle.

?Internet users will gauge your business based on your website. A static website is the equivalent of a poorly maintained storefront with little or no goods and zero services.

But blog posts can change all that.

Especially if the blogs are written by a writer who understands how SEO(search engine optimization) works, SEO is the currency that websites deal in. And for your website to stay attractive, it must rank well for SEO.

That’s where a professional blog writer comes in.

?These writers know how to craft great SEO-optimized blogs that keep your website ahead of your competition on search engine results pages. The more traffic your blog generates, the higher your website ranks and the easier it is for more people to find your business.

FYI, most internet users only check past the first three pages that Google turns up. And with at least 1.9 billion websites scattered across the internet, trust me, you need all the professional blog writing help you can get.

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4. You Get Expert Service

Effective blog writing is worlds apart from what most small businesses are familiar with. A lot of small business owners assume blog writing is upgraded journal writing. Yet a good number of them do not know that writing blogs right requires:

• Getting a list of valuable blog topics,
• Extensive research to get facts and figures, and,
• Crafting reader-oriented, search-engine-friendly blog posts
• All of which takes time, effort, and a certain level of expertise.

The next statement is not intended as a slight to anyone. But only some people are built to create blog posts that drive traffic to your website. That's why there are professionals who are in the business of offering expert services.

Blog writers are just like the operational staff that man your business processes. They are specialists in what they do. And nine times out of ten, they will provide more results than a non-specialist would.

Let’s say you offer house renovation services; how would it help your business to hire a caterer to do a plumber's job? Not very much, if you asked me.

So why make the same mistake when it comes to your business blog?

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5. They Save You Time and Money

When you hire a blog writing specialist, you save a lot of time and money. That's because, in most cases, all the writer needs to understand is your:

• business processes, products, and services
• target audience
• competition
• goals

Once they are clear on that, they can save you the time you would have had to invest in creating blogs that resonate with your target audience.

That way, you focus on core business processes that allow your business to provide quality services. All you'd need to do is a supervisory review to ensure everything is going according to plan.

Hiring professional blog writers also allows you to save some money. In case you have not noticed, poorly written content is extremely expensive in the long and short run. It will cost your business more in ranking, visibility, and lead generation than you'd pay a proficient blog writer.

Working with a freelance blog writer who understands blogging will save you more in the long run. The payment plans are much more flexible, and you get the same quality of work done.

6. They Help You Build Your Brand ?

Businesses need strong brands to compete in their industry. Few small businesses are already household names, so brand building is important.

Although brand building is similar to establishing thought leadership status, it takes things further. With brand building, the idea is to cultivate a personal connection with customers. And this is best achieved with great storytelling.

And that’s where a great blog writer comes in.

When blog writers can create tailored blogs for old and potential customers, they can build brand trust. If this effort is sustained over time, your business brand gets reinforced, and you start the journey toward becoming a household brand.

Another way a blog writer can help build your brand is by giving your business a face or personality that people can relate to. They can do this by using custom content to portray your brand as a source of inspiration. When this is coupled with blog content about real-life solutions that your brand offers, your business becomes more than just an enterprise selling goods and services.

It becomes a brand that your customers are proud to associate with.

?What Next

Now that you understand how professional blog writers can help your small business, why don’t you hire one? You'd be setting yourself up for failure if you didn't. And that's not me being pessimistic and such. Blog writers are often the unsung heroes and heroines behind the success of many small businesses.