Passé or Power Play? | Ed. #4

So — not to age myself or anything — but I kind of grew up in the age of blogs.

And when I say “age of blogs” — I mean the days when someone having a just-for-fun blog was as common as someone having an Instagram account.

Man. Those were the days.

• I remember my first LiveJournal* — a painfully angsty online diary cataloguing lunch room conversations with my high school crush.
• I spent countless hours devouring hilarious first-date stories on one of my all-time favorite blogs, Tinderella, as I navigated the dating scene in college and beyond.
• When I was 22, I was an avid member of a blogging network where internet friends often turned into real life friends. Following suit, I met a friend, Amy Cosentino , through the network — she lived in Santa Barbara, CA and I lived just outside of New York City. After months of emailing, chatting on the phone and texting, we ended up traveling to Uganda together — meeting for the first time in-person at Dulles International Airport. We still keep in touch to this day — she’s expecting her third baby this month!

These days? Blogging’s taken on a whole new meaning, often done for a whole new set of reasons, right?

:::I’m nodding yes.:::

But it’s this memory of them — this connotation of “blogging” — that leaves many founders asking me this (time and time again) – “Do we really need to be blogging?”

Again… :::I’m nodding my head yes.:::

Here are 3 reasons why every startup needs to be blogging… like, today:

• Build trust and authority. By publishing relevant, valuable and helpful content regularly, you’re positioning your startup as a trusted solution in your given space.
• Feed that SEO monster. A solid SEO is a three-pronged approach: technical, on-page, content. That content piece? It’s keyword rich blogs that naturally align with your ideal client or customer’s search intent. Give Google a reason to throw your name in the hat when your ideal client/customer is searching.
• Grow that email list. Blogs offer a natural way to capture emails and build out a list of qualified leads/customers. By adding value and capitalizing on a captive audience with an embedded CTA — you’re building an audience you actually own.

Still wondering if blogs are hot or not… or a startup passé or power play? Keep reading this week’s edition of The Bootstrap.

*PS: I could not believe LiveJournal was still a thing when I Googled them as I was writing this. Kudos, LJ team!

Happy Bootstrapping!

— Diana Carter

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