What's a Business Blog & 4 Ways a Blog Helps Grow Your Business
Natalya E.
Freelance Health and Beauty Writer | Content Writer for E-commerce and Lifestyle Brands
If you're a small business struggling to get traffic and are not getting as many leads and sales as you'd hoped, starting a business blog is a viable solution, with?over 80% of B2B and B2C companies?utilising blogging as a part of their marketing strategy. But what is a business blog, and how does it help grow your business??
What's a Blog?
Before I get into what a business blog is, let me get down to the basics. What is a blog?
A blog is a page of a website with regularly updated information. It's generally formed of text and often includes images, videos and graphics that make the blog look more visually appealing.
Individual updates on a blog are called blog posts, with the most recent posts showing first. Sometimes, you'll also see the date the blog post was posted.
Spare Room,?Shopify?and?WH Smith?are a few examples of businesses with blogs.
Blogs can be a section of a website or the whole website itself, as bloggers can opt to set a blog as their Home page.
When blogs started over 30 years ago, they were mainly used to share personal thoughts and views, like an online journal.
Nowadays, blogs can have several purposes, one being a business blog.
What's a Business Blog?
A business blog is a blog for your business. You might already have a website set up where you sell your products and services.?
A blog is another page on your website where you can post informative, valuable, and entertaining content for your audience.
In blogs, some things you can post are:
What's the Purpose of a Business Blog?
Business blogs attract traffic to your site by writing high-quality content that helps solve your customers' problems.
For example, if someone has a mouse infestation, they might search on Google' How to get rid of mice?'.
That person might then come across a blog post about how to get rid of mice from a pest control company, which gives them the information they need. Now, that pest control company has gained extra traffic to their site because someone was looking for a solution to their problem that they could provide.
You'll naturally gain leads that can become paying customers by attracting more traffic.
Let's say that person who reads this blog post wants to hire a pest control company to help them remove their mouse infestation. They might decide to enquire about their pest control services because of the helpful content they read. Whether or not they use their services, the company has gained a lead for their business based on only one blog post.
A business blog also gives you more opportunities for your target audience to find you on search engines, which is good for brand awareness. If people become familiar with your brand, it helps you stand out from the competition.
4 Ways that a Business Blog Helps Grow Your Business
Businesses that blog get?67% more leads?than those that don't, so it's worth investing the time into starting and maintaining a blog.
Here are 4 ways that a business blog helps grow your business.
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1. Builds More Traffic
Blogging is a great way to gain organic traffic on your site since your target audience finds your blog posts in search results. You'll get even more traffic if you share content on your social media platforms and email newsletters.
The higher your blog posts rank on search engines, the more visible you'll be. You'll also increase the chances of readers clicking on your content. The first organic results on search engines are clicked around?28.5% of the time, over ten times more than the tenth search result.
2. Spreads Brand Awareness
Posting regular content helps make people aware of your brand. Through your blog, audiences may get an idea of the products and services you offer, your values, your personality and how you differ from similar brands. Valuable content gives your brand credibility and helps build trust with your audience.?
If your target audience trusts you, they are more likely to buy your products and services.?
Let's put it this way. Do you think people are more likely to buy from a brand they know and trust or a brand they don't know anything about? It's like asking if you're more likely to trust a close friend or a stranger with your life. It's going to be the former rather than the latter.
3. Establishes you as an Expert
Once you've built a backlog of quality and helpful blog posts in your industry, customers will see you as an expert. You'll be a go-to source of information for not only your customers but other businesses as well. Businesses that blog get?97% more inbound links?from companies that consider your blog posts a useful source of information. (which will bring you even more traffic!)
Search engines like Google pick up on the number of companies linking to your blog posts. As search engines want to show people the most helpful content for readers' questions, yours is more likely to appear higher in search results if it's already proving useful.
Writing many blog posts on a particular topic demonstrates your knowledge in that area. It helps you build topical relevance in the process.?
Suppose your target audience searches for something related to the topic you've written a lot of blog content on. Search engines can pick your website as relevant to that person's search based on the number of topics you've written. You'll therefore have a better chance of ranking highly.
4. Blogging is inexpensive
Blogging is inexpensive as you don't have to pay extra to add a blog to your website or post blog content.?
While starting and maintaining a business blog long-term can be a big commitment, it pays off in the long run.
Your blog is up 24/7, so people can find and read your blog posts at any time, even months and years after you've posted them. Your business might close at 6 pm, but your posts still work for you in gaining traffic, leads and sales.
Over time, you'll have a backlog of blog content that can bring a significant return on investment for your business while saving on those pennies. That's why?55% of marketers?see blogging as their most important inbound marketing channel.
Conclusion
A business blog is a blog for your business that helps you gain more organic traffic, leads and sales. It's also an inexpensive marketing solution that helps spreads brand awareness and establishes your expertise.
The benefits you'll get from having a blog for your business mean it's worth setting up a business blog if you want to help grow your business.
Want to start up a blog yourself? Need help coming up with ideas?
I'm a freelance blog writer that saves you time by coming up with relevant topics and writing researched, engaging content for your audience.?Get in touch?or contact me at [email protected] if you'd like to know more.
This post originally appeared on Natalya J. Edwards' blog at https://natalyajedwards.com/whats-a-business-blog-and-why-blogging-helps-grow-your-business/