The benefits of blogging as a business are often explored by companies both big and small. While many companies have embraced this form of content marketing, many are still on the fence as to whether this method is beneficial for the company and if the investment of both time and money is worth it… we strongly believe that it is. Consistent blogging for your company has many benefits and can be extremely fruitful for companies of all shapes and sizes.
The famous adage “Content is King” holds as true today as it did in 1996 when Bill Gates published an essay by the same name. If content is king then consider your blog to be the castle, offering a strong expandable foundation to grow your presence. Blogs help businesses stay in contact with their customers, they can attract prospective customers closer, and can position the company as a thought leader within its space.
However not all blogs are created equal. It is important to note the distinction and purpose of blogging for a business as opposed to a personal blog. Due to the fact that a business blog is directed at current and prospective customers, it is important to maintain a professional and courteous tone. While many bloggers use emotions and tell personal stories business blogging always has the bottom-line in mind and must be customer/potential customer focused.
We have compiled a list of our top tips to help you with your business blogging journey.
Frequency
Growing a formidable online presence requires frequency. In order to consistently drive new traffic to your site, you need to consistently publish new content. Many sources say the magic number is blogging more than 4 times a week, especially in the case of B2B companies. For instance, HubSpot’s data shows that blogs that publish over 16 posts per month can receive approximately 3.5x more traffic as well as about 4.5x more leads than those that publish less frequent.
When blogs are posted with frequency, your website becomes a regular stop on a reader’s internet surfing session. It establishes you as a place to receive new and worthwhile content. Worthwhile content being key in this equation, once you start posting just for posting’s sake and stop delivering enjoyable, quality content, your readership and potential customers will look somewhere else.
Posting frequently not only builds loyal visitors, it helps build a better relationship with Google. Publishing new content to a website means more indexed pages. The more quality indexed pages you have registered within Google means you have a greater chance at driving organic traffic to your site through Google searches. Google utilizes a vast collection of bots and crawlers often collectively known as Googlebot. Googlebot first crawls from site to site using links, combining and collecting information, like publish dates, broken links, and changes to pages. With this information in hand, Google then looks at over 200 criteria and ranks your website or web page accordingly. The more quality content you have on your website, the more Google has to crawl, and the more opportunities your site has to rank.
Length
Now that you have seen some of the benefits of blogging for your business you need to maximize the effectiveness of your blog posts. Googlebot rewards pages that have some meat to them, and it is found that posts over 1,000 words create better traffic and more leads. A 6 to 7-minute read is usually the optimal size for a post, which is around 1,500 words. Be careful though, as too much content can seem daunting to a reader and may detract visitors.
Long-tail Keywords
Another way smaller businesses have maximized effectiveness from blogs is by focusing on long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are 3-4 word phrases that are very specific to the types of products or services that people are searching for. Long-tail keywords by nature are more descriptive and have a high intent. Individually, the 3 or 4-word keyword phrases may not have high traffic, however, it is believed that over 60% search volume is directly related to long-tail keywords. Utilizing long-tail keywords for blog posts allow you hone in on some more specific portions of your industry, for example a Web Development company whose homepage may focus on “web development” blog posts allow this company to focus on more specific veins within the industry like “web development for restaurants”.
Head keywords like “Decrease Costs” at a first glance seem alluring, however the competition for these keywords is fierce and is usually dominated by the big guys. Larger companies within their respective industries don’t really optimize for long-tail keywords as they have the budget to fight for those head keywords. This lack of competition creates an opportunity for smaller companies to rank quickly and efficiently within Google by utilizing long-tail keywords. If, as a small business, you are not creating blog content around long-tail keywords, it’s time to start start. When done correctly you will see results sooner and experience higher sales.
Imagery
It can be easy to get caught up in the numbers and statistics when planning and strategizing your next blog, but it is crucial to recognize that your readers are human. Pleasing the almighty Googlebot is great, but if your content doesn’t appeal to humans your blog will not be a successful endeavor. One way to appeal to the humanity of our readers is by utilizing images within our content. Human brains have the ability to process images over 50,000 times faster than that of text. This ability to process images helps break down content and make information more manageable for consumption. Statistics show that blogs get viewed 94% more than blogs that do not utilize images. Check out our recent article on how to select imagery in your blog to both enhance and break up your content. Read More
Calls-to-action
Next in a blog post recipe is converting the reader into a customer. By adding relevant and accessible calls-to-action we are laying the foundation to convert sales. Building loyal readership and driving organic traffic through the appeasement of Googlebot is great, now give the reader the opportunity to do business with you. Enrepreneur.com states, “Research has shown that companies with active blogs produce 67 percent more leads; receive 97 percent more links to their website; generate twice as much email traffic, and score five times more conversions than their blog-less peers.” Don’t miss out on these opportunities by forgetting to steer the reader’s engagement! You’ve increased your blog traffic by driving readers to your email subscription and marketing channels, now increase your sales by driving readers to relevant products services through the use of calls-to-action. Utilizing these methods of reader engagement can have a radically positive impact on businesses.
Blogging as a business can be difficult and time-consuming. Many of you may have already tried and given up after not seeing results. There are numerous benefits to blogging as a business, but it is a matter of having the right strategy and execution. BuildThis has been involved in both the strategy and the execution of many corporate blogs. Head over to our contact page and send us a message to discuss how a blog will benefit your business’ website.