So, is blogging good for business?
Optin Monster says that websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages! They also cite 72 other statistics that basically mean websites with blogs have more traffic. And more traffic means more leads! Have you listened to the podcast episode on where your ideal clients are hiding? Well, the gist of it is that you don’t have a sales problem, you have a traffic problem.
With that said.
Not only are blogs cited as the 5th most trustworthy source of information, but blogs can also connect you to your audience on a deeper level than a social media post. Plus they’ve got a longer shelf life and I’m a big fan of repurposing content so you can keep driving traffic back to your blog. Remember when you post something on social only a small percentage of your audience will see it, about 6% in fact. You can pull out different quotes or points from your blog and create multiple social posts from it.
Want a little help planning your blog, content, and repurposing? Grab my Weekly Marketing Checklist to help you out, it's on the house.
Why blogging is good for business
Blogs are a great opportunity to position yourself, your expertise, and share your thoughts and how you view the world. That’s pretty cool, especially if you think your ideal clients are looking for ways to get to know you and connect with you.
I believe that blogging for business is still a great idea. Not only for the resources you can share, for the SEO bump and a way of driving traffic. That’s the upside.
There is a downside.
Coming up with content all the time can be a struggle. Knowing when to post, how often. Creating the right content, having enough variety, writing about stuff that’s worthy and quality can be a challenge. Never mind the keyword research you need to do to get an ROI on all your blogging.
But if you’re stuck for some ideas on content, let me help you out. Grab your notepad, I bet you can think of a year's worth of blog content by the end of this...
Business blog ideas
What’s going on?
Do you have clients asking you questions that could be repurposed as a blog post? Are there conversations that you have time and time again and you’ve not put pen to paper before? There’s another upside to a blog. When clients ask you questions you can point them to a post that’s well thought out, well written, and answers their questions. You can show you know your stuff and position yourself as the expert. Just make sure your content is evergreen, as in, it won’t have an expiry date or be seasonal for example.
Some of my best blog ideas have come from conversations or experiences. Last week’s podcast (repurposed into a blog) was about my bad experience with a mortgage advisor and it led me to write about where this pricing imposter syndrome has come from. Read about pricing your services.
What are people searching for?
What type of content are people searching for? You can use sites such as answerthepublic.com to help you out here. You can also look at your search and AdWords traffic, what keywords are bringing people to your site, and use this data to guide your content strategy. This reminds me, I’ve got a lot of blogs to catch up on about email marketing!
What can you share?
From time to time when I’ve read a really good book I’ll do a blog post about it. What I liked, highlights, and key takeaways. You don’t need to stick to books but you can talk about experiences you’ve had and share your point of view. (If you didn't catch my review on the Slight Edge, it's a book I highly recommend).
What other content do you share?
My blog is where I pop transcripts of my podcast episodes for example (if you're not following me on Spotify, why not?). By popping the show notes on my business blog with any links, it provides great search engine content, it’s useful for my listeners, and some people might come across the blog and not the podcast or vice versa.
Maybe you’ve got a YouTube channel, you should make sure you’re using a blog to pop the videos on a page and write a few words about it so it can get indexed by Google.
So, is blogging a good idea for your business? I think you’ll know the answer to that one. It’s a resounding yes. I hope I’ve given you some inspiration and ideas to help you with a plan to get blogging. Don’t let this get shunted down the priority list, start once a month and maybe bi-weekly and build it up. Remember, you might not have a sales problem, you've got a traffic problem.
PS. I keep a 'notes' folder on my phone and a Trello board, whenever I see a quote or something that sparks an idea for a blog post I pop it on there. I’ve always got loads of ideas for blogs and don’t need to worry about that pesky writer’s block!
