3 Reasons Your Business Website Needs a Blog

Small business owners and entrepreneurs might find certain social media platforms redundant or unnecessary for their business, but a company blog is almost always an effective marketing strategy. Despite the time and effort that goes into setting up the blog and consistently updating content, it allows companies to communicate their mission, increase brand exposure, and facilitate discussions with clients and customers. Read on for three reasons why having a blog is good for business and get started with yours today.

Build your online reputation.

Consistent updates to a blog show you understand and appreciate your online audience, and highlights the fact that you have things to say. Having a blog allows you to post content about what you and your employees are doing, building your reputation among existing and potential clients.

A blog is productive on a personal and professional level. It establishes you as an industry thought leader, which boosts your reputation – and it subsequently enhances the reputation of your business. Additionally a blog drives traffic back to your site and better links your business with the key search terms. Blogs are especially important for increasing your website’s Google ranking. This is most successful if you optimize anchor text, tags, and key words in the recently added content.

Improve communication with customers.

Use the blog to fuel online conversation around your product or services. Get feedback from clients. Listen to praise and criticisms and give clients a venue for voicing their thoughts and responding to your ideas. Use the blog to ask your most loyal customers brand-specific questions and give them the chance to provide some feedback in a casual, open environment.

Beyond the act of asking questions for the sake of enhancing your services, you can grow your customer base by asking simple questions that invite responses and increase engagement with the blog and other social media platforms. The more people interact with the company online, the more your audience can expand, and the more future customers you will gain.

Drive business.

Blog content is more likely to be shared across all social media networks than press releases or other more traditional forms of marketing communications. It’s hard to constantly promote a company website with stagnant content – it feels pushy, stale, and uncreative. Relevant industry blogs however, are in high demand. You can gain a following, flesh out your role as industry thought leader, and ultimately increase sales through the exposure your blog brings to your business. Blogs can be as formal or casual as you decide and in many cases, they can “humanize” a business by bringing the customer face-to-face with the company’s core essence. When it comes time for a consumer to decide where to purchase a product, that blog might just differentiate your business from the competition.

Ultimately, don’t start a blog if you’re unable to update content on a regular basis because an inactive, outdated blog is essentially useless. If you’re willing to commit to the process however, blogging for your company is a valuable marketing tactic that can help grow your business.

This article was written by Kate Hassel of LeanForward.  Check out their eLearning development blog.

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