Why having a blog is important?
No matter if you are a business or a home user, the power of a blog can help you a lot, as it can complement your website quite nicely. Home users have the opportunity to share their ideas with others, while businesses can gain more exposure, generate leads and obtain more business as a whole. But why is having a blog so good, and how can you make the most out of it?
It allows you to be an expert in your domain
Sharing news, ideas and opinions on your blog allows you to become an expert in your field of work, so more and more people interested in your domain will come to you for advice. This leads to a much better image online and more exposure.
Social Media Platforms for Business
An SEO boost
As a business, you want to rank as high as possible in search engine ranking, and a blog will give you the boost you need in this regard. Search engines actually love valuable content, so having a blog is a necessity, alongside having a great website.
It’s easy to use
While creating and installing a site can be complicated, bringing in a blog and customising it is very easy and it doesn’t require that much technical knowledge to begin with.
It can connect all the content marketing efforts
A blog enables you to store or link ebooks, email newsletters, as well as social media sites or any other content you distribute in the online world, all through a professional and reliable channel for you to enjoy.
Brings in more customers
For a business, this is the end goal, and according to multiple surveys, more than 60% of businesses are getting a higher number of customers after installing a blog, so this does indeed work great in this regard.
Creates the voice of a company
You need to have a company voice which will help with branding, and a blog can do wonders in this regard. All you have to do is to make sure that you talk about products and services which matter, then you won’t have a problem showcasing your brand personality and obtain the best outcome.
Free PR
Since business bloggers are seen as industry experts by journalists, this allows a blog to be seen as a free PR source, which is definitely an astounding thing for any business.
It’s a great, low cost investment
Your blog is driving traffic to your website, you are generating leads, you are seen as an expert in your industry, and you have included your blog in your social media plan. It is now time to start creating relationships with your visitors.
The best way to build a relationship with your visitors is to ask a question at the end of the blog post and give your visitors a chance to respond. Make sure to enable comments on your blog and answer questions that people are asking in the comments. This will help to build rapport and trust with your visitors.
Your blog is a great way to establish the first contact with your potential customers and start to build a lasting relationship.
Blogging Platforms
In order to get your blog started you have to have a blogging platform. There are a ton of different platforms that your business can get started using. You may have built your website on one of these platforms. If it is not don’t worry. You can always have your web developer set up a blog for your company without completely redoing your site (if they can’t, contact us today).
WordPress
WordPress is the top dog because the amount of third party plug-ins that are available to help make things easier and integrate with other applications. There are plug-ins for SEO, email marketing, membership sites, or pretty much whatever you are looking for.
Another reason WordPress is top dog is that you can create a website and blog by scratch in a weekend. There are millions of themes you can install. Themes are a great way to get started. Just make sure that the theme you choose is responsive and mobile ready.
Drupal
Drupal is similar to WordPress in the fact that it is an open source platform that allows third party developers to create extensions and themes. Drupal is known for being more secure than WordPress, but lacks the ease of use of WordPress. Drupal also lacks the market for plug-ins, so it can require a bit more development time.
Many government websites are developed on Drupal because of the enterprise level of security it provides out of the box. However, you can buy additional plug-ins that give WordPress this level of security.
SquareSpace
Are you a do it yourself kind of company? SquareSpace is a drag and drop website creation platform that is simple to master. It will help you produce a great looking, mobile friendly, website and blog that your business can use to generate leads. It is an all-in-one platform that anyone can use (even your grandma). It is the perfect option for the small business that is looking to save money by not paying for a developer.
The downsize of SquareSpace is that you are limited to what they provide you. There is limited in custom development. There are no plug-ins and you have to choose from one of their themes, but that might be fine for you and your company. Also, you can get on the web in a day.
Blogger
Blogger is a free option. Blogger is owned by Google, so you do not own the platform like the other platforms that are self hosted (WordPress and Drupal). So Blogger could shut down at any time leaving you with nothing. Blogger also has limited themes to choose from.
Blogger is not a solution for the business blogger because you want to own your content and be able to customize to your needs.
Weebly
Weebly is similar to SquareSpace. It is a drag and drop website creation tool that includes a blogging platform. Just like SquareSpace there is limited options when it comes to themes and plug-ins. It is super simple, making it an option for the startup or small business who are looking to save a little money on development.
If you own a business you are most likely going to use a platform like WordPress or Drupal because of the custom functions you can add to it. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, your business blog will deliver the knockout punch you are looking for.
Blogging For Business Best Practices
Your business blog is important. So how do you get the most out of it? Here are 5 best practices for blogging.
Stay Consistent
Blogging for business best practices: Get more out of your blog!
You are excited to get started blogging and you are convinced that it is the right thing to do for your business. You produce 3 articles a week for the first month. Reality is that you are going to get busy and blogging three times a week could start to wear you down. The goal is to post on a consistent basis. When Punch In The Face Marketing first got started, the goal was to produce one blog post per week and publish it on Monday. We have ramped up from that time, but we knew that we had to produce something every Monday for consistency.
Start With An Outline
One of the biggest mistakes that I have seen when companies start blogging is that they just jump into it and write about whatever they want. The problem is that the article starts to become confusing and you lose your reader. So before you start to write your articles, get out your notebook with a pen or pencil (yes these things still exist) write an outline for your article. Start with your title and draft your outline. This will help you organize your thoughts and create something that your readers will love.
Link Internally
Links are very important when it comes to getting seen in search. Do yourself a favor and link your new articles with old articles that are about similar topics or help explain a point in your post in more detail. One of the things that we at Punch In The Face Marketing do is create a series of posts and link these 3-5 posts together. Imagine you own a Financial Investment Firm and you are writing about how to save money by refinancing your home mortgage, you could create four posts in a series.
What Is A Refinance
Why A Refinance Is Right For You
Refinance Basics
How To Get Started With Your Refinance
All four of these articles would link back and forth at the appropriate part of each post, adding more value to the reader and increase your ranking on Google (let’s be honest that is the only search engine that matters).
Write Daily
We are trying to be as consistent as possible with our blogging and writing daily will help you meet these goals. Set aside half an hour to an hour per day and dedicate that time to write. During this time you can plan, edit and post your blog. If you get more than one post done per week, then you can schedule that post for the next week. If you are consistently getting more than one post done, then you can start posting on Monday and Thursday. The goal here is to get in the habit of writing, the time of day is up to you, but make it the same time every day so that it becomes habit. Get up an hour early and write or write when the kids go to bed. Either way, it starts to form a habit.
Include Media
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. So make sure to include images to enhance the readers experience on your blog. Make sure that the images you are using are related to your article and help explain the points you are trying to make. This is why infographics are so popular.
Video marketing has exploded in popularity in the past couple years. So if you are using video marketing, make sure to include the videos you are creating to help explain your points. Product demos are a great way to enhance your blogging efforts.
As you get started blogging, make sure to get more out of your efforts with these best practices. Blogging is important to your business and marketing, so make sure every post you create gets the highest ROI.
In conclusion, if you add a blog for your business, you will be able to acquire stellar results and take your business to the next level, but even as a home user this is a great thing to have. So, don’t hesitate and blog right away, you will love the high quality results that can be obtained out of this, if you integrate it in your website.
Find out more from Yogesh Gupta 0987–366–5313