Adding a blog to your website is an excellent way to flesh out the informative content you offer on your site. It allows you to provide unique thoughts and insights on topics relevant to your industry and differentiate yourself from the competition. There are a number of other benefits that result from hosting a regular blog on your website – let’s take a look.

A Blog Allows You to Educate

Well written blogs can educate current and potential clients about what your brand’s services or products can do to help them. Think of your blogs as a portfolio of sorts. They can help you show the types of results that clients can expect. Use your blogs to explain all the different aspects of your business and the types of things you provide.

You can use your blog to answer frequently asked questions more in-depth than your FAQ page addresses the topics. This approach provides you with a resource that anyone in your organization responsible for customer service can reference. They can send the link in a communication or refer to it verbally.

You can write a separate blog that fully covers each question on your FAQ page. Include pictures, diagrams or videos to flesh things out even more. You can establish links in both directions from your FAQ page to the blogs and then from the blogs back to your FAQ page or, better yet, another page on your site that covers the information.

You can also write blogs that address solutions to pain points or concerns of your target audience. This type of article shows people that you’ve thought about their situation and understand who they are and what sort of challenges they are facing. Providing value-added, trustworthy content that is relevant to your website visitors is more powerful than trying to straight out sell. Many of the most well-received blog articles have nothing to do with the company publishing the blog and everything to do with their target audience.

A Blog Allows You to Develop Relationships

Your blog will help you connect with potential and existing customers especially if after you let them know you understand them, you interact with them. You can ask a simple question at the end of your blog or allow comments and feedback for your articles. You create a different rapport with your target audience when you review and respond to their comments. You can also gain valuable insight into your customers’ needs and wants.

Another way to develop solid relationships with your site visitors is to share your passion for your industry and the world, in general. Your passion differentiates you from other people. It is human and it is contagious so don’t be afraid to show a more personal side of your brand through your writing.

By building relationships with clients and showing them that you understand them and can help them you will also improve conversion rates. When people notice that you regularly post blogs containing consistently high-quality content, they perceive that the business is well maintained. In fact, HubSpot found that those who prioritize blogging efforts are 13 times more likely to see positive ROI.

A Blog Increases Your Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The algorithms used by Google and other search engines work favorably for sites with consistently fresh content. Each blog article publishes on a separate page and with each new page, the search engines have more pages from your domain to index and, eventually, include on their results pages. This also increases the potential for your website to be found online.

Your blogs also provide more opportunities to rank for long-tail search queries which will further contribute to your online authority. Publishing additional content is the best way to rank for long-tail queries especially if you work to integrate those keyword phrases into your blog articles. (As naturally as possible, of course – don’t stuff!)

A Blog Attracts Traffic to Your Website

A frequently posted blog gives people a reason to visit your site regularly in search of whatever entertaining or educational content you have for them. Your existing clientele will come to appreciate the information you provide relevant to their needs, wants, and challenges. Blogs also help new visitors find your site as your search engine ranking builds and should be thought of as a brand awareness tool, among other things.

While many businesses have found blogs help to grow both their traffic and leads, remember that it takes time to build up a noticeable build up in either. Experts say it can take anywhere from 24 to 50 articles before you might see an increase in traffic. And, obviously, the more visitors to your site, the more potential there is for conversion. Make sure all of your site content communicates well the way your products or services will meet the needs of your target audience.

A Blog Attracts Inbound Links

Another SEO benefit of blogs is that they provide high-quality inbound links to your website. As you create content that intelligently discusses a topic and assimilates perspective from other reliable sources outside of your website, you’ll attract attention from people familiar with your industry. More importantly, you’ll accumulate inbound links from other writers as they reference your informative and educational content in their own articles. While these links are an SEO benefit, they also create more traffic back to your website.

A Blog Helps You Become a Thought Leader

Your blog is an excellent platform from which you can establish your brand or yourself as an expert in your area. Regardless of the size of your business, you can discuss and analyze trends in the industry and share your perspective on the matter. Links and references to reputable resources will not only add depth to your article but will also build a certain level of validity to your writing.

Industry-based blogs can easily be written as you, yourself, work to stay in touch with the latest news in your field. The blogs will help your own comprehension of topics as you ask questions to flesh things out and put the topic in a language accessible to anyone in your target audience. As you become a go-to resource for information, you will build authority and begin to stand out as a thought leader.

A Blog Helps Your Social Media Efforts

Your blog posts also provide content for your social media accounts. While you won’t want to post an entire article on Twitter or Facebook, you can post an image relevant to your article along with a snippet of what is in the article. Then, you can provide a link back to the blog page of your website, increasing your traffic flow once again. You can also repurpose blog content for your email newsletters or if the blog article is brief, other targeted email communications.

Does incorporating a blog into your website take time and energy? Yes, decidedly so. Will blogging generate positive results? Yes, it will help you educate your target audience as you work to gain their trust and build solid relationships with your clients. Blogging will increase your SEO and the amount of traffic to your website. Your blogs will also attract inbound links as you establish yourself as a thought leader in your field.

The experts at Strategy Driven Marketing can help you with creating a topic list, organizing the content for best flow, setting up a publishing schedule, SEO, and more. Truthfully, we can create content for you if it frees up you and your staff to handle other business matters. Whatever your needs, we are ready to assist. Contact us today and let’s get blogging!