Optimised content has the power to further elevate the performance of your business and blogging provides the perfect way to do this.
The modern blog has evolved from a generic online diary to a power-packed tool for communicating with your customers and building trust and rapport. People don’t want to deal with faceless companies, they want to feel like they know you and believe in your ethos and your products before they’ll consider buying. Blogging gives you the perfect opportunity to show your customers who you are and what you’re about.
There’s only so much a good sales page can do – it sells your product or service, but that’s it. An ongoing blog sells your values, your reliability, your expertise and your personality. When you have an archive of useful articles that genuinely provide value for your customers, people can get to know you. They can start to trust you and your business goes up in their estimation.
Nobody knows this better than Google. Google has recently updated its algorithms to intensely focus on the quality of the content of your website and the regularity of your posting. Google wants to provide users with great, high value content – because that’s what they’re looking for – and that is exactly what you should give them.
Let’s look at some of the most important points to consider when blogging for businesses and why this is such an integral part of taking your business and online presence up to the next level.
Why Blog?
There are so many advantages to blogging that it is an absolute must for any business looking to get ahead. Here are some of the important points:
- It increases your search engine rankings. In simple terms, Google ranks you according to relevancy and authority and gives priority to businesses that are regularly delivering content that shows they know their industry inside out.
- It deepens your customers’ relationship with your company, by building trust and rapport and continuing an ongoing conversation with your customers.
- It increases sales. As you know, first-time visitors rarely buy. It’s the return visitors that do. So give them a reason to return time and time again.
- It helps you to get to know your customers more. Deepening the relationship with your customers goes both ways. If a certain article garners more hits, shares, comments or likes, then it’s clearly a subject that they are interested in.
- It promotes you as an expert in your field. Regular blogging will build confidence in your customers that you know your stuff. If they can find value, and trust what you say in your blog, then they know they can trust what you say when it comes to your products and services.
- It lets customers know you are alive and kicking! It’s hard to have faith in a business if you land on their dusty website and it looks like no-one’s been there for years. In contrast, landing on a website that is clearly very much up to date and buzzing immediately inspires a level of trust and positivity.
What Are Your Goals?
There are many benefits that come with blogging, however although it may sound counter-intuitive, reaping these benefits should not be your primary goal. Benefits such as increased search engine rankings and increased sales are things that will happen naturally if you are blogging right.
Your goal is simply to give as much value as possible to your customer. They have questions and they want answers. They have needs and you are there to help them to fill them. So your blogging goals are:
- Provide solutions to your customers’ problems. Let your customers know that you understand who they are and what they need – and crucially, that you can help them.
- Give away, for free, excellent advice written in a clear and understandable manner that genuinely provides value.
- Post regularly so that the information you’re providing is up to date and therefore of the highest value.
- As well as educating people, people love to be entertained and they love to be wowed. You don’t have to be posting pages of lectures, it’s ok to make people smile and to make them feel good.
Who Are Your Posts For?
The big thing that many businesses don’t realise, and this cannot be repeated too many times, is a business blog is not about you. Little snippets of news about what you’ve been up to are basically of no interest to your customer! Your blog should be about your customer and for your customer.
Again, think about what problems your customers have. What would they love for you to solve? What would really help them? What would they love to discover?
The predominant aim of your blog is to give away your best advice. Give it gladly and give plenty of it. This is the attitude that will have customers falling in love with you and your business and coming back for more.
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