Why your business needs a blog (20 reasons)

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Why business blog

Why does you business need a blog? If you think this question has already been put forth thousands of times, you’ll notice social media experts like Chris Brogan are still raising it. It means how important it is, and it also means there are still some people who wonder whether they need a business blog or not.

As Chris has rightly stated, not every business needs a blog, but if a business has a blog, that business has an edge over other business. Blogging is a great communication tool, especially if you have built up an audience for it. And if you are a big company, even the press knows about your blog.

When you have a business blog you don’t need to depend on media and other PR agencies to reach out to your core market. Of course it’s easier said than done. It takes effort to build an audience. If you simply keep on publishing formal press releases full of corporate jargons people are not going to throng to your blog. You need to publish content that really makes an impact. People should find it useful.

That’s a reason why many businesses shy away from starting a business blog. They know it’s a long-term commitment and a blog that is not well-managed can sully the image of the company.

Nonetheless, a business blog can be a great asset.

How a blog can help your business

Every blog, whether it is a personal blog, a business blog or whatever you may like to call it, is a platform once you have built an audience. You can take some examples from real life. In real life, some people have a certain reach. They wield an influence and we often admire them for that and secretly also fantasize to achieve the same status. When you have a reach your voice can be heard. You are never isolated when people are eager to listen to you. If something goes wrong and you need to communicate your point of view, people know where to reach you. This is where your blog can help you, provided it is targeted and the people who should actually listen to you come to your blog.

Building an audience of course, takes time and effort. Unless you have a big budget your business blog cannot evolve into an exciting platform just in a couple of weeks. So in order to build a successful business blog, you have to accept that, and prepare accordingly, that it is going to take time and effort. After that, it just becomes a routine, but this is a topic for another, dedicated blog post or article.

A business blog also improves your search engine rankings. After a while it becomes difficult to go on adding content to your business website, but you can easily do that on your business blog. Search engines are constantly looking for new, fresh and relevant content and they often find this content on blogs because blogs are updated frequently. Most of the blog posts are also subject-specific. This makes their content structured and easy to index as well as rank. You normally create a blog post to write about a particular subject.

When you have valuable content on your blog people have a reason to link to your individual blog posts, consequently, giving you genuine back links. Search engines like Google want people to link to you for the value you provide rather than the amount of money you’re ready to pay for the back links. This they might be doing for their own monetary gains (because they are selling their own link advertisements) but this is the reality.

People like to do business with entrepreneurs they respect and can trust. Chris Brogan, for instance, whose blog post I have linked to in the beginning of this blog post, is a trusted name. He has developed this authority by continuously publishing high-quality content on not only his own blog, but also on other blogs and websites. Your business blog allows you to establish you as an authority figure in your field. Since you are constantly sharing your expertise, and this expertise helps them, they respect you for that and eagerly do business with you.

Again, whether you want to have a business blog or not is up to you, once built, it is certainly a platform that puts you in a formidable position vis-à-vis your competitors.

20 reasons why your business needs a blog

Here’s a quick list of 20 reasons why your business needs a blog, gathered from various sources on the Internet.

  1. To create hundreds, or even thousands of pages that the search engines can index and rank.
  2. To educate and inform your customers and clients.
  3. To tell your visitors how you feel about your product or service.
  4. To engage your visitors in meaningful conversations.
  5. To build a vibrant and responsive community around your brand.
  6. To build and sustain your own communication and broadcasting platform.
  7. To keep all the stakeholders in the loop.
  8. To establish your authority in your field.
  9. To share useful information with your visitors.
  10. To tell your current and prospective customers and clients that you aren’t just looking for business, you are also interested in establishing long-term relationships.
  11. To show your non-business, human side.
  12. To tell your side of the story.
  13. To showcase your ability.
  14. To tell the world how you change the lives of your customers and clients for better.
  15. To give your company or organization a unique voice.
  16. To attract inbound links.
  17. To improve your author rank.
  18. To solidify your social presence.
  19. To give people a reason to come to your website regularly.
  20. To improve your conversion rate.

Content marketing defined

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Content marketing is different from conventional marketing; you can call it as pull marketing in which you make so much content available all over the place (the Internet) that it becomes very easy to find you. It is about building long-term relationships with your visitors and followers, on your website/blog, or on social media and networking websites. Through your content you are constantly seeding new conversations. You not only educate people about your products and services you also provide them solutions through your experience and expertise.

So where does the marketing fit in?

It’s not like the conventional marketing. Instead of promoting your products and services you promote your content, and it doesn’t always have to be about your business. There can be lots of information that is, although not about your business, but is useful, and is indirectly related to your business. Your information should solve people’s problem instead of pushing your marketing message. Does this mean you totally ignore your business and simply focus on solving people’s problems? No, it doesn’t mean that.

When you are providing your content, make it amply clear what business you are. Create contexts in which you can talk about your business. While trying to explain something, take live examples from your business. For instance, on this website I provide content writing, marketing and strategy services. For me it’s easier to refer to my services because they are closely related, but most of the content on the website is educational and informative.

Content marketing involves:

  • Constantly generating and publishing highly useful content
  • Making it easier for people to find your content through search engines and social media and networking websites
  • Engaging people in conversations regarding your content
  • Providing people a platform for exchanging ideas vis-a-vis your content
  • Reaching out to people in other forums and social media and networking websites

Content marketing is an inexpensive, highly effective method of establishing and promoting your brand. It’s also a double-edged sword. Since your content marketing effort is closely attached to your brand identity, you have to be very careful about what sort of content you publish and promote.

So do you have a content marketing plan? If yes, please share your experience and wisdom. If no, why do you think it’s not an important part of your marketing strategy?

How regular content publishing increases your business

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I’ll be frank; more than 90% of clients that come to me to get content for their websites and blogs have no idea of the real potential of content publishing. Of course they are concerned about improving their conversion rates and increasing their search engine rankings, and they are perfectly valid concerns. But strategic content publishing can achieve more than that — it helps you setup relationships with your customers and clients, and consequently, strengthen your brand.

Content is of no use if it doesn’t make your visitors think, and once it begins to make your visitors think, you begin to strike a chord. When people think about your content, when they analyze it, when they relate to it or even when they disagree, they remember you.

The problem with the Internet is, there is too much noise here. Whether it’s blogs, news websites, or even social media and networking websites, you mostly see noise that’s of little value. There is so much noise that we even forget that we’re hearing it.

With strategic and persistent content publishing you begin to emerge as a voice, a distinct voice that makes people pause for a while and take note of what you are saying. They may not respond initially — maybe they are in a stupor, or they are indifferent, or they are simply skeptical, but as you keep on publishing content that is very hard to ignore you begin to make a mark. And this is the greatest thing you can do to acquire clients and customers in a sustainable manner — make a mark.

So when you are publishing content don’t just obsess over increasing your search engine rankings and improving your conversion rate (they’re are definitely important and you cannot ignore them) — focus on providing value. Even if you publish two paragraphs, think of how those two paragraphs can make a difference and leave a mark. How does this affect your business?

There are three things that make an impact on your business as far as promotion is concerned: constant exposure, memorability and trust. Do people see you often? Do they remember you (Ah! Amrit, of course I know him.)? Do they respect your opinion? All three are very important, and whenever you are publishing content, make sure it helps you move towards these three conditions.

Here’s a nice article from Copyblogger on how to build relationships with your content.

…relationships build the first pillar of Internet Marketing for Smart People…

SEO Content writing actually improves your search engine rankings

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Does SEO content writing improve your rankings

Does SEO content writing improve your rankings

Does SEO content writing actually improve your search engine rankings?

You may like to read 5 Reasons Why Content Writing Is Important for SEO

Although, whenever my clients ask me this question, I tell them that SEO content writing alone doesn’t improve search engine rankings but it is the underpinning of every SEO strategy.

Unless you have good content, you’re not going to enjoy better search rankings. There is a reason.

Over the years, an increasing number of organizations and content creators have realized that merely using keywords here and there doesn’t help much in improving one’s search engine rankings.

You need to provide useful information. You must write content that is relevant to what your target audience is looking for. Only then you can improve your SEO.

What do millions of Internet users access everyday while surfing the Internet?

They access the content present on various websites.

What do people promote day in and day out on various social media and networking websites?

They promote content links.

So it’s clear that everything is about content, whether it exists in the form of text, video or images.

Since everybody is seeking content, how do you create content that’s actually being sought?

And if you create content that is highly sought after, how do you let people know of its existence?

This is where SEO content writing can help you.

What does content actually mean?

Whatever exists digitally on the Internet is content

Whatever exists digitally on the Internet is content

As I have explained elsewhere on this blog, whatever information exists, it is content. It can be text, it can be video, it can be images, it can be PDFs, it can be social media updates – anything that can be read, heard or viewed, is content.

This TopRank blog post has compiled responses from 40 content marketers and content writers to get a perspective on what is content. For example, according to Heidi Cohen,

Content is high quality, useful information that conveys a story presented in a contextually relevant manner with the goal of soliciting an emotion or engagement. Delivered live or asynchronously content can be expressed using a variety of formats including text, images, video, audio and/or presentations. When used for marketing purposes, content should incorporate the organization’s branding, be void of any form of promotion, and use a call-to-action to be trackable.

According to data analyst Avinash Kaushik

Content is anything that adds value to the reader’s life. It can add value by making them smarter, making them laugh, making them do their job better, rush to their child to share the video, make a contribution to a charity.

How important are the keywords for SEO content writing?

Whether people are using search engines, online directories or social networking websites to dig out relevant information, one thing is common that they use: the keywords, the search terms.

There are many Internet “gurus” that say SEO is fast becoming irrelevant. They say that the keywords are losing their meaning.

There are many reasons for such opinions. One of the reasons is that these days more stress is put on the relevance of your content.

The artificial intelligence used by the search engine algorithms can understand your content even when you don’t use your keywords. It can make sense of the words by combining multiple words and multiple sentences and then deriving the meaning on its own.

Consequently, you should just focus on the quality and the relevance of your content.

Although I completely agree with the quality and the relevance thing, I think the keywords still matter. They’re going to matter for a long time.

Another reason for discounting SEO is that people these days are using social media and social networking websites to search for information.

This can be true for website like LinkedIn but finding business-related information on Facebook and Twitter or Instagram can be really daunting.

People are still using search engines when they want to find business-related information or when they are looking for products and services.

On social media and social networking websites they may stumble upon a bit of useful information, but they don’t actively use their search functions.

Search still means search engines like Google and Bing.

Does only SEO content writing help you improve your search engine rankings?

While SEO writing is the most important ingredient (it’s like the pasta in your pasta dish) what sort of rankings your content enjoys depends on many factors. Some of these include

  • The authority your website or blog currently wields.
  • The age of your domain.
  • The number of authority incoming links.
  • Your existing content quality.
  • Your existing content density.
  • The optimization of your source code.
  • Your engagement level on social media and social networking websites.
  • The frequency with which you publish fresh content and update existing content.
  • The way content is organized on your website or blog.
  • The level and the quality of competition your content faces on search engines.

SEO content writing is not just about outsmarting the search engines.

It’s about talking in the right language and using the right words; words people actually use.

If I’m writing about SEO content writing, and if nowhere on my page this phrase appears (let’s say all the time I’m talking about getting more search engine traffic — a good thing to do actually, but here I’m just explaining the expressions and their relevance) how can the search engines find my page when people are looking for SEO content writing?

So it’s very important that you figure out:

  • What’s your target market
  • What search terms and expressions they actually use
  • What they’re actually looking for
  • How to incorporate the data into your entire SEO content writing process

There is a concept called search task accomplishment. What does it mean?

Google these days does not rank your content based on how you have used your keywords. Though, keywords are still important, Google ranks your content based on what purpose it is solving.

To accomplish this, it takes into account the way people react to your content.

The logic is very simple. When someone finds your link on Google and clicks the link and goes to your website, does he or she find the information he or she is looking for?

If he or she comes back to Google and carries on with the same search, it tells Google that he or she didn’t find the information he or she was looking for and hence, he or she needs to look more.

On the other hand, if he or she doesn’t carry on the same search, it tells Google that your content accomplished the task for which it was created and hence, this particular link gets a ranking boost.

How does SEO content writing improve your search engine rankings

A lot of your success on the Internet depends on getting found, if you don’t have millions of dollars to spend on advertising.

You may like to read search engine optimization guidelines by Google.

According to Google guidelines, your content should be

  • Useful and informative.
  • Valuable and useful compared to other websites.
  • Credible and trustworthy.
  • High quality.
  • Engaging.

Search engine optimization is definitely a good start and when you include keyword targeting in your overall SEO content writing strategy it helps the search engine ranking algorithms compute the relevance according to the searches being conducted.

It has a circular effect:

SEO content writing

SEO content writing

As you can see in the diagram, with the right start, one thing leads to another and it goes on and on.

But is it this simple? Of course its not.

SEO content writing has to be matched with relevancy — it must provide solutions and answers.

Suppose someone wants to know what smart phone she should buy?

Simply optimizing your content for iPhone or Google Pixel or OnePlus isn’t going to be of much help and if it isn’t going to be of much help people are neither going to link to it nor going to promote it.

Unless your content really helps her decide, it’s of no relevance, and even if it appears on the first pages of various search engines (flukes do happen), it neither benefits you nor your visitors.

Create few SEO content pages, but create highly relevant pages.

This is where everything begins.

If you start focusing on every keyword under the sun and start generating tons of directionless traffic it’s not going to benefit you, and you’ll end up concluding that SEO content writing doesn’t work.

Instead, focus on a few search terms and create highly relevant content around them. Just in a couple of months you’ll notice a marked difference and you will find that SEO content writing definitely improves your search engine rankings.

Note: This blog post was updated on March 30, 2020.

How to Make Your Content Irresistible

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Are you spending a good amount of time writing articles, blog posts, press releases, sales copies but not getting sufficient clicks? If you answered yes you must take time to give a second thought to the strategy you need to adopt while crafting your write ups! Get these prompt makeover strategies to design your articles irresistible yielding desired results.

Check Out For Current Buzz

Keeping yourself abreast with latest information in your genre will always give you an upper hand in your niche. It will make your articles coherent which the readers can relate to their lives and situations. Your articles will gain popularity, and of course more traffic, as more people will start reading it being the latest buzz in your market.

Make a Captivating and Sizzling Headline

Howsoever well researched and aptly tailored your article is if your headline is not catchy it will not catch eyeballs. Start reading more and more to gain a thorough insight into the type of headlines one can coin. Get inspired by the headlines of magazines, newspapers and other journals that really stand out. Try writing 3-4 headlines for an article and seek suggestion of others which ones stand out the most.

Induce a Reason for Readers to Read

Give your reader a genuine reason to click your articles or your website! It has to be something unique that is rarely available, excluding free reports as it us quite common now. Make your readers know how the site is going to benefit them in the long run and what instant remedies is your article going to offer! This will definitely compel them to stay glued to your site.

Do Thorough Research on the Topic

Research your topic after selecting the angle for your article. Facts and content must be virtually accurate. It is only possible if you have conducted a sincere research and spent sufficient time to its conventional edification.

Generate a Readable and Simple Content

Albeit, it is the type of readers your site and article is going to receive should be the deciding factor in terms of the standard and quality of your content, it is advisable to use simple language and short sentences to express yourself. People enjoy those write ups which did not take much of their time to understand the stuff. They avoid visiting those sites that compel them to consult other resources to understand the chunk.

Make it Hilarious and Emotional

Being a social animal, people are inclined to love humor and a tincture of emotion. It enables them to feel relaxed and spirited and in turn your stuff will become a cornerstone of your website.

Stick to Your Original Writing Style

Develop a writing style to follow when you write. Don’t try to fake your abilities by trying different writing styles. It may land you in trouble as you may not be comfortable with other writing styles hence may not be able to do justice with them.

It will also influence your rapport and readers adversely. Hence it is advisable to be in your original shell. I am not going to demoralize you by advising you not to try other patterns but not without being confident that you can do justice to that style of writing.

Proofread as Many Times as You Can

This is the biggest blunder we all do by not spending enough time to read our stuff sufficiently. Your written article may contain spelling and grammatical errors. Just don’t allow it to frustrate the very purpose of your reader visiting your site. You may lose a considerable number of readers for good. You can take the help of another person to proofread your feature as well to detect your mistakes that you might have walk passed. As it is human nature we often overlook our mistakes.

Following these simple thumb rules you can make your content irresistible for the visitors to stay tuned.