How Blogs Can Benefit Your Business

In a digital landscape dominated by brand goliaths and ever-changing best practices, it’s crucial to remain both relevant and visible in the online realm. For a business to be found, it must be able to be seen. Now, while this practical theory may seem simple in nature, it’s quite the contrary. With Google’s G Suite hosting over 6 million paying businesses¹, remaining—or getting into—the limelight is a major feat. In this article I’ll uncover why publishing blog posts is imperative to the success of businesses worldwide.

Increase Traffic to Your Website

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” Winston Churchill

This timeless statement falls into a timeframe preceding that of the modern technological era we currently face. Should this statement be written in 2022 and target a digital marketing audience, I would argue that “occasionally” should be “frequently.” With various tools available to review data, analytics and trends, tracking your growth—or lack thereof—is highly recommended.

Whenever you publish a blog post, it’s another indexed page on your website. This allows for an additional opportunity to be seen on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Combine that opportunity with targeted search engine optimization (SEO) tactics and you’re well on your way to desired placement on SERPs. If this sounds like foreign literature to you, I’ll rephrase it in layman’s terms: Publishing blog posts using SEO gives you a better opportunity at showing up on Page 1 of Google’s search results.

Now, while many businesses pay for advertising to direct desired audiences to their website, a major advantage of blogging is that much of the traffic is organic (i.e., unpaid). Blogging allows for easily sharable links and increased website visibility, thus allowing for increased website traffic.

Position Your Business as an Industry Expert

One statistic² shows that 97% of companies that blog get more links to their websites. While this is a clear uptick for website traffic, the reason why the term “links” is of importance is in establishing trust. Backlinks—which are a proven SEO tool—are also imperative for establishing one as an industry expert. Oxford Languages states a backlink is “an incoming hyperlink from one web page to another website.” This not only means that another business trusts you enough to share (or link) your content, but it also assists with your website’s visibility. Hello free publicity!

Relevant, well-written blog posts also establish credibility and trust, thus establishing your business as an industry expert. When you cover topics that resonate with your target market and audience, you can bet your bottom dollar (or, actually, nothing—because it’s organic) that they’ll keep coming back for more. When they do indeed keep coming back for more, that boosts your SERP visibility and yet again increases your website traffic. Ahhhhh, the comfort of a win-win cycle. Go ahead, showcase your expertise, personality, and niche knowledge. Go get ‘em, tiger.   

Repurpose Content for Social Media

First, let’s establish the difference between evergreen and timely content. Evergreen content is content that remains relevant and appropriate to readers for extensive periods of time. Examples of evergreen content include case studies, historical information, statistics, tutorials, and more.

Timely content, however, is content that is just that—timely. It’s content that is aligned with current events, breaking news, promotions, and information that is relevant right now. Such examples include seasonal content, promotional advertisements, press releases, and current news topics.

Now, should you have a communications plan in place, it likely includes social media strategy. While you can easily pre-populate calendar dates for annual holidays, creating content for those days when it seems as though nothing is happening can be a stressor. This is where repurposing your blogs for social media content can be advantageous. Consider your blog a content repository. Need new ideas for social posts? Check your blog. Need an internal link to share? Check your blog. Need to remember how to do something? Check your blog.

“I write to discover what I know.” Flannery O’Connor

Well, now you can read to discover what you’ve learned.

Generate Leads

Just as I had mentioned that each post is another indexed page, it’s also an opportunity to generate new leads. While you’ve hopefully captured your audience's attention enough to have them read to the end of your blog post, you can now have them take action. By including a clear, relevant call-to-action, you can persuade your audience to act. Such actions may often include providing them with free ebooks, webinars, or trials in exchange for information. However, it may also include specific, targeted actions like signing up or registering now.

To reiterate, many paid advertising mediums—such as social media and search advertising—are one way of having highly visible calls-to-action. However, by incorporating these lead magnets on your blog posts, you’re having your audience undertake the same action but in an organic fashion (i.e., for free).

The call-to-action I’ll include at the end of this post is also an example of internal linking (for SEO purposes) and shameless promotion of oneself. But, hey, as Kieran Flanagan, Senior Vice-President of Marketing at HubSpot, would say, “When it comes to content, the best marketers know that self-promotion is good!” Excuse me while I go show myself off the stage now, haha.

Conclusion

Remaining visible and relevant in the digital era are imperative to the success of businesses. By frequently publishing SEO-optimized blog posts, you’re positioning your business to fight goliaths in the digital realm.

Curious as to what else I’ve written for the Phoenix Group blog? Take a peek at what a day in my life as a writer looks like.