A quick Google search on any topic will likely yield results that include blog posts from various websites. You don't have to be a major player either to have your blogs rank in Google. Anyone can have their blogs showing up in Google. What's more is blogs have a long shelf life, a very long shelf life. I have done searches on Google and some of the top results were blogs from over five years ago. Five-year-old blog content still getting traction.
As businesses we often put a lot of effort into creating content to bring awareness to our brand online. And we often put a lot of that effort into social media (as you should!) but the content has a very short shelf life and you do not own the platform. With blogging you own it and you can have people reading it for years to come.
Need more reasons you should be blogging? Well, I've got 7!
Searchable content.
By writing more content for your website, Google now has more content to index from your website, in turn, making you more searchable on Google. As I mentioned above, that content is forever searchable. Put a little effort into writing a blog and the benefits will stick with you.
A tip to writing blogs that are more likely to rank high in search results is to do a little research before you write it. By research I mean, what are people already searching for and what's lacking?
There are resources like answerthepublic.com or trends.google.com where you can search topics like "marketing", "fitness coach", "financial advisor" anything related to your field and it will show you the most popular keywords and phrases that people are searching for. You can then search these yourself on Google to see what information is lacking from the search results. Write a blog using those keywords and fill the gaps!
Establish yourself as an industry leader.
The more information, value, and solutions you can provide for your audience the more they are going to see you as an industry leader. If someone comes to your website and in addition to your standard website information they also have various blog topics they can read through, it gives them more reason to view you as knowledgeable leader in your field.
Become a trusted resource.
If you are able to constantly produce valuable and proven effective content, people can come to rely on you as a trusted resource. Writing blog content consistently that answers the questions people are searching for, easily helps you become the go-to resource. This doesn't happen overnight. Trust takes time to build. But that is why consistency is everything . Even through blog writing you can be there for those searching for the answers you have.
Help improve internal linking.
Internal linking allows you to drive traffic between pages on your own site. And this can help Google understand your website and, in turn, rank your website better. Another perk to internal linking is you can help keep people on your website longer.
What is internal linking? It's simply linking to other pages on your site. In blogs, you can reference other areas of your site that relate to the blog post to give them more information. So, within a blog I could say learn how to generate leads from your website, hyperlink it, and I lead you to another blog on my website, keeping you reading longer. Or I could say if you need further help with all of this learn how I can help. And lead you to another page of my site for more information. Internal linking is effective and pretty easy.
Help build an email list of subscribers.
By providing content on your website and blog you can encourage visitors to subscribe and grow your email list to further nurture an interested audience. If you are putting out valuable blog content that people want to subscribe to, you can easily grow your subscriber list. An email list is one of the most valuable assets you can own as a business owner. For one, you own it and have full control over it. It's a great indicator of who is actually interested and you can continue to stay in touch and nurture those leads, give further value, and guide them toward your offer.
Better influence readers to take action.
Blogs provide you even more space for you to insert calls to action. Include a call to action within each blog like "Book a call” or “contact me” or lead them to your services page or to your ebook, whatever it is you have to offer.
Create more content from one blog post.
For example, I created a social media post from this blog, it will also be in an email blast, and I will talk further about this in a podcast and video. All from one blog post.
Showing up consistently online doesn’t have to be complicated. It all works together.
Want more information on how digital marketing helps grow your business?
Listen to the episode below!