Blogging for Business has been a buzz word and a NOW moment for many businesses in 2013/14, but it’s worth noting that blogging is not a new phenomenon.
Prior to Altrincham HQ I was blogging in 1999, I used to write 12-14 blogs a week and had individual blogs read by over half a million readers before many local businesses had even thought about websites
Recently Hubspot surveyed businesses and 81% of businesses rated their company blogs as “useful,” “important” or “critical.” to their business
Blogging is even becoming important to networks such as LinkedIn, where the blogging / article platform is being opened to all users as well as Thought Leaders
So what is blogging?
Many older readers will probably have some experience of writing newsletters or articles – if it makes it easier to understand simply think of it as an online article that sits on a section of your website or a “good value” online newsletter which you add to each week on your website.
Now you understand blogging, let’s move on to the…
5 Reasons You Should Be Blogging for Business
1 You Create Value and By Creating Value You Create Trust
In 2014 scarcity of time is something that is incredibly important. Think how much time today you’ve spent on emails, phone calls, social media, meetings and everything you do to run your business.
The reader should ALWAYS be respected. Therefore that time spent reading your blog should add value by sharing knowledge, expertise and opinions. By the end of the blog the reader should feel is time well spent
People rarely ever buy from somebody who sells to them – but they will buy from somebody who takes time to explain a problem or solve an issue and a blog is a way to have a really personal conversation with the world
Once you create value, you create trust and from that there are many that will buy from you rather than the competition
2. A Well Written Blog Will Generate Income Over Years To Come
If you want to look at the ROI on a well written blog – I generate new business on blogs I wrote over 2 years ago and the new blog I write this week will do the same.
Getting the right mix between something that is NOW that will have a short term desired effect (something that links in with the World Cup 2014 for instance) and something that will be timeless is a great balance act in blogging, but you need to do both.
Ask yourself what are the timeless classic questions that pops up all the time and make sure these are in your blogging calendar for the next month
3. Blogs Generate More Traffic To Your Website
The classic mistake many make when paying large sums for a shiny new website is thinking that once the design and build has been signed, sealed and delivered that traffic will flow.
In short – the traffic won’t flow if you don’t do any promotion of the website or the site remains static.
Social Media will give your blogs an immediate push and the SEO benefits of blogging regularly have been well documented
If you strategically blog around the right subjects with the right keywords for google, the individual blogs will show up in search and generate extra traffic and extra leads to your website
4. Blogging Gives You More Things To Talk About On Social Media
“I don’t have anything to talk about on Social Media” is often what I hear from B2B Businesses
Let’s imagine that immediately after reading this article, you go and write your very 1st blog of around 500 words
If you broke that blog down into 5 or 10 bite size chunks – do you think that you would have a lot more to talk about on Social Media?
5. Writing Helps With Everything Else You Communicate
Blogging or writing down your thoughts inspires every single thing you do
It will inspire business strategy and throw new ideas into the ether
It will also help with everything else you communicate – be it introduction rounds at networking, your 121 conversations at meetings or business presentations.
Blogging is not just something that remains typed out on a computer screen – it impacts your whole communications and done well it positively makes an impact on your businesses bottom line
Altrincham HQ help businesses plan content calendars and develop a blogging strategy in 2 hour 121 workshops. If you would like more info email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk or call 07806774279
