If you are one of my clients, you know my thoughts on blogging and why it is such an important piece of your marketing strategy. Yet so many business owners don't implement it (myself included!). So I decided to follow my own advice and start writing. 

The benefit of regular, informative and quality content on your website is immense. While social media is short lived, the content you create on your blog will keep bringing in visitors for years to come. Websites with regular blogs also perform better than websites without. 

According to research by Hubspot, businesses that blog bring in 55% more visitors to their website, have 97% more inbound links (also called backlinks, which are links coming from other websites to yours) and 434% more indexed pages. The data couldn’t be more clear, and it reflects my experience working with and owning online businesses for the last 10 years. 

If you need any more convincing, here are my top 5 reasons why blogging is good for business and essential to establish a strong online presence:

1. It builds brand trust and authority

It gives you a platform to show your expertise and share your knowledge, allowing you to position yourself and your business as a trusted authority in your field. This can help establish credibility and trust with potential customers, which is crucial for building long-lasting relationships.

Consistent blogging can also help a business stay top-of-mind with its audience. By addressing industry trends, challenges, and solutions, businesses can keep their customers informed and engaged. This can help position a business as a trusted resource, further building brand authority and loyalty.

2. It is a powerful SEO tool:

Blogging is an excellent way to boost your SEO because search engines favour websites that have fresh and relevant content. By regularly publishing blog posts, businesses can increase their website's visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) and attract more organic traffic.

Search engines like Google use complex algorithms to determine the relevance and quality of a website. By publishing informative and relevant blog posts, businesses can include keywords and phrases (also called long-tail keywords) people are searching for. This helps search engines better understand what a website is about and rank it higher in search results.

Blogging also increases the number of pages on a website, which creates more opportunities for search engines to index and rank. Each blog post can be optimised with relevant keywords, meta descriptions, and titles to improve the website's overall SEO.

In addition to the technical benefits, blogging also encourages backlinking. As other websites link back to a blog post, search engines perceive the content as valuable and credible, which can boost the website's overall search engine ranking. It allows you to create links within your own website, making it easier for both visitors and search engines to find your content. 

In sum, Google and other search engines love fresh content, and if your website only has half a dozen pages that were written years ago you can't expect to rank organically. Regular blogging increases your website ranking and attracts organic traffic.

3. It drives traffic to your website:

Blogging drives traffic to a website by providing valuable content that attracts potential customers. By publishing informative and engaging blog posts, businesses can increase their online presence and create a loyal readership. As readers engage with blog posts through social media shares, comments, and subscriptions, they are more likely to visit the business's website to learn more about the products or services offered. 

Furthermore, blog posts can be optimised with relevant keywords and phrases to improve the website's search engine ranking. This makes it easier for potential customers to find the business's website when searching for related products or services, driving more organic traffic to the site, and increasing the chances of generating leads and sales.

4. It is a hub for your content marketing

Think of it as the foundation for other marketing efforts such as email marketing, social media, and content marketing. All yours, not disappearing into the ocean of social media posts.   From here you can repurpose your content across different marketing channels, making it much easier to adapt it to multiple formats, including a text-to-speech sound note if you want to go an extra mile in accessibility. Think of all the Instagram captions you can easily create and the content you can have for your newsletters!

Blogging can also help businesses tailor their content marketing efforts to different stages of the customer journey. For example, a blog post can address the awareness stage by providing educational content that introduces potential customers to a business's products or services. By including calls-to-action (CTAs) within blog posts, businesses can guide potential customers towards taking a specific action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase in a less salesy way.

5. It fosters collaboration.

By establishing yourself and your business as an authority in your field through regular, high-quality blog posts, you create an opportunity to collaborate with other businesses, bloggers and influencers, which can help increase your reach and attract new customers. 

By guest posting on other blogs or featuring guest posts on their own blog, businesses can expand their audience and tap into new markets. This creates a valuable opportunity for cross-promotion and can help build relationships with other businesses and influencers in the same industry.

Collaborating on blog posts can also bring a fresh perspective and new ideas to a business's content marketing efforts. This can result in more engaging and informative content that resonates with a wider audience.

How often and how long should a blog be?

Each business and audience is different and there is no cookie-cutter answer. In terms of length, the general recommendation is to write a minimum of 700 words. 500 words or less is considered thin content that doesn’t provide enough value. But there is no limit to how long it should be. When it comes to how often you post, you need to find a rhythm that works for you and your business. If you start with a small goal of once a month, it all adds up. If you can aim for once a week, even better. The key is to get started and commit to continue writing - and posting.