Reasons why your website should have a blog

Defining a blog

In the early days of web technology, website owners often posted or updated information regularly. At that time, it was considered to be logging activity on a website. Since these logs were posted on web platforms, the term weblog was used, which eventually evolved into the phrase blog.

A blog is an information-based website that usually revolves around a specific topic. Blogs typically consist of text-based content in form of entries known as posts arranged in chronological order with the most recent entry appearing at the top of the blog’s home page(as an example, here is our blog homepage and what you are reading right now is a post). Most modern websites have a blog which they use for several reasons, including educating their audience and driving organic visitors to the site from search engines like Google.

Why your business need a blog

Some business owners think that just having a website and establishing a presence on social media platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc) is enough. They ignore blogging and think of it as something only “bloggers” do to share their personal stories. They also probably think about the time and all the effort needed to maintain it as an unnecessary burden. However, if done correctly, blogging can actually be a very powerful marketing tool that is worth adding to the overall marketing strategy of your business.

Here is how your business can greatly benefit from a well-developed blog:

1. A blog improves your website SEO performance

Search engine optimization (SEO) involves a set of activities carried out on or outside a website aimed at getting the website highly ranked by search engines(eg. Google, Bing etc) in search results. If done the right way, blogging can give your website an SEO boost and generate massive traffic.

Below are some ways through which blog improves SEO:

• It is with no doubt that one of the most effective SEO strategies is having a lot of rich, unique, fresh, and relevant content on your website. A blog allows you to constantly add fresh and rich content to your website.
• Well-detailed and quality blog posts can keep visitors on your website, exploring your content for longer. This helps improve SEO because increased “dwell time” shows search engines that visitors find your content useful.
• The frequent nature of publishing new blog posts helps to show search engines that your site is updated regularly and contains current information.
• Internal linking has been know to be an SEO ranking factor. Blog content gives you more opportunities for linking to other pages within your site.
• Blog posts tend to be longer and more detailed compared with other pages on your site. This makes them more favorable in incorporating the relevant keywords without spamming.
• Back links(links to your web pages from other websites) are one of the most powerful SEO ranking factors. If you write unique, high quality, and relevant content in your blog posts, other website owners are likely to add links to the posts on your site.

2. A blog helps build your industry credibility

By constantly posting quality and relevant well-written content in your niche, you let everyone see that you’re a professional who knows what they’re doing. This positions you as an expert in your field and shows that your company is a credible source that keeps up with industry innovations and developments. Ideally, your blog may turn out to be a go-to site when purchasing a particular product or researching more about your industry or service. Thus, blogging will help gain the customer’s trust.

3. A blog helps in humanizing your business

Your target customers are used to seeing you write about your products and services in a professional and persuasive manner. A blog gives your website audience the opportunity to know you better on a deeper and more personal level. A website viewer is more likely to become your customer once they realize that there is an actual human being behind the product or service.

4. A blog provides you with content to share on Social Media

Every modern business owner knows how relevant it is to have pages and accounts on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Youtube among others as it is a crucial part of digital marketing strategy. However, to remain relevant it is advisable to keep posting new content to these accounts/pages regularly. Sharing your blog posts on social media can be a good way to keep your social media accounts active which in return drive traffic to the site.
If still relevant, blog posts can be used again in the future as social media content.

5. A blog helps you build a healthy relationship with potential customers

Most blogs have a comment section in each blog post. This presents the website owner an opportunity to interact with website viewers on a deeper level where viewers can give their comments on the post or seek more information leading to a discussion. This increases public confidence and developing a favorable and approachable image overall.

It is very important to be quick in responding to the comments to form a more personable relationship between the website owner and the customer.

6. A blog helps in defining your brand

Whatever your business is, having a blog on your website is a great opportunity to define your voice and your brand. Your blog posts help to establish who you are as a brand, building rapport, and helping your audience (potential customers) to better understand you.

7. A blog can increase organic social media engagements

Website visitors who find your blog posts content relevant and captivating tend to share them with other users on their social media profiles. This is a great way to gain new blog readers and exposure for your business.

Now it is my hope that you have a clear picture of how blogging can help grow your brand online. In case you web design and development service or addition of a blog section to your already existing website, feel free to contact us.