"79% of companies that have a blog report a positive ROI for inbound marketing."(HubSpot State of Inbound)
Are you blogging? If so, well done. If not, then you are seriously missing out on the chance to give your prospects help, build trust and gain more sales.
Do you see people starting a "blog" and wonder what it is all about? Here are 7 surprising reasons to give blogging a go.
1. Answer customers questions
“Why should I blog?”
If you are a business, there is a 99.99% chance you have customers. Whether you are an online store, a service provider or bricks and mortar retailer, you must get asked questions from your customers and clients. Gather the questions and answer them in the form of a blog. For example, we get often asked: “Why should I blog?” - so what better way to answer that than in a blog about blogging.
2. Keywords
What are the people interested in my product searching for?
Do you know what keywords are relevant to your business? Do you know how keywords and SEO work? If you would like to learn more about SEO and how you can improve, this article is worth a read, oh and this one aswell
Ask yourself: What are the people interested in my product searching for? What choice key words and phrases are they going to use? Having figured this out, add keywords wherever possible throughout your content as an important step to optimizing your SEO. The correct use of long tail keywords within your website, site pages, and blog, can organically capture search traffic. As there is more content created, long tail keywords will increase to improve search accuracy.
3. Help Your Customers
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking your blog is all a hard sell - think of topics that are complimentary to your business and write about them. If you are a travel agent, you might write a top "5 most romantic travel destinations in the world" blog.Think about the blogs that you enjoy reading and find your self-returning to or even sharing on social media. Chances are they are not directly related to the core business of that blogger. This is all about building trust, not always pushing the can to achieve the ultimate sale. There is so much fun to be had from thinking laterally about blogging, and there is no limit.
4. Pinterest
I love Pinterest
This is my personal favourite. I love Pinterest, I can get lost there for hours. It is a magazine for the senses - food, fashion, digital tech info - you name it. So get a bit creative. Build a blog article around a topic you love on Pinterest that relates to your business.
5. Content for social
Social Media for business is still a stumbling block for many businesses - there are a number of contributing factors to this - and we have heard them all. You are not sure what platforms your market are on, You have no idea what to share… it goes on. By starting a blog, you are giving yourself a head start - a real chance at nailing a social media and content strategy for your website. Here is a very straight forward recipe that we work to:
Recipe for a Blog
1. Write/Type up your Blog
2. Spell check & Grammar check the blog
3. Create a Blog Image using Canva or Word Swag
4. Publish the Blog on your Blogging platform
5. Do you have a Call to Action in your Blog or at the bottom of the Blog?
6. Share the Blog on all your social channels bu using a link back to your website
At The Kingdom, it is the number one rule of our content and social media strategy that we never post to social channels without a link back to our website. Content is the fire, and social media is the petrol. We pour the petrol to ignite the fire. Driving traffic back to your website should be the main aim of your social media presence.
6. Infographics
If you are in the business of facts and figures, make a visually engaging infographic, don’t freak out, there are some easy to use tools on the market to help you with this. Once you have your infographic created, use your blog to explain the info graphic in more detail. Infographics work because people like a quick and easy reference point - therefore sharing info graphics on social media platforms work a treat. Just don’t miss on the golden opportunity of making a new page for your website and packing it full of information that your customers are searching for.
7. You might like it!
You know the saying “you will never ever know if you never ever go” - Well imagine if you never gave blogging a go. If you are passionate and enthusiastic about your job and industry, there is a high chance that this will shine through in your writing. Keep your blog writing in the same tone as you - don’t try to be something you are not. Your readers who know you will see straight through it.
There are many great blogging engines out there. We have used Wordpress in the past, but to be honest the others tend to fall short after using the very comprehensive apps in Hubspot, which include but are not limited to Blogging, Keywords, Social Media and SEO. You see Blogging is about more than just putting words together, with out the other steps your blog will not go anywhere - and no one will find you.
We have a vast library full of resources to help you - including some excellent free ebooks - you can view them here.
