Five reasons why blogging is important for your business

Having recently hosted a series of social media and content marketing webinars, some of the most common questions we get asked are: should we have a blog? Are blogs still important? Does anybody read blogs these days?

The short answer is yes. In a series of short blog posts (we’re taking our own advice!), we’ll explain why blogs are important, how to write them, and perhaps most importantly, what to write about!

We have never been more reliant on or consumed as much digital content as we have done over the past year and with more and more different platforms available, it’s easy to understand why businesses are unsure about the kind of content they should be creating. Despite being one of the ‘oldest’ forms of digital content, blogs still play an important part in the content marketing mix.

Are blogs still popular?

With more than 409 million internet users reading about 20 million blog pages monthly, it is quite clear that blogging is most certainly still very popular!

Blogging continues to flourish with a 12% increase in the last 5 years, making it a growing phenomenon and definitely not a strategy that is ‘falling off the wagon’!

77% of internet users worldwide continue to read blogs whilst browsing the web, usually when they are looking for answers to questions and uncertainties.

What are the benefits of having a blog?

People write blogs about almost anything and do so for many different reasons. Here are some of the benefits of using blogging as a promotional tool for your business:

• Helping to improve your search engine rankings

Blogs are great for your website’s search engine optimisation (SEO). A good quality, regularly updated blog that’s relevant to your audiences can help to improve your search engine rankings as google sees that you’re creating content that people want to read.

Put simply, if you’re creating content people are searching for, it will move up the search engine rankings so that more people can find it. More visitors to your website will hopefully mean more sales!

• Engaging with existing and new customers

Posting regular new blog content entices new readers, encourages repeat visitors and increases the amount of time they spend on your website.

Blogs are great at ‘humanising’ your company and make readers feel directly spoken to, involved and wanted.

• Position you and your business as a ‘thought leader’

Today’s consumers are attracted to businesses that stay relevant and updated on the world around them – blogging about relevant topics, news and updates within your industry, as well as the wider world will help to position you as a thought leader.

Blogging gives you’re the opportunity to showcase your business’ expertise, and therefore develop trust with new and existing customers.

• Increase brand awareness

Blogging can help you build brand awareness among your target audience and help your brand become top-of-mind when these consumers are ready to research and make a purchase because they will remember your brand’s marketing and products.

• Creates great content for sharing

Blogs can be used as fundamental content for any business. This content feeds your social channels, from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram to LinkedIn and anywhere else your customers hang out. By sharing your business’ latest thoughts, information and advice in blog posts, this then gives your business endless content to share on social media platforms in a further effort to reach customers and web users.

So, whilst ‘blogging’ may have been around for a long time, it should still sit firmly at the heart of any content marketing strategy. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has meant more than ever, people are searching for information and browsing online. Reaching customers digitally is only becoming more important and it is vital that your business is able to adapt to the everchanging digital age.

If you would like advice on starting a blog for your business, please get in touch.

Next up in our series, we’ll talk about finding the right content for your blog.