Consumers enjoying the convenience of purchasing products online are getting more and more meticulous nowadays. For them, seeing the photos and reading its offers are not enough.
More than that, they are into learning and exploring the dynamics of the related industries of those services. Thus, the rise of business blogging.
Table of Contents
What is Blogging?
First, let’s discuss the concept of the blog. A shortened term for weblog, blogs are digital journals that contain various information discussed in different ways.
Read: Blogging as a Side Hustle
This is a digital platform where business owners through website writers share their views, learning, and experiences on a particular subject or service. Blogging is an effective marketing strategy. Increasingly, people want to know more information about a business before they buy anything.
Writing articles is a great way to persuade potential consumers to get information about of a business’s product or service. With business blogs, companies’ websites can be easily seen in various search engine results pages (SERP).
Read: 10 Ways a Blog Makes Money
The more articles a business has, the higher chances that it can be discovered and visited frequently by more audiences. From here, it’s safe to say that blogs are effective tools for the so-called lead generation.
Read: How Bloggers Earn Money
The Blog Structure
While blogs are particular in content and search engine optimization (SEO) components to be more visible, its framework changes over time. Regardless of the website features, blogs contain the following parts as its main structure:
- Header- this contains the website menu and its navigation bar that visitors can use to explore the website.
- Main content area- this is where the blog posts can be located. Most of the time, blogs are posted chronologically. It means that the latest posts are the first to be found.
- Sidebars- this contains the website and business profile, frequently-read or the most favorite blog, and the call to action (CTA).
- Footer- this is where the essential links like privacy guidelines and disclaimers are located.
Advantages of Blogging to the Business
As mentioned, blogs can bring out the best in every business. Some of them are the following:
It helps boosts search engine optimization (SEO)
Most of the time, consumers start their online routines by heading on to search engine pages like Google, Yahoo, and Bing. These SERPs aim for the best and freshest results for their visitors.
Blogs are the only platform that can provide these needs both by the SERPs and online visitors. Frequent blogging also allows these SERPs to have a new content index.
With effective keywords, the website can dominate the higher ranks as frequently searched and visited pages.
Moreover, informative blogs can also be used by other websites as additional sources to support their content. This can be an opportunity to be seen since these backlinks serve as “endorsement” to the website and business too.
It can create and develop relationships with both the existing and new clients
Another promising benefit of blogging for the business is the opportunity to connect customers. This happens when they are encouraged to comment about the post, or share their insights and recommendations.
Look at including social media platforms for your business. Whether you have some other product or service to sell, people want to connect.
Respond to comments as much as possible. By reading and assessing these customer insights, you will get an idea on the things that your reader is interested in. Responding to comments can create genuine rapport with the audience.
Once the visitors feel that their feedback is accepted, they can build their trust in the people behind the business. With this, customer loyalty can be assured, which can be building blocks for the business’ legitimacy and credibility.
It brings connectivity between the brand and its users
Besides giving a better view of the brand, product, or service, blogs can give a better glimpse of the business itself. It provides the audience what are the visions and values the business and brand is exercising. This can help them to become known to their users and potential clients.
It contributes to a better generation of leads
Another way to influence potential clients to make them buyers is to encourage them to subscribe to the business’ regular posts and updates. This is a great opportunity to promote the business and offer special products in other means like email marketing.
One of the greatest benefits of blogging are the leads. If you can get traffic, you can ultimately sell your product of service.
From these mentioned perspectives, blogging can indeed boost almost any type of business. Regardless of the business is starting or already compete in the market, blogging is a promising strategy that is hard to neglect.
What to Remember when Starting a Blog for the Business
Planning to start a blog already? Here are the things that must be remembered before taking the next steps in blogging for the business.
Blogging requires a lot of effort.
Blogs are not only about writing and posting. The mentioned benefits that can be get from blogging will likely happen if the blog is effective. And to make it effective, it requires a lot of time and effort.
From planning, researching, creating the content, and proofreading, blogs need a careful and meticulous approach.
Moreover, the need to promote and monitor its visibility to SERPs must also be given attention to. It usually takes months before seeing some results, may it be good or bad. From here, it is pretty obvious that blogging is a serious and laborious task.
Blogging is not the easiest way to make money or earn a profit.
Despite the efforts to be invested in doing regular blogs, unfortunately, earning from this strategy is not easy. There may be some who are already dominating the blogging world and profit from it.
Blogging has the ability to scale. If you focus on evergreen articles, you will get views over and over again. This means more leads and additional revenue for your business.
It took them time and patience before they reach the peak of their career as bloggers. For those who want to earn faster, blogging is not the first and only option.
Blogging requires choosing the appropriate niches.
A niche refers to products or services that are appealing to a particular group of people or the market. To create a more effective blog, the content creator must identify the niche where he/she would focus on.
With so many niches in the digital market, it is a practical way to know the niche to help also identify the target audience and market.
Read: 200 Different Niches You Can Build a Business Around
Moreover, the niche should be something the writer is both knowledgeable and passionate to share to ensure more presentable content.
In blogging, there is no harm to start small.
For those who want to explore the concept of blogging for the business, it is normal if there is little to no knowledge of how to start. Also, there is no harm in trying to consider it for the business.
Interested bloggers can start with free sites like WordPress, where it doesn’t require something fancy. It is also okay if the idea of blogging is something that is either not interesting or overwhelming. What’s important is that the possibility of doing this was considered.
Blogging means creating good and presentable content.
In blogging, the audience visits the website not only for the products offered but on what is the content shared and posted on the website.
With this, it is essential to put extra efforts into producing well-written content that can capture the interest of potential visitors. Furthermore, make it a habit to do it consistently.
What to Avoid when Blogging
Meanwhile, the following are some of the things to be avoided when creating blogs for businesses.
Thinking and focusing on ideas that interest you
The intention of writing articles is not for personal satisfaction, but to inform and persuade the audience to become potential clients. While ideas for content can come in various ways, it shouldn’t mean to rely on those ideas alone.
There is always a need to think about the other readers and audience in every aspect of the blog. You need to think about what your audience is interested in reading.
Forgetting about your persona
Another misconception in creating blogs is not to think about the audience, encouraging them to take some actions. Unfortunately, this is a recipe for failure for the business.
Instead, every blog must resound or jive with your audience’s interests. Furthermore, do not forget to persuade them to do something like commenting and sharing the blog.
The writing is stiff
The idea that blogs are like technical papers is another thing that should be clarified. Technical papers are formal and are limited to particular readers only.
Blogs are more conversational and mostly use freestyle to share information. After all, intended readers will never enjoy stiff and technical content.
Thinking that people care about the blog because of the writer
For first time bloggers, it’s understandable that their mindset is that people care about who they are as writers and their experiences. The truth is that it isn’t.
Rather, readers are more concerned about the blog content-what is it about, what they can take from it, what can it teach to them. This may sound painful, but yes, people aren’t interested in the person who wrote it, only on the write-up.
The topics are too broad
Blog topics especially about business range from different aspects. Unfortunately, broad topics aren’t a good idea for content. Despite the information on these topics, it is still complicated to provide a definite answer for it.
Also, the audience is more interested in knowing and learning about smaller topics. Since this is more catchy for them, it can lead to higher quality and more converts.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How often should businesses post blogs?
There isn’t a specific number of days per week or month to post blogs. However, the more frequent, the better chances of getting notices especially by SERPs. According to research, companies who post 3 to 5 blog posts per month gets more traffic than those who didn’t post at all.
How much time per week is needed to maintain a blog?
The time allocated to maintain a blog depends mostly on the previous activities and existing resources a company has. But for starters, 2-3 hours per week can be enough time for blogging.
What is the best blog platform to use for starters?
Tumblr, WordPress, and Blogger are some famous names in the blogging industry, especially for starters. From these three, the most popular is WordPress. It’s because of its plug-ins and various customized features that are also available for free.
