As with most internet phenomena like social media and video platforms, blogging started off very much as a way for individuals to share their thoughts, insights, and passions with a wider world. Blogging is still used for this purpose but, in recent years, business blogging has developed into a proven marketing technique to give companies increased visibility and credibility in its marketplace.
At Maxweb, we’ve seen the benefits that sharing our knowledge with readers (for no charge) via blogging has brought to us when measured by the number of visitors to our site, the number of new enquiries, and the conversion of those enquiries into sales.
But, done correctly, what will a blog do for your company? In this article, we’ll examine:
- how blogging drives traffic to your website
- how the relationship between a company and its customers has changed and why blogging is the best way to take advantage of this change
- why people search more for answers than they do for companies
Blogging Drives Traffic To Your Website
When indexing sites, Google is far more inclined to assign extra value to websites which are updated regularly and have new content added to them regularly. Although so-called “brochure sites” – sites which rarely change promoting a narrow set of products and services – can be structured in such a way to rank highly in search engine results, high-quality business blogging is a far more effective way to achieve premium organic spots on Google.
High-quality business-related articles across a variety of different topics related to your sector provide visitors with what they want – and what visitors want is what Google wants to provide.
Regularly updated business blogging gives your website a 434% better chance of a higher ranking on Google than choosing not to have one (source: TechClient). Better still, as time goes by, the value of individual blogs increases positively affecting the quality Google ascribes to your website – in other words, a rising tide lifts all boats. Companies using business blogging benefit have 67% more leads per month for their sales teams to work on (source: HubSpot)
If you invest in four articles a week for your website, you receive a 250% increase in traffic compared to companies posting one new article a week (source: HubSpot).
Blogging Is Perfect For The “Touchpoint” World We’re Moving To
Marketing is gradually moving from outbound marketing (telemarketing, email marketing, postal campaigns, and so on) to inbound marketing (the discovery of content online). Although more traditional methods of marketing are unlikely to die out completely, we believe that, by 2025, most product and service sourcing will take place online.
Why? Because it’s cheaper and easier. It’s not that the odds have changed. In email marketing and telemarketing, the number of people in the market for what you’re selling at any given time will be small. And because they’re not in the market right now, you won’t be able to sell to them, no matter how good the offer you make.
However, the sheer expense in infrastructure, staffing, and data involved in traditional direct marketing campaigns means that there is a very high cost to customer acquisition. This cost is unlikely to come down anytime soon – indeed, many colleagues in other companies in outbound sales and marketing roles have recently expressed that it’s become a lot harder to get fresh new leads than it used to be, particularly since the introduction of the GDPR.
A telephone call or email is ephemeral – one minute it’s here, the next minute, it’s gone. With business blogging, your article remains available and findable to new and potential customers at the time they need to find it.
Blogging provides quality “touches” to a potential client on their times and in tune with their buying cycle requirements. It now takes up to thirteen of these touches – these interactions with your company – for enough trust in your brand to turn into a sales lead (source: Online Marketing Institute).
Blogging Demonstrates Your Knowledge And Expertise To Visitors
Let’s say that you run an accountancy and an MD is currently searching for information on the most tax efficient way to pay him- or herself. He or she will probably search for “salary dividend split 2020” rather than “tax accountant”. People will search for the information they want first before they search for a company who can perform the task that they need to have completed.
Business blogging provides you with the opportunity to answer, in depth, to the questions your customers are most likely to have. And, within the text, you can demonstrate to your visitors that yours is the company which can deliver to the client the outcome which they want.
Blogs have now become the 5th most trusted source of information on the internet (source: HubSpot) and they are arguably the most suitable marketing and communications tool in the “answer first, supplier second” world to which we’re slowly moving.
Blogging For Small Businesses With Maxweb
The power of blogging as means of connecting with customers seeking information or searching for a new supplier is exploited every day by companies large and small and in every conceivable sector. Even better, for companies with niche products and services, the return on investment can be even greater if there is not a great deal of competition for customers in your sector.
The key to successful business blogging is to do it regularly and to make sure that what you’re writing about is of the highest quality. Look at the top five search results on any topic you intend to write about, take inspiration from those places, and make your version the best on the internet.
To talk about the advantages of blogging and how to integrate blogging into your SEO and inbound marketing, please call us on 0151 652 4777 or email info@maxwebsolutions.co.uk.
Posted on Friday, October 25th, 2019 in Digital Marketing.
