Nowadays, content marketing is the leading strategy for most businesses. When done correctly, it works, and it can be very cost-effective, something of particular interest to small businesses.
But there are lots of different types of content marketing. The key to a successful campaign is to know which ones work for your business so that you can maximize the results of your efforts.
For small businesses, though, one of the biggest focuses should be on blogging. It is a relatively simple tactic to carry out, and when done right, it can offer a tremendous boost to your business. Here’s why your small business needs to be blogging:
Early Stages Of Blog (Pre-) Launch
The most important thing to do in the early stages of a blog launch is to grow your social media accounts. Initially your blog will not be getting much or any organic traffic because you don't have a subscriber list yet, SEO takes time, and PPC campaigns can be very expensive.
Social media provides free or affordable platforms to share your new or upcoming content and amplify your reach. Strive to increase followers and engagement on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, Pinterest, and even Google+ pages so you'll have a sizeable audience. You're going to need every platform and follower to maximize the reach of your blog posts and gain shares. The increased website traffic from social media will help your blog significantly in the short and long term. Another good tip would be to do pre-launch signups to receive blog posts and updates.
This will help build up your subscriber base at least a bit before launch time.
Search Engine Optimization
For those who don’t know, search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of designing your website and its content so that it will appear higher up on the list of search results turned out by search engines, specifically Google. This has become an invaluable strategy for businesses to be able to drive traffic to their websites. In fact, studies have found 51 percent of all traffic comes from organic search.
So what does this have to do with blogging? Quite a bit, actually. Google likes to see a lot of content. By keeping a blog and posting regularly, you are providing Google with lots of posts and pages to index, helping you achieve a more favorable standing with the search engine.
Also, by keeping a blog, you can optimize content for certain search keywords. This, along with a strong backlinking strategy, will help you achieve higher ranking on Google, bringing motivated buyers to your website, which ultimately drives more sales.
Building A Brand
One of the most important things for a small business, or any business for that matter, is to create and build a strong brand. Competition is fierce out there, and you need something that will help distinguish you from the crowd. Having a strong, consistent and recognizable brand will help make this happen. A strong brand also helps to increase the value of your company, allowing you to demand a higher price should you decide to sell it sometime down the road.
Blogging is integral to helping you build this brand. By creating content focused on what you want to be known for, you are helping to reinforce your company’s image, building trust among current customers and giving potential ones a reason to buy from you.
Social Media Sharing
Social media is a huge topic when talking about digital or content marketing. Why? Because it has tremendous potential. We all have seen a video or post go viral and reach millions of people in just a few hours. This is a content marketer’s dream.
Now it is important to be realistic. It is hard to get content to go viral, and there is a certain amount of luck to it. But having something go viral isn’t the only goal. By creating quality, shareable content that does well on social media, you can still reach people. And sometimes it is better to reach thousands of people who are motivated buyers than millions who are just in for a laugh.
Experiment with blog content such as infographics, listicles and other social media-specific posts that link back to your blog and website. After some time, you will get a better idea as to what your audience likes, helping you improve in the future.
Cost Effectiveness
The last major reason it is important for your small business to be blogging is that, compared to other forms of online marketing, it is relatively inexpensive. A quality SEO strategy will do way more than paid traffic, and it is much cheaper.
The biggest expense you may incur is content creation. The adage “you get what you pay for” is just as true here as in any other field. But paying a little extra for a quality writer or designer to produce your blog content is well worth it, and it will still be considerably less expensive than other forms of marketing.
Blogging is an invaluable tool for any small business to grow quickly. It is relatively inexpensive, helps build brand awareness and can bring loads of traffic to your website, boosting sales and engagement.
Take some time to plan out a quality strategy and you will soon be enjoying the many benefits a blog can bring to your small business.
Author Jock Purtle is an entrepreneur who specializes in the buying and selling of online businesses. He has had a successful career building online business, and he greatly enjoys helping others do the same. His work has been featured in Forbes magazines, and he has also contributed to a wide variety of other websites and podcasts.
I hope you enjoyed this article about why your small business needs to utilize blogging for lead generation, SEO, and more.
Interested in more articles about business blogging?
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Published by Michael J Schiemer
Owner of the Bootstrap Business Blog
Media - Money - Marketing - Motivation
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