When contemplating the addition of a blog to their website, many businesses shy away from the responsibility of creating content, often citing the investment of time and resources as obstacles. But a well-run blog can have a positive impact on your brand reputation, SEO and sales. Here are a few benefits to developing and maintaining a blog on your website.
Develop your brand voice
A blog represents a great chance to build and develop your brand’s identity and personality online. Whether you’re using it to keep users up to date with the latest news or demonstrate your latest products, it’s an opportunity to develop a dialogue with your audience and give them an insight in to the culture and people behind your business. This is a place where the brand can express opinion and share knowledge, developing rapport and building trust in the process. By making the effort to engage your customer base with advice, news and tips, you’re sending a strong message that they can trust in your customer service. So it’s important when creating blog posts for your audience that you adopt a tone of voice and language style that is congruent with your brand and the values you share. This humanises your brand and makes it easier for people to relate to.
Become a thought leader
Developing a reputation as an expert or trusted source of information can really help to build your brand’s influence in a certain topic or market sector. People begin to trust your opinion and actively seek it out when contemplating a particular action or purchase. Using your blog to voice opinion and show where your brand stands on issues that affect your industry and customers’ lives will position your business as knowledgeable and credible in your area of operation. This helps to earn the respect of your peers, as well as inspire your audience. Over time, if you can nurture your position as a producer of thought-leading content, you become a go-to source for your area of specialism and people are far more likely to engage with you and buy in to your brand and products.
RSW Law regularly post informative information and expert opinion to their blog.
Boost search engine performance
Posting regular content to your site can make it easier to find in Google and improve performance in search engines for specific key terms. Blog articles are a great source of links to external sites, keywords and relevant content on specific topics, which all says to Google that this is an active site that is worth promoting. Websites with blogs have more content for search engines to crawl and index, creating more opportunities for people to be directed to your website. This means more visibility online for your brand and website, driving quality traffic to your site and exposing them to your content and products. Blog content is also typically very sharable, allowing you to utilise social media and other platforms to increase the reach of your brand through content.
Having a blog on our site enables us to drive traffic to our website though topical and timely content, as well as rank higher on Google by answering specific questions that our audience are asking through the use of blog titles. In fact some of our blog posts are our highest ranking pages across our whole site.” – Laura Mead, Marketing Manager, Westbury
Generate leads
A well executed blog will inspire, add value and familiarise the audience with your products. It is a great entry point in to a sales funnel, gently nurturing trust and educating people in the benefits of using your services. Common concerns or questions can be handled before they are raised and a well-designed blog will encourage engagement, increasing the time spent on your site and the likelihood of solid enquiries. It also helps to qualify your leads and improve the quality of them. The blog becomes a tool for educating people on your products and helps to set expectations, resulting in leads that are well-versed in what you have to offer and how you approach your business. Incorporating strong calls to action in your blog posts will help to drive enquiries. Other areas of your website are likely to be geared towards those ready to make a purchase, whereas a blog can reach out to people who are at various stages of their customer journey and convert them into loyal consumers.
Westbury use a diverse range of content to inspire users and educate them on their services.
Add value to your customers
One of the essential benefits of a blog is that it gives value to users. Sharing content that helps to solve problems, offer insight or answer questions, will drive traffic, and generate goodwill towards the brand. A blog gives you an opportunity to expound on your products and services, in a subtle way. Users are already engaged with your content and so are more receptive to your marketing. You can use your blog to market other types of content, such as e-books and other resources, in exchange for reader email addresses and expand your marketing database. As your blog grows and develops, it becomes a go-to trusted source of information and value for users, which they are more likely to champion and share, increasing word of mouth and reach for your brand.
Supply chain tech firm HICX use resources to add value and generate leads.
It’s true that a successful blog does require an investment of time and resource that some companies will struggle with. But it can also be a valuable marketing tool that helps to enhance brand reputation and boost lead generation. If you can support it with a solid content marketing strategy, then you’re on to a winner. A blog also needs to be well designed to make content enticing to read and easy to engage with, whilst maintaining the values and style of the brand.
If you’re thinking of adding a blog to your website and looking for some advice then get in touch
