As you are reading this in our blog, you can probably guess what our answer is going to be. Blogs have become part of the mainstream, it seems like everyone, including the cat next door, has a blog now. So why have they become so popular?
Blogs offer multiple benefits to business, aside from just keeping up with social norms, let us go through a few of the main advantages:
Show your customers who you are
You have your website, which we hope is a great shop window for you business. So now how do you let potential customers know your brand personality. It has long been said that people buy people, and that is what a blog allows you to do, show your customers who you are. Your blog can communicate with your customers in a completely different way to you website. A more personal, informal connection can be established which can lead to building trust, which is key to loyal customers.
Show customers what you can offer
Your website shows customers your product range and your service offerings. Without making your website too long and bulky how can you really show customers all that you have to offer? Blog about it. Take this blog for example, we offer a blog writing service (in case you wondered), this blog is allowing us to show you why you need a blog rather than just telling you we offer the service. It also shows potential customers that you are well informed in a particular area and allows you to become a source of information.
Keep customers coming back
Once a customer has visited your website and seen what you have to offer, what is going to keep them coming back? Your blog! A blog keeps your website fresh, it gives customers something to come back for, something new for them to engage in. It allows you to keep relevant and up to date without having to update your website every week. It also gives you an opportunity to engage with customers who want different things, the blog might not be for them this week but next week it might be just what they are looking for.
Keep Google and Bing Happy
Do you know who else loves a fresh website? Search Engines. By adding new interesting content to your site you are telling the search engines you are active in the market. It makes it easy for them to see that you are a live business and worth indexing. That is a big win in the search engine optimisation game. The other benefit of a blog is the ability to communicate long tail key words to the search engines. Again take this blog, instead of just using ‘blog’ as the keyword, this blog is using ‘do I need a blog?’, which is possibly what you typed in to find it.
How do I start a blog?
The most important thing when starting a blog is to be dedicated. There is no point starting a blog and posting one every 6 weeks when you have a spare moment. The point of a blog is regular interesting content. Get a content plan together, decide how often you are going to blog and stick to it. Once you have this then you just have to start. Put your fingers to the keys and get blogging.
What if I don’t have time to write a blog?
As we said in the last point, you need to ensure you have the time to maintain a blog. So if you don’t have that time what can you do? You have two options: you don’t have a blog or you have someone help you. Obviously not having a bog is always an option and if it is not right for you then no need to worry. However, if you really want to harness all the advantages a blog can provide, using a blog writing service could be what you need. HIIT the Market, for example, offer a blog writing service to suit you. You decide the content areas and we provide weekly content to keep your customers engaged and your website fresh.
If you would like to find out more about the blog writing service or any of our other marketing services get in touch with us now or head over to our website.