Why blogging is important for your business

Blogging is a free and simple way for your business to show who you are and what you do best through content (be it written, visual or video).

But don’t think you have to call it a ‘blog’ if that isn’t you. You can write useful and engaging content for your website, but call it the ‘newsroom’, ‘resources’, ‘help guides’ or even ‘articles’ or ‘useful information’. 

Call your blog something that feels right for what you offer and read the following sections to learn why blogging is important for your business to:

• Show your expertise
• Attract new customers and retain existing ones
• Expose your business to new audiences
• Climb the search engine rankings

Consumers feel that they are in safe hands when you can prove that you are an expert in your chosen niche. By providing helpful blogs that show you know your stuff, you are showing that you have the necessary expertise for a reader to employ your services.

When planning what you should write about, think about the common questions you get asked at work, or issues that your customers generally struggle with. Ideally you want to answer those queries with a blog. That way, individuals who could be your next customers will find you when searching online for an answer.

Let’s say you are a local electrician – some potential titles for your blogs could be ‘How to Wire a Light Fitting’ or ‘Why is Your Electricity Bill so High?’. Remember that you are the expert, but the queries you answer might need to be a bit more basic to attract those individuals who don’t know anything about your field – and therefore need your services.

It can be a careful balance between writing a blog with the answer to a common query you get all the time, but not giving too much away so that the reader doesn’t need to use your services at all. 

The crux of blogging is to attract more website visitors (traffic). By providing useful articles based around common questions in your industry, you are more likely to show up in search engine results for those questions. The more people who find their answer from you in the search results, the more on average will then turn into clients. 

Blogging should ideally fill your business funnel. A general marketing funnel looks like this:

Awareness > Conversion > Sale > Loyalty

Your business blog should draw in online users at the Awareness stage. Someone who is searching for one of your ‘frequently asked questions’ may be considering the need for services – and you will ideally be there in the search results to support them with your articles.

Once they have read the blog that applies to their query, they may move onto your other articles or to other areas of your website. This takes them into the Conversion stage. Seeing your expertise and the services you offer can convert them to a Sale, now that they trust your information.

This strategy of attracting new customers through useful and engaging blogs is tried and tested, and by no means new. Consumers are more savvy to the methods of digital marketing, and respond more to helpful and engaging written content. Where an article is written in an older ‘hard sell’ format that sounds like an annoying sales pitch, consumers are put off easily. Try to avoid obvious filler content or over-emphasising your business throughout your blogging – any feature should feel organic and well timed.

Once you have made a sale, you can focus on keeping your customers. Loyalty. Think about it, how often do you change hairdressers, or find a new tradesman once you’ve found one that does the job well? Hardly ever, because we like to stick with what we know and trust.

Continuing to release and share blogs that support your customers with common issues or questions about your sector will encourage people to come back to you for information next time they require a service you offer.

By creating new content regularly on your blog, you’ll have new things to share on social media. Your existing audience on social media, that you have built through excellent service and word of mouth, will likely see your blogs and take action if they find them helpful too. 

Your followers’ likes and shares can make your blog reach new individuals that don’t already follow you. The more exposure you can gain on social media the better. Think of it like local word of mouth – you can get more business when other people recommend your business via social media activity.

Equally important is other sites linking to your blog; linking between sites is a very important SEO factor. If other industry websites find your blog useful they may link to you, pushing your search engine result higher and adding value and credibility to your website in the eyes of readers. 

Establishing this ‘credibility’ is difficult, especially if you are in a crowded industry – but the more websites that link back to your blogs, and the more shares and followers you gain on your social media posts, the better. 

You want to rank higher for your services? Google needs you to establish Expertise, Authority and Trust (E-A-T) to be high in the rankings. The steps we’ve covered above for creating a useful business blog are what Google’s E-A-T algorithm is all about and it could be a silver bullet for starting your content marketing and SEO venture. 

The more Google favours your blog, generally the higher your appearance in the search results will be; therefore more people will be able to find your website and your services.

Now that you’ve learnt the ‘why’ of blogging for your business, find out how you can save time on financial admin everyday with the Countingup. The business current account and accounting app provides instant invoicing and automated bookkeeping features, saving business owners hours of time-consuming admin, and helping thousands keep on top of their finances. Find out more here.