Why bother with a business blog?

“Blogs are a total waste of time!” 

“I don’t make any money from my blogs so why should I bother with them?”

After more years than I’d like to admit in marketing, I’ve heard it all!

And as a small business with complex products and services, you might think that starting a blog is a waste of time and resources. After all, your products and services are technical and require a certain level of expertise to understand. 
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But blogging can be one of the most effective ways to build your brand, establish yourself as an expert in your field, and generate more traffic to your website. And here’s how… 

1. Demonstrating your expertise in your field ​

By writing high value, educational content about your industry or niche, you can establish yourself as an authority in your field. Your blogs can become a data hub for potential customers to learn more about industry practices, what is expected when working with someone in your field and your ideas that set you apart from your competition. By sharing this information with them, your customers will feel far more informed and confident in their decision to buy from you because they will have already established you as the ‘go to’ expert that they can trust and know they will get value from.

2. Guiding them to the next logical step in your buyer journey

The mistake that a lot of business owners make is that they expect someone to read the blog and immediately be ready to buy from them. The point of blogging isn’t actually to generate new leads, it’s to help nurture people who have recently discovered your business and what you do so that they feel confident enough to buy from you when the time is right. By creating content that answers your customers’ most common questions or addresses their pain points, you can not only demonstrate that you understand that problem and the solution, you can also offer them the next reasonable step in your buyer journey, such as signing up to your newsletter or downloading a free guide, to keep you on their radar whilst also offering added value. ​

3. Reinforcing a consistent brand image

Branding is one of the most valuable assets you can have in your business. And blogging is one of the most effective ways to build a consistent brand and voice for your business. By injecting your content with stories, analogies and examples that are not only true, but will also resonate with your ideal customer you can effectively demonstrate your brand’s values and build trust with your customers. Using a consistent brand voice, branding and imagery, can also help to strengthen your brand identity and make it easier for customers to recognise and connect with you as it gives them an idea of what to expect as they begin to navigate your content, website and onboarding processes.

4. Boosting your SEO

Search engine optimisation (SEO) isn’t actually the be all and end all for a lot of small businesses, especially if the majority of your work comes from referrals. But, if you’re looking to be less reliant on referrals and start generating more leads through your website, then blogging is crucial for any business with an online presence. By writing blog posts that target specific keywords related to your industry or products, you can improve your website’s visibility in search engine results pages. This can help potential customers discover your website more easily and drive more traffic to your site much earlier in their buyer journey whilst they are still working out their buying options.

Blogging can be a powerful tool for any small business with complex products and services. By establishing yourself as an authority in your field, building your brand, and supporting potential customers in their buying decision, you can turn blogging into a tool to make people feel more confident in their decision to buy from you. Something which is essential if you’re looking to generate long term loyal customers and potential referrers. 

If you haven’t started a blog yet, now is the time! And if you’d like some help working out what to write that’s going to have the biggest impact on your customers, arrange a free clarity call with us today.