Blogging for Business has been a buzz word and a NOW moment for many businesses in 2013/14, but it’s worth noting that blogging is not a new phenomenon.
Prior to Altrincham HQ I was blogging in 1999, I used to write 12-14 blogs a week and had individual blogs read by over half a million readers before many local businesses had even thought about websites
Recently Hubspot surveyed businesses and 81% of businesses rated their company blogs as “useful,” “important” or “critical.” to their business
Blogging is even becoming important to networks such as LinkedIn, where the blogging / article platform is being opened to all users as well as Thought Leaders
So what is blogging?
Many older readers will probably have some experience of writing newsletters or articles – if it makes it easier to understand simply think of it as an online article that sits on a section of your website or a “good value” online newsletter which you add to each week on your website.
Now you understand blogging, let’s move on to the…
5 Reasons You Should Be Blogging for Business
1 You Create Value and By Creating Value You Create Trust
In 2014 scarcity of time is something that is incredibly important. Think how much time today you’ve spent on emails, phone calls, social media, meetings and everything you do to run your business.
The reader should ALWAYS be respected. Therefore that time spent reading your blog should add value by sharing knowledge, expertise and opinions. By the end of the blog the reader should feel is time well spent
People rarely ever buy from somebody who sells to them – but they will buy from somebody who takes time to explain a problem or solve an issue and a blog is a way to have a really personal conversation with the world
Once you create value, you create trust and from that there are many that will buy from you rather than the competition
2. A Well Written Blog Will Generate Income Over Years To Come
If you want to look at the ROI on a well written blog – I generate new business on blogs I wrote over 2 years ago and the new blog I write this week will do the same.
Getting the right mix between something that is NOW that will have a short term desired effect (something that links in with the World Cup 2014 for instance) and something that will be timeless is a great balance act in blogging, but you need to do both.
Ask yourself what are the timeless classic questions that pops up all the time and make sure these are in your blogging calendar for the next month
3. Blogs Generate More Traffic To Your Website
The classic mistake many make when paying large sums for a shiny new website is thinking that once the design and build has been signed, sealed and delivered that traffic will flow.
In short – the traffic won’t flow if you don’t do any promotion of the website or the site remains static.
Social Media will give your blogs an immediate push and the SEO benefits of blogging regularly have been well documented
If you strategically blog around the right subjects with the right keywords for google, the individual blogs will show up in search and generate extra traffic and extra leads to your website
4. Blogging Gives You More Things To Talk About On Social Media
“I don’t have anything to talk about on Social Media” is often what I hear from B2B Businesses
Let’s imagine that immediately after reading this article, you go and write your very 1st blog of around 500 words
If you broke that blog down into 5 or 10 bite size chunks – do you think that you would have a lot more to talk about on Social Media?
5. Writing Helps With Everything Else You Communicate
Blogging or writing down your thoughts inspires every single thing you do
It will inspire business strategy and throw new ideas into the ether
It will also help with everything else you communicate – be it introduction rounds at networking, your 121 conversations at meetings or business presentations.
Blogging is not just something that remains typed out on a computer screen – it impacts your whole communications and done well it positively makes an impact on your businesses bottom line
Altrincham HQ help businesses plan content calendars and develop a blogging strategy in 2 hour 121 workshops. If you would like more info email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk or call 07806774279

“With over 12 years experience of Social Media and 17 years experience of online marketing in other companies, clients come to myself when they want a veteran rather than a rookie” Alex McCann
Archives
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- November 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
Thank you Alex for this. I do keep thinking about other ways to generate website traffic but have been using Google Adwords, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to do alot of my social media on.Altgough Google is PPC it’s generated for me 3 of my clients at the moment. Which has been extremely helpful.
However I would be interested in talking to people about blogging and keep thinking about how I could do this.its anything really that can help me to get that one more client.
Hope all that makes sense. And thank you for a very interesting article. It sure has given me alot to think about.