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In the 80’s, the must have business tool was the computer. In the 90’s, it became the cell phone, and since around 2000 the must have business tool has been the blog.
Most small business owners have at least an idea of what a blog is, but the majority of them don’t have a blog for their own website just yet. A blog is basically a collection of self written articles, press releases, news releases, and general information about your company or your company’s niche.
Blogs are becoming a huge part of most business’ social media strategies, and are an extremely effective tool to stay connected with new and old customers. There’s five main reasons why your small business should be blogging:
- Improved Search Engine Rankings
Having a blog means you have fresh content on your website, a huge ranking factor for search engines these days. Search engines aren’t huge fans of static, non changing websites because they offer less information for searches. By adding a blog to your website, you are telling search engines that you are committed to staying on top of developments in your field and in your company, and you are willing to share your interpretation of those developments with the world. This makes your website much easier for search engines to rank. - Brand Awareness
For most small businesses, it usually takes a new customer multiple encounters before a sale is made. Blogging is a great marketing tool to increase brand awareness and make multiple encounters with potential new customers. These potential new customers will continually come back to your blog to check for updates and learn more about your business and niche, increasing the chances they will eventually become a customer. - Authority
By adding a blog to your website, you are able to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise in your niche. For example, Simple SEO Group often shares SEO and marketing tips for small businesses in our blog, which increases our credibility and demonstrates to our followers that we are the go-to source for search engine optimization and online marketing. This further increases our current and potential customer’s impression of our company, and increases the chances of them trying out our services. - Social Media Connections
I’m not the type of person to post updates on Twitter and Facebook every time I eat lunch, watch TV, or go to the bank. We utilize social media sites to share new blog content and special promotions on our website. By blogging, you can post links to your latest blog posts on social media websites to not only increase your website traffic, but also increase the number of followers on your blog. This is an excellent way to utilize social media for your small business. - Community and Personal Support
Blogs help you relate and reach out to website visitors. A blog is a place to get more personal with your website’s visitors and speak to them as if they were sitting next to you in your office. It brings a more personal sense to a company’s website, which is a great tool for forming relationships with clients.Blogs also usually have a comment section, which will enable you to interact with your reader base. These comment areas will let others in your field show their expertise and will also let you interact with potential and current customers. Having a blog on your small business’ website will dramatically increase your number of opportunities to interact with website visitors and ultimately convert them into a new customer.
If you’ve been contemplating adding a blog to your website, I strongly suggest giving it a try. Even if you only update it once a week or even once a month, every post will help you and your business reach out to more customers.