Companies who blog see 55% more traffic to their site.

By now you’ve likely heard all of the blogging buzz: “it’s an SEO secret weapon!” Or: “A blog is the best way to generate inbound leads.” With so much being said on the topic, however, it can become difficult to distinguish the basics. In order to bring you strategic clarity, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 reasons your business needs a blog.

  1. Thought Leadership: A blog will demonstrate your knowledge within the industry. It establishes credibility in that you’re backing up your services with pieces explaining why they’re important and why users should trust you. Marketing Insider calls this “brand affinity.” Beneficial both for B2C and B2B companies, thought leadership is a critical aspect to your content strategy.
  2. Sales Lead Generation: Companies that blog have 434% more indexed pages – and companies with more indexed pages get far more leads. Blogging is an effective inbound marketing tactic because it is cheap – inbound leads typically cost 61% less than traditional outbound leads – and it allows potential customers and clients a new way to reach out to you.
  3. Cross-Promotion: Blogging establishes a unique voice and presence, and social media promotes it. By linking to your blog through other sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+, you are furthering your audience reach. It also gives users the chance to share your content with those who may not see it otherwise. (From an SEO standpoint, search engines also take social signals into account!)
  4. Trending Engagement: Inserting your voice into popular conversations and industry trends will increase brand visibility. Even if you don’t have the most intriguing product to offer, you can find a way to engage users through pop culture – for instance, customize a meme or post news articles related to your industry.
  5. SEO & Linking: SEO is reason alone to start a blog! Frequency, freshness, related links, tagged posts, keywords and authorship are all components of an optimized company blog. We could go on for days about the benefits in relation to search engines, but instead we decided to make this part one of a two part series, with the next being all about SEO – so stay tuned! And in the meantime, contact us with any questions, or to get started on a digital marketing audit.