Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 1 Blogs, huh! Ha! What are they good for? Absolutely something! Say it again! If you’re a business owner who’s new to the world of online marketing, you might not be 100% clear on the benefits of starting a blog and what type of value it could bring to your marketing efforts long-term. The good news is that a well-run blog has huge potential to expand and enrich your digital presence and help your business better connect with your target audience in a myriad of ways. Keep reading to find out why, yes, your website really does need a blog. Blog Benefit #1: Blogs Bring More Visitors to Your Website On a fundamental level, having a blog that’s affiliated with your website helps more customers find you. Here’s how: Most of your target customers who don’t reach your website by typing your URL in directly will find you through a search phrase they enter on Google. Blogs are an integral tool in your search engine optimization (SEO) arsenal: Since each blog post you publish creates a separate web page on your site, blogging gives you an ever-expanding opportunity to be found by more searchers looking for a solution to a problem that your product or service can help them with. Regularly updating your blog with quality, informative content also sends out a positive signal to Google that you’re a business who’s engaged and working to provide your customers with the best experience possible. Blog content that hits it off with your readers has the opportunity to move your website higher in the ranks on the search engine results page (SERP) and be found by even more highly qualified customers. Blog Benefit #2: Blogs Help You Build Trust with Your Target Audience Many business owners may be a little intimidated to start a blog. After all, what do you write about? How often? How many words? You may not know it now, but you actually already have the basics down. The advanced knowledge of your product or service is all you need to start a successful blog for your business. If you’re not sure what to write about, start by forming topics that address the questions you get asked the most. These are likely topics that your target customers search online frequently, too. There are a lot of free content generation tools that can help you come up with your blog topics and titles. HubSpot’s free Blog Topic Generator allows you to enter three nouns that are at the center of topics you think you may want to write about for a week’s worth of title ideas in just a few seconds! Buzzsumo is another neat, free tool that lets you search trending topics and top authors to help you get an idea of the best performing content within your space. Frequently publishing posts that answer the questions and concerns that your target customers have allows your business’ blog (and by association, your business) to become your customers’ go-to source for helpful content. As your blog builds trust with online searchers and more visitors find your blog and navigate to other parts of your website, your website as a whole in turn builds trust with Google. Blog Benefit #3: Blogs Help Your Website Generate Leads Check out another business’ blog and you’re bound to see a colored button or hyperlinked line of text that catches your eye at the end of the post. Known as calls to action (CTAs), these standout messages help interested readers further pursue your business’ offerings. They may link over to your Contact Us page, a landing page to sign up for a consultation, your product inventory or shop (if you’re an eCommerce store), or another high-value content offering that will help you generate leads, such as an eBook or checklist that requires the reader to fill out a form to download. Each and every one of your blogs can and should contain a compelling CTA that will entice interested buyers to take that next step in the purchase process. Blog Benefit #4: Blogs Help to Increase Your Brand’s Exposure and Open the Conversation Door One of the beautiful things about blogging is that great content from your blog can help fuel your company’s social media initiatives too. Tweeting out a new blog using hashtags or sending a monthly round-up newsletter that highlights top blog posts and news allows you to get the most mileage out of your content and become a familiar name and face to more customers. Enabling social sharing buttons for each post makes it easy for interested readers to share your content with others, extending your brand’s reach even further. Blogs also allow you to tap into customer feedback and give your readers a say in future topics. By enabling a comments section or posing a follow-up question for readers to answer at a blog’s end, you have the opportunity to connect with your customers on an individual basis and get a better feel for what they’d like to see in future posts. Calling All Blogging Beginners Adding a blog to your website is a straightforward way to expand your reach and connect with more qualified leads, fortifying your marketing efforts from all sides! Stream’s Kick-Start Step: Using an editorial calendar can help you shore up your blogging strategy and ensure that you always have topics that are relevant to your target audience ready to write. Chart your to-be-written topics ahead of time by brainstorming ideas once a month so your strategy is laid out well in advance. While blogging frequency depends on a variety of factors on your end, aim to publish at least one to three blogs per week. Want more help with maximizing the impact of your new blog’s content? Check out our free webinar Creating Content That Converts. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on Advertising Agency Blog and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Jay Leonard Jay is a UK-based cryptocurrency expert, specialising in fundamental analysis and medium to long term investments. Jay has a great deal of hands-on experience in analysing financial markets and performing technical analysis. Jay is currently focusing on the institutional adoption of cryptocurrency and what it means for the future of … View full profile ›More by this author:Top Trending Meme Coins: ELON, HOGE, SAMO, TAMA, MARVIN, BABYDOGE, MONAHotbit Exchange Forced to Suspend Service As it’s Under Criminal InvestigationCameo CEO Steven Galanis Wallet Hacked – $231k Worth of NFTs Stolen