Adding a blog to your website is one of the most effective ways to promote your brand. Blogs are simple, yet powerful, ways to add content to your site that help it rank better in search engine results and increase brand awareness through shareable content.
These aren’t the only reasons your website needs to be using a blog. Check out some of the other benefits of blogging below.
Blog Posts Allow Brands to Build Trust
Providing quality content within your realm of expertise can help your target audience solve a problem they encounter, while reinforcing your brand as the source of their solutions. This presents your business as an authority on that topic and makes it possible to establish your business as a trustworthy source for information in the future. Ultimately, that trust will lead to higher engagement as well as increased sales.
Blogs Are An Easy Way to Create Shareable Content
People are generally willing to share quality content that answers their questions and provides them with useful insights. As long as the information is relevant and helpful, it’s more likely that they will share it with friends and family.
It’s also important to share your own content on social media. By putting the content right in front of your audience in the place they frequent, you make your content easier to view and easier to share.
Comment Totals Can Act as a Form of Social Proof
People tend to be more enthusiastic about something new if they see that others are enthusiastic about it as well. For instance, if someone who comes to your site sees dozens of comments on a blog post, that person may be more inclined to join in the conversation. If a person learns to trust the information presented in your blog, they’ll learn to trust the company as well.
Blog Posts Are Indexed Regularly
Every blog post that’s added to your website gets indexed by Google and other major search engines. This is ideal for websites that utilize blogs because Google prefers to rank sites that have fresh content higher than those that don’t add content on a regular basis.
Adding a new blog post at least once a week can significantly help your position in search results. Whenever you create a post, always remember to utilize the keywords you’re trying to rank for in search engine results (that’s applicable to the content). Make sure to also include a meta description and title tags with one or more keywords you would like to target. These days, it can be easier to target long-tail phrases (longer keyword phrases) as there may be less competition for them.
Make Real Connections With Your Audience
It’s common for people to ask questions in the comments section of a blog post, or on social media when the blog post is shared. Taking the time to answer those questions makes it easier to forge a real connection with current and potential customers. While you could take this opportunity to get a person to buy a product or service that your company offers, you don’t necessarily need to make a sales pitch here.
Instead, provide information and connect with your readers on a more personal level. If you can do that, sales will increase without an explicit call to buy anything.
Use Your Blog to Advertise Other Web Properties
While a blog can be a great way to increase your audience, it should only be one part of your online strategy. Ideally, you will have social media accounts to further help build your brand and leverage your audience into paying customers.
While you don’t want to publish too much promotional material in your content, you can end your blog posts with a call to follow your company on social media or direct visitors to another page on your website. You may also want to encourage your readers to share your material and provide coupons or other incentives to those who do.
Blog Posts Can Promote Your Email List
No matter how much online marketing techniques evolve, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness and increase sales. Because of this, placing digital forms on blog pages allows people to opt-in to your email list and receive your newsletter, promotions and other marketing materials.
If you are looking for ways to improve your online marketing efforts without spending a lot of money, you should strongly consider adding a blog to your website. It is a great tool to increase brand awareness, increase engagement with customers and provide fresh content that Google loves. When done properly, it can act as a passive marketing tool and source of lead generation that helps to secure the long-term future of your company.
