Why you should blog for your business

You’ve seen the advice everywhere – “blog for your SEO” and “blog to get web traffic” – and my personal favorite – “blog to rank on Google!”

But blogging can feel like an elusive monster. Something you know you *should* be doing, but just can’t quite determine how to do. How do you write naturally? What do you do about keywords? What about structuring your blog posts?

So… like many entrepreneurs, you might find yourself sitting down to blog, and then… getting right back up, because DAMN is it overwhelming.

Or, you blog once a month, and then it sits. And sits. And sits… until the next month, when you maybe write another 300 words, throw them on the blog, and pray. Sound familiar?

Let’s Demystify Blogging for Business

So in this series of posts, I’m hoping to demystify the blogging process for you. Answer your questions, and get to what you should be doing to have a blog that actually actively supports your web traffic, increases your Google ranking, and brings you business.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

This is a starter guide – so, if you’re already super knowledgeable, a lot of this will feel introductory. If you’re already a blogging expert, you’re likely already blogging regularly, and seeing the results! So… this series isn’t quite for you.

This is ALSO not the guide for you if you’re anticipating blogging AS your business. In other words, monetizing your blog for its own sake. That requires OTHER standards, more advances strategies, and an overall more intense schedule.

But if you’re a business owner, hoping to enhance your website, bring in more clients, and overall have a better SEO strategy, then keep reading!

WHY BLOG

So as you guys know, I like to start with the “why” behind things I recommend doing – because I personally don’t like doing things that I don’t have the reasoning for. I’ve never been a “because I said so” kind of person, and I like to reflect that in my work.

Why blog?

Lots of reasons. This list isn’t comprehensive, but it does get into the nitty-gritty of the benefits of blogging for your business, and how it can impact your bottom line!

1. Blogging allows your potential clients to get to know you better. This is especially important if you’re a service provider who will be having a lot of face time with your clients. The thing is, they need to know who you are. They need to get in your head – they need to feel comfortable with you. And in order for them to do that without you having to spend actual time with them before your projects, they need to be introduced to the way that you think before your project begins. Blogging allows you to introduce them to this. (You can even get personal, like I do here)
2. Proper SEO requires you to have adequate content for google to crawl. There are little Google bots (yes, that’s actually what they are) that crawl the internet (yes, that is the technical term) and tell Google what is and is not important to show to people when they search on a search engine. This is called establishing authority. So having more content, allows you to give Google more information about what pages of yours have authority for what keywords, and in what region. Hence, it allows Google to spit your content out to more solid leads for you, and in a more productive way.
3. Blogging allows you the opportunity to highlight your previous client’s experiences, for the purpose of introducing your future clients to it. Your clients need to understand why your service is something that they need – and that you’re the provider that they should be getting it from. So, taking the opportunity to introduce them to those experiences, and imagine it in their own lives… that can be endlessly powerful.
4. Establishing expertise in your field requires more than just a gorgeous brand – and blogging can help you do that too. A gorgeous, client aligned brand is important, obviously. I can’t overestimate it’s role in bringing in clients. But you need to also establish that you’re an EXPERT in your field, because your clients need to trust you before they will hire you. You can establish this trust in a myriad of ways, but a brilliant way is to showcase that expertise through blog content that highlights your experience, knowledge, and education. Whether this means sharing your portfolio, or discussing relevant topics, it gives them the information they need – that YOU are an expert that they can trust when they hire you.
5. Blogging gives you the opportunity to share fresh content on social media and other platforms. This is a big one – social media is a beast. Always growing, always changing… and you need to keep up with those changes. You need to keep up with the appetite of the monster, and this requires content to post. Of course you can post stories, and images – but… you can ALSO share your blog content, to enhance all of the other above points as well! Sharing your blog on social media helps you to establish that expertise with would-be clients who already follow you. And, it helps you to connect with them further through your writing, in a way that you might not be able to on the social media platform itself in short-form content.

In the rest of this series, we’re going to dig into the how – since here, we’ve covered the why.

We’ll be talking about:

1. Gaining confidence in your voice
2. What to write when you don’t know what to write
3. Blogging Best Practices
4. Titles for effective blogging
5. Keyphrase Selection
6. Keyword structures for SEO
7. Getting your posts OUT there once they’re written

So check in as the week goes on, for the rest of the series with even more bangin blogging tips and tricks, as well as best practices you can implement!