Blogs are written by different people for different reasons. Some people write blogs for opinion pieces on matters they are interested in, i.e. politics or sports. This type of content is usually created for fun, without any commercial intent.

Blogging for business, however, can result in generate you income and its potential impact should not be underestimated. A blog is a great tool for allowing businesses to engage with their customers. Businesses using blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not according to HubSpot, meaning this is a channel that should not be missed.

Why is Blogging so important?

You may hear a lot of people telling your business to blog. But why? Over 80% of people use the internet to find out the answer to a question and will also use the internet to research about a product or service before they buy. Therefore, your brand needs a strong online presence in order to stand out. This needs to be whether someone is searching for your product or service, or whether they are searching for a question surrounding your product or service.

Question based searches have a lot less competition to rank organically for allowing you to surface your brand easier within the rankings. With a keyword strategy and in-depth research, you will be able to see exactly what your customers are searching for, and what content you need to be surfacing in order to reach them.

The Google Panda algorithm clearly states that Google wants to see rich and relevant content, and Google will reward websites who are doing this. In our opinion, there is no better way to add relevant content to your website than utilising a blog. This is a great way to increase your search engine rankings for both long term as well as generic searches.

So what are the core reasons that you need to blog?

1. Drive traffic to your website

2. It helps generate leads into sales

3. Increase your SEO visibility

4. Position your company as a thought leader

5. Develop customer relationships

6. It drives long-term results and is a great long-term SEO strategy

7. It gives you a company voice

8. It’s a free platform

Where can I get blog ideas?

Okay, so you have a blog on your website, but you don’t know what to write about or where to gain inspiration from. We’ve listed below the top tools we use to gain inspiration:

1. Hubspot blog topic generator
   
2. Answerthepublic.com
3. Portent title maker

Thinking outside of tools, we find the following very useful:

How-To Guides

Some of the most searched for posts are how-to’s. Going online and quickly typing into your search engine to find out how to do something is far quicker than doing research through a library or something else! If your brand can create some how-to’s that can be useful for your current customers, then this could potentially bring in new customers who are also wanting to find out more.

Trending Topics or News

Making your blog posts relevant to current events and news are easy blog post ideas, it also brings in fresh traffic from those who may already be searching around the trending topic.

Customer Questions

You may get recurring questions coming up on your businesses social media, or on your website and instead of constantly re-writing the same reply, you could turn this question into a blog post and give guidance to your customers.

If you have any questions, or need any help in formulating a blog, content or SEO strategy, get in touch with us today.