Blogging is hard and a lot of work. I realize that some people make it look easy, but not all of us are naturally talented writers. If we were, we’d be writing the next bestseller. But with all the marketing benefits of blogging, we need to overcome the objections and add regular blogging to our marketing activities.
One myth about blogging is you have to blog daily or it isn’t worth it. I totally disagree with those who say that blogging less than 2-3 times a week is “most appropriate for bloggers who maintain blogs as a hobby with no strategic plans for growth”. This may be true for large companies with many resources, but small businesses need to balance their time between working on your business verses working in your business. Client work comes first, life gets in the way and sometimes you just need a break. And in this case, your blogging frequency will depend on what works for you.
Frequency is important so your blog doesn’t get stale, but consistency is more important to set the expectations of your readers. I’d rather know that you will provide quality content once a week than have you flood me with blog posts for a month and then nothing at all. More isn’t necessarily better. I read blogs that have 1 or 2 quality posts per week and skim those that are too frequent and overwhelming.
But marketing your business does need to happen, so let’s eliminate the “why nots” of blogging and let’s talk about the “why you should” blog as a marketing activity to help your small business develop a strong online presence:
- Increases your reputation as an expert – content that helps your audience solve a problem makes you memorable. When the challenge is bigger than they can handle on their own, they will turn to you for help.
- Helps with search engine optimization – writing unique content that relates to your ideal client helps your blog gain visibility within the search engines for your top keywords.
- Makes it easier to get inbound links – having a blog encourages inbound links from other blogs that find something you say interesting. I link to quality content and love to find a great post from someone I never heard of before. Providing a little “link love” helps them and helps my readers.
- Enables you to show your personality – blogging in your own voice helps people get to know you. Write as if you have having a conversation with someone, making it easier for your reader to get the message quickly and easily.
- Helps you to stay up-to-date within your field – researching and writing a blog post helps you to stay current on what’s new. This becomes valuable to your clients because you are now the person they see as the leader in your field.
- Makes you the central source for quality content – content marketing includes creating and curating content. Consolidating links to quality content mixed within your own is valuable to those too busy to read a lot of blogs themselves. Positioning yourself as a content hub keeps you visible.
- Encourages people to connect with you – searching for information is a passive activity but a well written post that elicits a response helps people actively connect with you.
- Keeps your website fresh – stale website content is the kiss of death. People who want to do business with you are looking for the most up-to-date information. A website built on WordPress with an active blog is just the recipe for a powerful online presence. The simplicity of updating content in WordPress will encourage you to add new, fresh content and keep your pages updated as well.
With all these marketing benefits of blogging for your small business, what’s keeping you from adding this activity to your marketing action plan?
