Blogging For Business: Why Your Brand Can’t Afford To Skip It
In the digital world things are changing at a rapid pace. Every day there is a new blog, story, reel or newsletter regarding the changes in SEO. While SEO will be evolving over time, as it has, one thing remains consistent: the value of your website content to your audience.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the digital trends to market your business online and focus on immediate return, giving up when the results don’t come as quickly as you want them to. It’s important to remember that developing your online presence is a necessary goal for your business, and one that takes time and resources.
Your digital strategy should be made up of many interconnected components in the digital world. Each serves a unique purpose but has a uniformed goal of building and maintaining your online presence. Those components should address content, user experience (UX), search engine optimization (SEO), social media, search engine marketing and more.
Hosting a blog on your website offers significant benefits that are often underestimated. Blogs provide valuable content for consumers, build brand awareness, establish brand authority, grow organic traffic and generate leads. It’s not a quick solution, but it can be one of the most valuable and essential tools in your marketing strategy.
Here, we will break down the importance of blogging in generating organic traffic and the steps you should take to ensure it is done according to best practices.
Why Blogging Matters
Before we begin, let’s first clarify what blogging really is. Blogging is not merely filling your website with words to look professional. It’s about being strategic in your approach to provide content that your audience is seeking and that fulfills their needs. Blogging is not a quick-fix nor a short-term strategy, in order for it to be successful it must be a long-term commitment.
Blogging helps you connect with your specific audience, so your writing should be positioned to provide them with insights and solutions that will benefit their needs. This builds trust and credibility with your brand which, if executed properly, will turn into leads.
Whether your focus is B2B or B2C, maintaining an active blog can be advantageous. If your business isn’t reaching your target audience with valuable and personalized content, that audience will likely be drawn to competitors that do. It’s not just in how your brand appears, however. Blogging has tremendous benefits for your digital presence.
A key component in establishing your presence is Search engine optimization (SEO). It is one of the most vital components in a digital strategy. Even as things evolve, this is one that will not go away. This is the way in which your business will appear in search results organically. If your website lacks valuable content, it becomes nearly invisible on search engines because your site has nothing to match with in search queries. You have to think about what will direct consumers to your site?
Hosting blog content is the most reliable method of directing organic traffic to your website. If your blog is solving a problem your audience has, it is more likely to connect you with them through search engines. For more information on generating organic website traffic, read our blog on the topic here.
Appropriate steps must first be taken for Google to register your site and begin ranking you. Indexing your pages through search console is one way to speed up the process in their crawlers to investigate your site. By submitting a page directly, it signals to Google that the content is ready to be discovered and indexed, which can help ensure that your updates or new content appear in search results more quickly.
Overtime, your blog content will build authority and trust in consumers. This is often where businesses mistakenly give up on blogging. They don’t see immediate traffic and believe that the strategy is ineffective. How will your audience know that you’re reliable experts if you don’t share some of that experience? If you aren’t posting strong content, however, it can have the opposite effect of making your business look unprofessional.
You won’t generate leads unless you’re seen by your audience as a credible brand with valuable expertise. Lead generation is secured through subtle calls-to-action that encourage readers to engage with your business or content. These will vary depending on your business, and your expectations will shift depending on your audience.
The most important benefit of blog writing is that it has lasting power over paid advertisements. An effective blog post can generate traffic to your business for years. Remember the importance of long-term strategy!
Blogging Practices
Blogging is more complicated than it may seem. In order to achieve the benefits of blog writing, your strategy needs to be informed by the correct practices.
Consistency is the name of the game when it comes to any digital strategy. A huge mistake is to start your blog without maintaining it on a consistent basis.
For your audience, seeing that your business hasn’t posted content in months could be a major red flag to them that you aren’t reliable. On top of that, customer loyalty might wane without consistent posts.
It’s not just humans that consider posting schedules: an inactive blog could damage your rankings in search engines. By maintaining a consistent schedule of 1-4 blogs per month, you will signal to both consumers and search engines that your website is active and well-maintained.
An audience-first approach is important when planning your blog content. While SEO is a vital part of content planning, you should first consider what your target audience is interested in. What are your consumers looking for that you can provide through blog content? Address your audience with compelling content, then optimize it for SEO by incorporating relevant keywords.
We also stress the importance of evergreen content. While taking note of trending topics that your audience is interested in is important, you also want to post blogs that will maintain relevance for years to come. Because your blog is a source of organic traffic, you aren’t limited to the timeframe that paid advertisements are.
Calls-to-Action are key to fueling engagement off of your blog content. Give your audience resources to download, newsletters to sign up for, forms to schedule consultations through, etc. If readers are simply skimming your post and then exiting your site, you’re not providing or receiving the maximum value from your content.
Using tools, such as Google Analytics, to monitor the performance of your blog content after posting is a necessary step in your strategy. There are key metrics, like bounce rate, to note when planning your next content. Find out what content your audience is most engaged with and use that information to plan future blogs.
The great part about generating original content for blogs is that it can serve many purposes. As your own content, you are able to repurpose it for other marketing channels. Starting a newsletter, creating social captions, and writing email marketing campaigns can all be made easier by recycling your blog content.
Why Hire a Digital Agency to Manage Your Blog?
With so much to consider when producing blog content for your website, a digital agency can be a fantastic partnership to reaching this goal.
Blogging requires time and skill to do effectively. You might not have the internal resources to maintain a valuable blog. By hiring a digital agency, you have access to writers who understand best practices and possess the experience to craft compelling content.
Writing, strategizing, optimizing—these are probably not your forte. Use your time wisely and effectively to focus on other important tasks you have the expertise to perform.
As digital agencies, we specialize in developing comprehensive content strategies to meet our clients’ needs. From content calendars to keyword research, we are equipped to create your blog effectively. Now is the time to plan for 2025! Read our blog on your new year digital strategy here.
There’s an additional layer of accountability and reliability to hiring a digital agency. As professionals, we are committed to delivering content on schedule and fulfilling all our duties.
The analytics and performance reports that a digital agency provides are essential to refining strategy and gaining valuable insights. Not only will you have access to data, but you will be able to understand what it means for your business and strategy.
Conclusion
Blogging is not merely a one off activity for businesses looking to make their website look more professional. In the digital world, writing content is an essential component of your success. Boosting SEO, increasing website traffic, engaging consumers, and establishing your brand’s authority are all valuable benefits from blogging. In order to succeed, however, your blog requires consistency, strategy, and specialized skills.
If you lack the time or internal resources to manage a blog in-house, consider partnering with a digital agency like Media Rebel. As professionals, we can bring your digital strategy to the next level.
Interested in hearing more about how we can help you grow with our blogging strategies and writing? Contact us to see if we’re a good fit for you.