According to research, 76% of B2B marketers reported that they plan to produce more content in 2016. This is not done without blogs. 175K new blogs are created every single day and more than 1.6 million blog updates go live every single day. Blogging is on the rise.
You should definitely write a company blog for your new business. Do not take my words for it, here are a few reasons why you should start a blog for your business now.
- Blogs generate traffic
Blogs help you generate traffic.
Who doesn’t need more traffic?
Companies that have a blog receives 55% more traffic than companies that do not blog.
Every single blog post that you publish on your company’s blog has phrases, and keywords that your target audience enters into Google to find what they are looking for. New blog posts generate more impressions and clicks.
Blogs help your target audience find you, your website, and your business.
In fact, it is not just organic traffic but blog helps you attract traffic from social media and from other websites and blogs.
When you share your newly published blog post on your business’s Facebook page and Twitter account, your target audience will use it to find your website.
Other websites and businesses will link to your valuable blog posts. These links improve your website’s search engine ranking and at the same time, they send direct traffic to your website.
Over time, you will continue to receive traffic from multiple sources all because of your company’s blog.
- Lead generation
Marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than their counterparts. According to PWB Marketing, companies that blog more than four times a week see an increase in traffic and leads.
A blog doesn’t just generate traffic but it converts that traffic into leads. When you blog regularly and keep publishing high quality valuable content, you will continue to receive new leads for years.
In order to generate leads from your blog, you must optimize your blog as well as individual posts for lead generation. Every blog post should have a purpose and a call to action. It must guide the reader what action he has to take after reading the post.
If there are no call-to-actions in the blog post, you will not see any increase in leads. The idea is to use powerful CTAs with every blog post with sign up forms so that readers enter their email address to grab the lead magnet (a free report that is used for list building).
If all the blog posts are optimized for lead generation, the probability of generating leads from your business blog increases significantly.
- Natural links
Businesses that blog receives 97% more backlinks (naturally) than those that do not, according to Business2Community.
Now this seems to be a solid reason to write a company blog for your new business. Other bloggers and businesses will link to your blog posts, business website, and individual blog posts if you write awesome content regularly.
As the number of new blog posts increases, other blogs will link to your existing blog posts. This keeps generating natural backlinks to your blog.
As already discussed, backlinks increase search engine rankings. There is nothing better than getting backlinks naturally and free of cost. While your competitors will spend hefty money on creating backlinks, you will get them for free.
Besides, Google and other search engines love websites that get backlinks naturally. Building backlinks with an intention to manipulate search engine rankings is not recommended, and if you do so, your website can be penalized.
All the search engines guide webmasters to generate backlinks naturally.
Every backlink has the potential to send referral traffic to your website. So it is not just about search engine rankings but links send direct traffic. Think of having a link from CNN or maybe from Forbes. You will receive thousands of visitors at no additional cost.
- Establish authority and trust
People trust blogs.
A survey rated blogs as the fifth most trusted source for accurate information. Whatever you publish on your blog, it is read, trusted, and is considered accurate – in general.
When you keep publishing blog posts for years and continue to solve reader’s problems, you eventually become an authority in the industry. The idea is to write with a purpose to solve reader problems and to answer the questions that readers may have.
This is how you will establish yourself as an authority in the industry by helping your target audience, by solving their problems, and by sharing valuable content that they do not find anywhere else.
Though authority and trust are somewhat vague metrics that are hard to measure but you cannot ignore them. These two metrics do exist and they really matter.
- Communicate and engage with the audience
There isn’t any better communicate method than a blog. You can post news, stories, and pretty much everything on your blog.
For example, if you are about to shift your office, the easiest way to communicate the address of your new office is to write a blog post on it and send it to your subscribers. Similarly, you can post about latest promotions and discounts.
Posting regularly will help your business engage with your audience. Blog posts help you develop a relationship with the readers. This goes a long way.
Conclusion
With these benefits in mind, can you afford to not having a blog for your new business?
Stephen runs and writes for Parcel Direct, an Irish Parcel Delivery Comparison site where you can order online. They also offer ecommerce plugins to help with deliveries of your products directly from your website.