Whether you are an online shop owner posting about this seasons best purchases, or a tradesman writing DIY tips and how to guides - a business blog is a fantastic way to engage with your audience, attract new customers and keep your website looking active and up to date.
Writing articles and maintaining a blog for your website might seem like a lot hard work, and I appreciate that as a small business owner your time is precious.
But a blog can benefit your business website in a number of beneficial ways - from improving your websites search engine optimisation to boosting your online sales and proving you with a way to demonstrate your expertise.
Here's 5 reasons why you should add a blog to your website:
1. Improve your websites SEO rank
It's a fact that Google loves websites that are pro-active when it comes to publishing regular content, especially when the content contains relevant keywords. Blogs provide you with the perfect platform to post this content, allowing you to expand your websites size without disturbing your main webpages design.
You can also use blog posts to start to advertise additional keywords and phrases for new services that you would like to be indexed on Google for as your business grows.
Tip: Google likes to see blog posts that have relevant content to your website, with keywords linked back to your home page and to other posts with similar content. Try to aim for around 300-500 words a post and make sure that your post summary and title are succinct, yet catchy.
2. Convert traffic to leads
Once your visitors start to read your blog, naturally you want to entice them to reach out and contact you. Each piece of new content that you visit is an opportunity for you to generate leads, so make sure that you not only answer your visitors’ question, but give them a reason to want to learn more or commit to using your service.
Try offering them a freebie - maybe a discount code in your online store, or perhaps a free quote or consultation for your business service. But always give them a clear way for them to contact you.
Tip: Embedding a custom contact form in to your post or blog post infotabs are a great way to offer your visitors a non-committal way to contact you.
3. Engage with your customers
Your blog posts are a great way to reach out to your customers and to your social media audience. Writing engaging content regularly gives you a great source of material to publish to your business Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles.
You can even allow your visitors to comment on your posts, giving them the chance to ask questions and communicate with you publicly - of course, we give you the tools to moderate the comments.
It's important to remember you only have 15 seconds to feel engaged or they will leave your website.
Tip: You can auto-post your blog posts straight to your Facebook profile from inside your DotGO control panel, just go to the 'Social Media' button on your tool bar and press 'Post to Facebook'. We can also provide you with a custom RSS feed so that you can share your blog posts on affiliate websites and use social media scheduling platforms.
4. Demonstrate your expertise
A blog is the perfect platform for you to show off your business. You can create detailed case studies on services and projects you have provided, using images and galleries to bring your posts to life.
By writing posts on topics that you know your customers will be searching for, you can deliver a nuanced and professional article that answers their questions while also advertises your business at the same time.
A blog post can be more casual and opinionated than your website content, so why not inject some personality and flex your knowledge of your field?
Tip: Get creative with your blog posts. You can design your blog posts using the same editor as the DotGO web page builder, giving you access to content columns to structure your articles, as well as the ability to embed powerful plugins like galleries and maps, and of course add images and video to bring your content to life.
5. Tell your story
As your business grows, so will your website. A blog is a great place to archive your achievements and announcements, and to share these moments with your customers.
A well-established blog full of well written posts with relevant information to your industry, mixed with informal customer engaging posts and a solid archive showing months of regular publishing helps to establish a sense of trust with new clients. It shows you are serious about your business and your audience, and that you aren't going anywhere!
Tip: Categorising your blog posts into categories makes it a lot easier for your readers to navigate your blog and find the type of posts they want quickly - it's also a great way to group related content.
Summary
Blogs are a great tool to increase your business websites online profile, but they are much more than just an SEO tool. A well written blog can be informative and a real asset for your readers, and can be incredibly rewarding once you start to interact with your audience.
Every DotGO website comes with a free blog, and we have a heap of great how-to videos and guides on marketing your business. If you would like to discuss adding a blog to your business website design, then do not hesitate to get in touch.
And if you would like to learn more about attracting customers with your blog writing, check out our previous article here.
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