The Blogosphere is here and it is not going anywhere. It’s not just for people talking about what their eating for lunch or their next celebrity crush. Blogging is big business for entrepreneurs and business owners. CEO Blog Nation recently launched a blogging community and we regularly blog for entrepreneurs and business owners and there are numerous reasons to blog. Rescue a CEO asked some businesses how they use blogging to help their business.
#1 To Educate
Who of you is actually using your hobby or passions as a job? How many of you wish to get paid for what you love to do? Not everyone has this chance to do it, and this is why I created my blog to educate for free to start your own online business and build a healthy and long-term passive income stream. I am teaching to open people's eyes and minds. I teach to see a whole rainbow, not only black and white colors. My business is to teach my visitors for free while still earning my own money thanks to you. It is a win-win situation for everyone!
Thanks to Ray Radicanin, Passive Income Rocket
#2 – Explain the Process & Educate
The home building process is overwhelming – to say the least! There are permits (so many permits!), many different players involved, and so many choices to make. I started a blog on our website to explain to potential clients how the process works and to educate current clients on how to move through the process efficiently and effectively. I write posts three times a week on topics like: what is quartz and should I pick it for my counter top?, what is a hung sewer?, and even personal posts like my Sunday Family Dinners.. Writing these posts lets my voice come through, and, as the face of NDI, it gives our clients and potential clients a way to get to know me as a person.
Thanks to Jennifer Landers, New Dimensions, Inc.
#3 – Educate Existing or Potential Clients
For our internet marketing and SEO business- using our blog is incredibly important. Most people, when searching for our services, don't want to read a novel about why we are the people they should choose, we need to sell them in almost seconds. And that's just to take the next step. That next step is exactly where our blog comes in handy. We use our blog to educate clients we already have, or people considering hiring us, on the importance of what we do and why we are the team for them. We also believe in making people smile and laugh, so we throw in humor when we can- which we think shows our clients and prospects that though we are very good at what we do, we also don't take ourselves too seriously. This helps our clientele get to know us on a deeper level, which makes them feel comfortable approaching us with their wild dreams and ideas. And that's exactly what we want- to be trusted enough to hear those wild dreams, so we can work together and make them happen.
Thanks to Beth Ball, Dominate With SEO
#4 – More Content = More Authority
A blog is one of the most important items in a company's self-marketing tool kit. The more content you produce on content that is relevant to your industry and your audience, the more authority you and your company gains within that industry. That authority not only is helpful in positioning your company as a reputable, proficient one within your industry, but it also is one of the signals Google and other search engines look for when determining the SEO value of your website. The more authoritative your blog posts are and the more frequently you post, the more search engines will recognize your company as one of value. A blog is also extremely helpful in educating your target audience about prospective solutions to their pain points; you should not be pushing your services or detailing how your company can help your audience in every post. On the contrary, the posts should be informative and educational, a way to help those who may eventually need your business. If they find your content useful and your perspective interesting, the better the chance they will come back to your website again and again and, ultimately, make a purchase of an item or a service.
Thanks to Liza Viana, CMK Marketing
#5 – Provides Authority & Opportunities
At InvoiceBerry, an online invoicing software, we keep our blog content close to our service. This serves our purpose on two fronts: it provides us with authority, seeing as we’re blogging about a topic we know about, and it presents opportunities for us to naturally link to our service within the blog posts. Our blog serves to answer the questions that are most relevant for visitors in the fields of invoicing, accounting and finance and our core focus revolves around addressing those topics. The more a visitor reads relevant, useful information from an authority blog, the more open that visitor will be to using the service of the main site. Of course, the more we create valuable content on our blog, the more our content will be shared across our industry. This helps create back links and is immensely useful for our SEO. Using our blog, we’ve increased our rankings on multiple fronts.
Thanks to Uwe Dreissigacker, InvoiceBerry
#6 – Show Clients the Real Side
We have used many blogs in business to show our clients a real side to travel. We use storytelling to get our prospective clients to imagine themselves in the driver's seat. We want travel and volunteering to be accessible to everyone, not just those who has been living digitally nomadic lifestyles. Through storytelling we can show our clients, these trips are for them: real people, just like us! Our blogs, which we publish on different websites, not only show the humanity of our founders but it also shows the adventures we have been on, while visiting the countries our clients will eventually visit. We can show off irreverent experiences, transformational trips, unforgettable memories and everything that comes with our animal based experiences. We show that these aren't just typical trips, through storytelling we are able to show the human side of the trips and hopefully let prospective clients see themselves in these experiences.
Thanks to Nora Livingstone, Animal Experience International
#7 – Show our Activity & Interest
The purpose of doing so is to show to our clients and potential new clients that we are always active and interested in many different fields in the news. Our blog covers all interests from things happening in the local and federal news and many different industries from gaming to the restaurant business. As a PR firm we have to show that we can deal with all sorts of industries so our present and future clients feel comfortable using us as a resource. Having a constantly updated blog shows our audience that we are always working and will always be available to work for them 24/7. Thanks you very much for your time and if you have any further questions or desire more information please feel free to reach me by phone or email.
Thanks to Daniel Plotzker, Herald Strategies
#8 – Fill Information Gaps
At Scorpion, we identify the specific needs of our target audience-businesses that are looking to grow-and then we use our blog to fill that information gap. Our blog covers everything from basic digital marketing concepts to actionable tips to the latest marketing news updates that are relevant to our audience's industries. The goal is to meet potential customers right in their moment of need (when they are actively researching a question or topic in a search engine), provide them with content of high value, and demonstrate our authority as experts in our field. From a business perspective, blogging helps us expand our reach, market our services, and generate new leads.
Thanks to Jessica Vernabe, Scorpion
#9 – Answers to Common Questions
When blogging for my company, I try to make sure to provide potential customers and clients with answers to common questions I have come across. When prospects discover answers to their questions through blog entries composed your organization, they're a great deal more prone to becoming a client, because you have helped them before, they trust what you say since you've helped them – even before they were considering buying anything from you. Prospects that have been reading your blog entries will ordinarily enter the business procedure more informed on your place in the market, your industry, and what you bring to the table. That makes for a much more productive deals discussion than one held between two strangers.
Thanks to Victoria Rice, Serious SEM
#10 – Connect to Our Market
We use our blog to connect with our market. It sounds obvious, but it's a huge part of how we build a relationship with our users. We focus on valuable content and we research each topic heavily. Our customers are salespeople, so they can smell a pitch a mile away. Instead of writing about our product we address the problems they experience daily. We aim to be a resource in every aspect of our user's lives. We research every topic thoroughly to be sure it's something our audience would find value in.
Thanks to Steve Benson, Badger Maps
#11 – Optimizing an Org's Online Presence
Blogging is a highly effective method of optimizing an organization’s online presence for its target audience and Search engines. With the focus steadily shifting to create and implement content methodologies that can engage potential customers in a better way. Blogging is an ideal technique that stands out. When organizations create blog posts that are effusive of their core offerings, consumers searching for similar products/services can find them useful and insightful. This helps the businesses to create an optimal impression on their target audience, which can ultimately lead to conversions.
Thanks to Swapnil Bhagwat, Orchestrate Technologies, LLC
#12 – Leads Customers Toward My Services
I’ve been blogging for more than a decade. First in Hungarian, then I switched to English to get more visibility. I started it as a hobby, and it became my passion soon, but haven’t thought about monetizing it for a long time. Only when I started my own business, Search Explained, realized the power of my audience and started to focus on creating content that leads more and more customers toward my services. However, I also use my blog to provide additional services to my customers as well as attendees of my workshops and conference sessions. I create a custom page to each event I speak at, then share it with the participants. This page contains the slide decks of my presentation, as well as additional resources, like event-specific scripts, books, white papers, etc.
Thanks to Agnes Molnar, Search Explained
#13 – Hub for the Small Business Community
We treat our blog as a hub for the small business community, offering up a wide variety of content for our readers on topics ranging from incorporation advice to leadership topics. Guest posts from other small business influencers are a huge part of our social media strategy. We love to include their tips and expertise on our blog and find that many contributors enjoy the experience so much that they often return with more content that they would like to share with our readers.
Thanks to Deborah Sweeney, MyCorporation.com
#14 – Educate & Inform
I use blogging as a way to educate and inform – first to get them interested in our products and services and then to continually update them about the products and services and new ones etc. This is a great way to gain and retain (interest) potential clients and to educate present and past clients of the store to make them want to and continually return. The idea of educating/informing clients via blogging with tips, hints, product/service review and more is great as it pays dividends far beyond expectations.
Thanks to Dionne Morrison, Baba's
#15 – Supplement our Training
We use our blog to supplement the training in our course. As new ideas and techniques for SEO are developed, our blog provides a way for us to get that timely information out far more quickly than updating our core training modules, which will eventually be updated, as well. And, of course, since the blog is publicly accessible, it allows us to expand our reach for new members to our training course and acquire backlinks.
Thanks to Dave Hermansen, Store Coach, Inc.
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