The Blogosphere is here and it is not going anywhere. It’s not just for people talking about what they’re 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- Connect with the target market and fellow entrepreneurs
I use my blog to connect with my target market, and other entrepreneurs by giving them an entrance into my life as a new entrepreneur, mother and wife. When there is a human component to anything it feels real and relatable. My blog is called Chronicles of a Female Founder and I posted on Facebook initially until I developed a following and good responses. Now I am in the process of erecting a webpage to house all my blogs to. I feel it is about being transparent and open for the good and the bad, you may get tons of lifelong customers in the end.
Thanks to Felicia Jackson, CPR Wrap!
#2- Help potential clients feel secure about decisions they're making
In our industry, potential leads tend to be very skeptical. Getting into real estate investment or continuing to grow a portfolio is a big deal. Before signing on, clients want to know that the real estate team they choose is comprised of investment specialists – people who know what they're talking about. Because of this, I started my blog years ago and still keep it up today. I use it to help potential clients feel secure about the decision they're making. In many cases, eventual clients have told me that they spent months reading my blog before making a decision about partnering with me. To me, this is the best evidence I have that my blogging efforts are paying off.
Thanks to Jason Reed, The Duplex Doctors!
#3- Allows our voice to come through
I started our blog to show the genuine voice and personality of our company and our employees. We deal in an industry where companies can capitalize on a vulnerable time for families; the college process. We focus on the athletic side of the college process. The travel sports world and recruiting world have become big business.There are low barriers to entry and easy access to potential clients. We take a genuine, truth-based approach to this process. Our blog allows our voice to come through and show that we are in this for the right reasons and have our clients best intentions at the forefront of our motivation.
Thanks to Brian Scanlon, The Recruiting Coaches!
Blog: http://therecruitingcoaches.com/blog/
#4- Share knowledge and market ourselves
As a bootstrap business, it is critical for us to market ourselves in extremely tight budgets and content marketing is one of the major sources which can easily boost the image and set you as a knowledge leader in your particular domain. At Lollypop Design Studio, we use blogs for sharing our knowledge that is meaningful to or audience; it can vary from tips to step by step guides to fun information. The idea is to contribute to the community and at the same time communicate our capabilities.
Thanks to Saloni Agarwal, Lollypop Design Studio!
Sample blog: https://lollypop.biz/blog/2017/september/5-things-every-designer-should-probably-stop-doing/
#5- Solve customer problems through stories and how-to guides
As the CEO of a software company that needs to educate their customers first, I blog stories and how-to guides that solve customer problems. This not only increases our online presence, but it serves as a reference and validation point for customers who may be evaluating our solution.
Thanks to David Colebatch, Tidal Migrations!
#6- Share my experiences and create relevant content
My blog is really an extension of me. I’m an inspirational storyteller and my content is meant to inspire and motivate. I write like I speak s my blog is a virtual “conversation.” I want to share my experiences in the hopes of two things really. Inspire and move people into action. Create relevant and useful content that gains traction for my message. If I can entertain and inspire at the same time, then I know I’ve gotten in right. My stories are always personal but I try to bring it to a place where everyone can relate.
Thanks to Lisa L. Demmi
#7- Share latest collections, news and customer-generated content
Not only is our blog a place to share latest collections and company news, but it provides a great platform for sharing customer-generated content. We're all aware of the power of social proof in business, and how customer reviews and testimonials can help persuade others to purchase. By incorporating this content into our blog, we're extending this to an additional avenue and building really engaging, unique pieces.
Thanks to Lee Fisher, Wooden Blinds Direct!
Sample blog: https://www.wooden-blinds-direct.co.uk/blog/real-homes-real-customers-interview-hannah-newman/
#8- Join the conversation
In today’s world, consumers want to know what companies are doing in terms of social responsibility – what are you doing that is not about gaining profit? A blog can be a great way to showcase ‘behind the scenes’ work that your stakeholders will be interested to know. Are some of your employees taking on a challenge for charity? Has the company been researching into renewable technologies? Use your blog to join in the conversations in your industry – this will give you more authority as a company and keep consumers trusting you and coming back to you.
Thanks to Laura Hall, Shiply!
#9- Several ways
First: You can use it to promote products and services. Second: You can use it to earn through ads and other affiliate programs, like eBay or Amazon. Third: You can use it to promote expert opinions, like health tips, cooking tips, and etc. Fourth: you can use it to answer questions. And lastly, you can use it to promote job openings. There are a lot of possibilities. The trick here is to come up with a good plan of action and good campaigns.
Thanks to Ian McClarty, PhoenixNAP Global IT Services!
#10- Connect with our readers
The company’s blog is all about the readers, not you. It’s for people looking for advice, helpful information, quotes, something to read, buyers persona, potential customers, current customers it doesn’t really matter.You have to provide value to your ideal prospects and customers. Your posts should answer their questions, addressing their ideas. If you don’t take the right approach to blogging for business, most-likely not much of a traffic or subscribers would be attracted. Think about the auditory in your niche, what do they need, what kind of information would be not only interesting to read, but will also help them find the solutions.Saying that you don't need to interact with readers is almost as bad as saying you don't need to respond to customer service inquiries. Your posts have to provide some attention to your readers. Nowadays, brands are heavily judged in the digital age by their online interactions, so the more you connect/engage, the better.When it comes to quality over quantity. If you simply listen to your audience and write quality content, your business blog will be better than most of the blogs out there.
Thanks to Kate Hart, Fantastic Removals!
#11- A number of ways
I'm a full-time professional travel photographer running my own business. I sell my services as a photographer, and teach an online photography course to folks looking to improve their own photography. I use my blog for a number of things, among which is the opportunity to showcase my work to potential clients, and also to inform readers of my online course and drive sales. This is primarily a fairly soft-sell – on
my blog I share a lot of photography-heavy travel guides and destination advice, as well as tips and advice on getting the most out a camera to help readers improve, giving them the option to learn from me for free initially, and invest in the course if they want hands-on advice and in-depth training and knowledge.
Thanks to Laurence Norah, Finding the Universe!
Sample Blog: https://www.findingtheuniverse.com/2017/01/best-travel-camera.html
#12- Two ways
I have 2 goals with each blog post. First, I want to educate people. The other is to sell my courses and books. And really, these are the same goal, both are designed to help educate people. I can only help people solve their problems if they read my books or take my online courses. If they don't, I'm not helping anyone. Using my blogs to both market and educate helps me help people, even those who don't go on to learn more by purchasing from me. The challenge for any entrepreneur is this. Even if you build a better mousetrap it won't matter if no one knows about it. Blogging helps me tell people about my better mousetrap. They are evergreen and topical and help drive traffic to my work and help build my credibility as an expert and help people learn what I have to offer them all at the same time. It's an integral part of my marketing strategy.
Thanks to Jennifer Hancock, Humanist Learning Systems!
#13- Bring traffic to our website
We use our blog to bring traffic to our website, and we bring traffic in by answering our target customers' questions. People go to Google to ask questions. They might ask How to generate more leads or How much time do we spend on our phones or anything else under the sun. We take the questions our targets ask (which we learn by talking to customers), and we create blog posts directly addressing those questions. These blog posts match what our targets are searching for, so Google ranks our pages higher, and we get more traffic. Then we repeat the steps, growing along the way.
Thanks to Kenneth Burke, Text Request!
#14- Follow-up with the blog visitors
Blogging is the backbone of my business growth. I wouldn’t be able to maintain my client relationships or obtain as many Referral introductions without it. Once someone engages with my blog I am able to retarget them with other content, follow what they engage with and break that down into smaller pieces of info that may help them further along in their process. My website allows me to view what the users are viewing and reach out to them at the right time with the right info.
Thanks to Lisa Sevajian, thebeautifulhomes.com!
#15- A number of ways
Everyone has been told at some point, that blogging is important, but I'm not wholly convinced that most people know why or how it can be beneficial to you as an individual or to your business. I have a number of businesses that utilise a blog that we can see clear tangible benefit from in many forms. Firstly, it gives you a platform to demonstrate your knowledge and experience in a transparent and visual way. We love to share our knowledge and experience with other people in the market. The digital landscape is changing so rapidly there are always new technologies, updates and changes that we like to share. Much of what we learn from keeping up to date with the latest trends and going to the events is then shared through real-life case studies and examples of implementing these innovative learnings. Finally, your blog can be used to create content that answers your customers' questions. You'd be surprised how few people answer what people want to know. The SEO benefits of promoting the right content in the right way can be enormous.
Thanks to Mike Grindy, Passion Digital!
Sample blog: https://passion.digital/blog/2017/06/19/who-uses-bing/
#16- Share content and demonstrate my knowledge
I understand a lot of people call themselves career coaches but are little more than resume writers who took a course about how to find the job. Few have as much experience and knowledge design do from my 40 years in executive search. What I do with my blog, you share an enormous amount of content in order to demonstrate my knowledge about job hunting, hiring and career management. Frankly, with more than 3000 posts, the information is overwhelming. What I do is attempt to simplify all of it in order to tailor it for the individual coaching client but demonstrate my knowledge through the blog so that they trust me more, connect with me, as well as respect my abilities.
Thanks to Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter!
#16- SEO ranking and the right content for business
Blogging is a boon to business anytime, anywhere. When we began our journey, it was a tough competition, but blogging helped us to rank higher in SEOs as well as gave us the content a website requires for a business to better. It is the single best way to use the webspace to make a presence felt since not only it tells people what you do,but like in our case, it paced our way to a successful business.
Thanks to Dr. Aditi Gupta Jha,MD, JustDoc!
#17- Attract and build a report with my ideal customer
When I write a blog post, the focus isn't on a marketing or sales campaign. Each post aims to offer actionable information for small business owners or a deeper insight they can leverage in their business. My ideal customers, my tribe as I like to call them are out in the world looking for answers to things that I can support them with. Those people get value from the blog posts, and they come back for more or sign up for my email newsletter. If that person genuinely needs my support than we eventually connect and decide to work together. Otherwise, my blog post content provides the value they needed and that's great too.
Thanks to Candice Beckmann, Beckmann Collaborative LLC!
#18- Visual Storytelling
I use my blog to share stories about how visual thinking can improve communications. It's a great way to share insights and ideas about topics that may not immediately feel like business. Some of my more popular topics have been about theater posters I designed in the 90’s, reflections on a Leonard Cohen song that speaks to authenticity; and the set-up for a joke: A doctor, a lawyer and a minister walk into a logo development meeting…I have plenty of experience and research to share about why branding and communications build strong businesses, and I use my blog as an opportunity to share my personal perspective and distinctive point-of-view that differentiates my digital design business from other practitioners.
Thanks to David Langton, Langton Creative Group!
#19- Promote the successes of past clients
Success in real estate is all about referrals and by centering posts around clients, we give them a platform through which to share their experiences with friends and family. It shows potential clients that we are an active company and thetent brings us credibility even before the phone call is made. The fastest way to spread content is through flattery.
Thanks to Jeff Miller, AE Home Group!
#20- Fuel my twitter management business
I use blogging to build my online reputation because freelancing or service based businesses are based on your reputation because you get clients mainly from referrals. Secondly, I use blogging to pipe email addresses into my brand's system (I've gotten over 80 email subscribers just from my first ever blog post. Lastly, I use it as a medium to connect with influencers too. For example, I recently wrote a huge expert round up guide about twitter automation and was able to get 62 of the top marketing experts to participate. We've gone extra miles to do even more partnerships with some of these.
Thanks to Simon Zaku
#21- Inbound engine and provide information to our clients
Inbound is a big part of our company strategy, as inbound leads are much more likely to convert than paid. However, our blog is not just a lead magnet, but a way of providing additional value to our agency and freelance clients. Our company mission is to help social media teams create better workflows, and our blog posts are aimed at helping our clients and other marketers make their processes more efficient. We get lots of positive feedback about the types of content we produce when we send it in our weekly newsletter and use our clients’ needs as a basis for writing content that will help drive traffic from lookalike prospects.
Thanks to Joe Teo, HeyOrca!
#22- Drive traffic to our site
I use our blog to drive longtail keyword traffic to the site on a local level. Going after high-volume competitive keywords is tough, but you can pad your SEO growth with effective long-tail targeting while you start to rank for the more competitive keywords. For instance, near me terms like dry cleaners near me have seen some serious growth over the last year, so I've been able to effectively target local near me terms using
blog posts. It's a quick and easy way to test the competitive nature of a keyword.
Thanks to Jake Lane, Press Cleaners!
Sample blog: https://www.presscleaners.com/blog/a-guide-to-dry-cleaning-and-finding-a-reputable-local-dry-cleaner/
#23- Re-post articles
I use my blog posts on my site to re-post articles that I have contributed to and post blogs that I have written for clients and for my company. My blog allows me build rapport with other blog authors by posting their content. It also allows me to broadcast my own articles and post on social media for others to view, read, and share. The power in my blog lies in sharing content that makes my site and my company a source of expertise.
Thanks to Ray McKenzie, Red Beach Advisors!
#24- Offering insightful commentary regarding general industry trends
Thanks to the blog, we've positioned ourselves as being on the cutting edge of innovations and designs that would directly affect our clients. Writing informative blog posts and instructional material helped us do that by promoting us as the go-to experts. By improving our brand awareness and being recognized as experts in our field, we've generated new leads for the company. Over 30 percent of the site traffic to our website stems from the blog, and 85 percent of those views come from new users. We also take larger current tech trends and funnel them down to how they impact our lives. AI, Internet of Things, and AR/VR aren't necessarily in our line of business, but those industries are rapidly growing and have elements that could eventually affect how we operate. Offering insightful commentary regarding general industry trends also broadens our readership scope; we boost our presence and gain exposure with people who might not typically think they need our product.
Thanks to Shawn Moore, Solodev!
#25- A number of ways
We use our blog to provide meaningful but strategically related content to the consumers we are trying to market to. Once written, we then leverage the posts with other publications to broaden our reach and drive visits back to our website. We also ensure that our blog is a source of useful information for our customers and potential customers, not just another advertising channel. If you are looking to launch your own blog, it could be useful to use an editorial calendar, but the danger with that is that the content can become too static and too focused on what you want to talk about, rather than what your customer is paying attention to. Stay focused on up-to-date and relevant topics in the news that affect your customers' lives and don't be afraid to keep things nimble to address hot topics as they come up.
Thanks to Justin Lavelle, BeenVerified!
#26- Provide advice and insights
At Colour Rich, we use our blog to provide advice and insights on all things design, development and marketing. Our aim is to provide in-depth content that can be easily understood and implemented by our target market of entrepreneurs and business owners. By offering informal solutions to frequently searched questions, we aim to provide value and a helping hand to those that are likely to need our core services the most.
Thanks to Richard Howe, Colour Rich!
Blog: https://www.colourrich.co.uk/inside-design/a-closer-look-at-website-geographics
#27- As a resource for our customers to better their experience
In order to be sure our clients have all the resources needed to utilize our products effectively, we like to write blogs about reoccurring questions we receive from clients to be used as a resource. If we've heard the same question by a few different customers, odds are it's a fairly common question, with no immediate resources that answer it. This is how we choose a lot of our blog subjects: so that our customers have resources to questions they might have after leaving the store.
Thanks to Alissa Crane, Dr Drone!
Blog: https://www.drdrone.ca/blogs/drone-news-drone-help-blog
#28- Generate traffic, and create authority in our niche
Nowadays, the best way to get organic search traffic is to see how the top ten results look in Google, then attempt to answer the topic in more detail than everyone else. Over time, if we cover every conceivable topic in detail, traffic will continue to rise, and our brand will be reinforced as a trusted source. We've learned that superficial or thin blog posts generate next to no traffic, and are frankly a waste of everyone's time.
Thanks to Jason Lavis, drillers.com!
How do you use your blog for business? Tell us in the comments below