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- Provide tutorials to help people afraid of techie stuff
Sharing my blog posts on LinkedIn with my status convert my readers into my clients. Everyone needs someone to help them in the technical field. I share my ideas, provide a solution to their problems and covert them. I have helped many people for free and later they asked me to do their projects. You can easily find the articles related to WordPress and SEO.
Thanks to Ravi Chahar, BloggingLove!
#2- Several ways
Blogging can be an important aspect of driving traffic to your website. Social media is one of the most effective places to have your content shared and gain additional readership. Besides creating content that adds value to the reader, you want to align yourself with a specific message that reaches your target market.Create an editorial calendar to plan upcoming blog topic sand times when you will be posting to compliment your overall sales goals and communications strategies. Then entice readers with a sneak peak into next week’s blog topic post. Use social networks to create an ongoing conversation centered around your blog theme on sites such as Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Thanks to Alexis Zanger, Aegis Software Corp!
#3- Build authority
At Tutorful, we use our blog as a central hub for additional resources that are incredibly valuable to not only our users, but anyone within the education sector. By focusing on what content will be beneficial to our user base, not using it purely for marketing purposes, we offer current users and potential users answers to the problems they have. This also allows us to become an authoritative figure in our sector who people will navigate to when looking for resources. In turn, this opens up opportunities to work with experts throughout multiple sectors to collaborate and create the best content available.
Thanks to Matt Jones, Tutorful!
#4- Support my business
My blog has been active since 2009. I blog on topics related to my business: leadership, change management, project management and process improvement. My blog is effectively a knowledge base for current and prospective clients. In it I share best practices, how to articles and case studies from client work. The blog is used to support my business by: Establishing relationships and building trust with potential clients. Enabling for potential clients to understand my capabilities Sharing knowledge so that clients don't feel like they have to rely on me for everything they want to do, but rather have ideas to use on their own. Promoting my expertise My blog enables for me to reach out to prospective clients I may not otherwise reach. If they are researching something – such as how to develop an onboarding program – they will find article in my blog that enable them to implement some ideas and best practices in developing an onboarding program. If they need further support, they can and do reach out to me to further develop that program.
Thanks to Gina Abudi, Abudi Consulting Group, LLC!
#5- Sharing industry news
Our blog is all about sharing industry news. Keeping our blog freshly updated with brand new content each week is not only great for our website's SEO, it has helped to make us a hub for reporting on the latest developments in our industry. As a road markings company, it's only natural that our target audiences is going to be pretty niche. However, by broadening our scope to general transport news, we see great conversion rates on people clicking our content. We never make our posts about the hard sell, which is probably why we see people return to read our articles, each week.
Thanks to Grant van der Harst, Anglo Liners!
#6- HR Updates
I write an article once a week and distribute to my network via email and then post the article on my blog site. These are short one page articles that hit on a legal, HR practice, etc. that impact organization. I have seen the traffic increase significantly over the last two years with the weekly articles.
Thanks to Matthew W. Burr, Burr Consulting, LLC!
#7- Create topics based on products
We own a small retail jewelry store and run a nice size online jewelry business. We normally blog about once per week. The reason we blog is that not everything can be worked into our normal e-commerce website. There are topics we want to talk about, but adding them to the homepage or a product page really doesn't fit. So instead, we create a blog post to dive into those topics. For example, if we see one our videos becoming very popular on Youtube, we will go further in depth with our blog posts. We also base our blog post on common questions from our customers. For example, many customers were asking about the difference between two gemstones with similar names. So we posted a video along with a blog post to discuss that topic. About 20% of our traffic comes from people landing on our blog posts, so it actually works quite well. Having a blog can increase traffic and lead to more sales throughout your website.
Thanks to Jeff Moriarty, Mothers Family Rings!
#8- Two reasons
I use my blog as a space to spread life lessons and tips that aim to help people become happier and more productive individuals in life and business. I also use it as a platform to promote local businesses and small business, and I share upcoming workshops, retreats, Mastermind group coaching programs, and other events.
Thanks to Catherine Wood, Unbounded Potential!
#9- Help clients and answer questions
As content remains king in 2018, we will continue to use our blog as part of our online business strategy. But rather than using the blog to promote our products, we like to focus on helping clients and prospects improve their overall processes, and become more efficient and confident. We also strive to answer some frequently asked questions through our blog, so readers have a resource to which they can easily turn. And not only do we share our knowledge & expertise in our niche with our blog readers, but we also try to show them that we know and genuinely understand their struggles, and remind them that they are not alone – others are facing the same struggles and uncertainties. This in turn helps us build trust with our audience and gives our online visitors the ability to connect with us, even if we can’t meet face-to-face.
Thanks to Dr. Christopher Croner, SalesDrive, LLC!
#10- SEO and resource for business owners
We use our company blog as a resource for business owners who want to learn how to improve their online marketing to acquire new customers. Through our blog posts, we are able to provide value to our audience, establish ourselves as experts and take the first step in establishing rapport with our readers. Fresh and engaging content also helps improve our search engine optimization (SEO), resulting in higher visibility in search engines and more website traffic.
Thanks to Jonathan Passley, PDR Web Solutions!
#11- A number of ways
Blogging for business gives a fantastic opportunity to drive organic traffic to the business website which primarily makes the particular business website be browsed more times. More browsing causes better ranking in the search engines. A good quality content published in the blog always makes the viewer interested to dig in the website for more information on that business. The more organic visitor hit your business website, the more chances of getting positive customers. Moreover, if any article in your blog can sufficiently impress your audience, then it is shared and your business gets more exposure to the market. Quality articles in your blog which provides useful information or attractive features of your products or services make the audience start conversations about that. These conversations engage more people and your business get better conversions which is your ultimate target. Therefore, to get a good engagement which produces better ROI for your business, you must start and continue posting attractive articles in your business blog.
Thanks to Andrei Vasilescu, DontPayFull!
#12- Leads generation
At Power Digital we use our blog to drive leads for our main service offerings. By catering our content around the key problems our clients face as well as keyword research we are able to write content that is engaging but also benefits our SEO strategy. We apply the same philosophy to our clients and leverage their blogs at a platform to publish a large amount of content each month that center around their core services. The key strategy we deploy is the cluster strategy- which plays to Google's semantic search algorithm and dives deeps into each topic to boost rankings to the blog as well as the key transactional pages on their site.
Thanks to Britney Schroeder, Power Digital Marketing!
#13-Connect
A blog for your business is like having a digital business card. Actually, it’s far beyond that. It’s the most powerful tool in your marketing toolbox. The reason is simple. A blog allows you to connect with millions of people instantaneously. With a blog, you can hone in on any individual product and service. This allows you to deliver specified content to your customers, setting you above your competition. The best thing is you can target directly to your niche market using powerful SEO tools. In my opinion, there’s no better way to connect with current and potential customers than through a blog. Best part of all, the more you add blog posts, the higher your whole website will rank on search engine results. With an active blog, you can rise above the competition and stick out like an ugly flower. My personal favorite attribute to a blog is the flexibility. With a blog, there are no rules. You are the author and creator of the posts, so you have full control of what to say and how you deliver the content. Blogging is my preferred and most successful method of retaining and gaining new clients and also converting leads.
Thanks to Michael Tamez, Sunshine Gold Investments!
#14- Provide information and for ranking
We primarily use our blog to educate or inform our clients for a certain product or service that we think they are confused. We want our Blog to be the meat of information among other pages of the website that people refer to, yes it is also important with SEO for rankings but those are the days where the thinking is to create a blog content for keywords it the other way around humans first before search engine.
Thanks to Ulysis Cababan, RapidVisa Philippines!
#15- Conversion and publishing credible content
We publish content to bring credible health and lifestyle information to women who are starting to experience symptoms associated with menopause. It's a phase of life, that every woman will go through and yet many don't know what to expect. It's simply because menopause is something we don't talk about. We work with a network of 185 health providers to create and publish credible health content that women can rely on. As a result, genneve is fast becoming a thought leader in the menopause space, and our SEO rankings for Top 10 search results have risen from being in the Top 10 across 27 women's health searches to the Top 10 for 700+ women's searches…all within a matter of 8 months. Content is a big part of our strategy for being a thought-leading brand, growing our audience, and driving conversion for the sale of our feminine health products.
Thanks to Jill Angelo, genneve!
#16- Create targeted theme that stands out
You should get a palette that really helps your blog stand out and attracts visitors to your site. Try to choose one that really fits your brand. Companies that use their blog to their advantage have chosen a theme that stays true to their brand and is very targeted. For example, Blu Skin Care specializes in USDA certified organic skin care. We make sure that the tone of our blogs fits that theme.
Thanks to Zondra Wilson, Blu Skin Care, LLC!
#16- Educate
As a B2B marketing agency whose mission is to accelerate client success, we use our blog to continually educate our target audiences on how they can better their marketing efforts and their business as a whole. We do this by writing about subjects that interest our buyer personas, such as marketing tools and tactics, business growth strategies, and industry issues and trends. Blogs come in the format of how-tos, tips, checklists and thought leadership. Our blog is also a great place for smaller company announcements that would interest prospects and our current clients. In doing all of this, the blog allows us the opportunity to convey our brand's personality through language and style, showcase our team members through bylines and author headshots, share our latest content marketing offers as dynamic calls-to-action (CTAs) and bolster ongoing SEO efforts. No matter how small your business, a blog is always worth the work because of the many benefits it can bring to your website and bottom line.
Thanks to Mark Schmukler, Sagefrog Marketing Group!
#17- Ranking
We manage blogs for over 35 companies nationally to increase their search result rankings, grow traffic and increase online awareness. One technique we use is creating image heavy blogs that serve as a resource where the photos are interesting, even if seen alone outside of the blog. One of our blogs that followed this formula received 500 visits a day for more than two years, and ranked well as a result. We also like to share the images from our blog on our Pinterest page, and relevant boards, and link the image back to the blog post. The image links appear as backlinks in Google Webmaster Tools, and each time the image is re-pinned, another link is created. Using this method, we've created over 100,000 links that gain the attention of Google's RankBrain algorithm and subsequently increase rankings.
Thanks to Kellen Kautzman, Send It Rising Internet Marketing!
#18- Build relations
Your blog is another way to help build that relationship with new prospects and also current customers. With so many prospects doing their research prior to buying you will need to show ways of why they should work with you, why your product is superior to others, how you will solve a certain problem they are having. It really is all about appealing to that ideal persona you want to attract. Make sure the content being created is targeted towards the right person and you will attract them to work with you!
Thanks to Garrett Smith, Pitch + Pivot!
#19- Build foundations for businesses
We had to recently relaunch our business blog because we realized that it was not connecting with our audience. We actually had to do an assessment of what we were blogging about for the past ten years and realized that we were blogging for the sake of blogging to gain traffic, but with Google's changing algorithm and the age of authenticity, originality, and community we had to take a hard look and find our blog's heartbeat. The first thing we did was rename our blog to be more than just a blog, so we named it Cornerstone Xtra to align with what we are the most passionate about as a business and that's to help other entrepreneurs and business owners reach their higher dreams. Our objective is that our blog truly becomes our client's and our reader's cornerstone, a place where they can build their foundation for their business. In the upcoming months, we will be writing about the importance of implementing multimedia and technology in their marketing and business strategy by sharing tips, tricks, and some of the free tools that are available for them. As a business, we had to truly overcome being afraid of our competitors stealing our ideas by giving too much away; we soon realized that at the end of the day, the most important thing is building trust and a community around our brand.
Thanks to Zanibel Melo, HigherDreams, LLC!
#20- Helpline for customers
One of the best ways that we manage our blog to help our customers is by showing tutorials on how to use our products. The premise behind the blog was to be a helpline for our customers as well as to be able to send a link to our customers if they had any issues with a product we have detailed pictures, instructions, as well as video format as well. The blog also helps our search terms rank a little higher which makes for an overall excellent must have for any business needs.
Thanks to Michael Russell, Ratchetstraps.com!
#21- Drive traffic and build my brand
I send an email marketing tip out every morning at 7:30am. These also become blog posts which I promote through Twitter. Then I post the most popular ones, about once a week, to LinkedIn. And ultimately this all drives traffic back to my website where people sign up to get the email tips. So it's a big circle with content being used on the blog and several other ways to build my brand.
Thanks to Louis Gudema, revenue + associates!
#22- A number of ways
The first is SEO. Writing blog posts of value to my niche and incorporating my target SEO keywords has brought me major traffic and greatly increased my email subscribers. I also write blog posts with affiliate links, to build a stream of passive income. I can't imagine not having a blog for my business – it allows me to give so much value to my target customers, building community in return!
Thanks to Bonnie Bryant, Bonnie Bryant Creative!