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- Target local business owners
As an SEO agency owner, I understand the value for targeting the right keywords at the right time. I use my blog at Easy Mode Media to dive into issues around my local area that are related to SEO and digital marketing in general. Once a reader has clicked to my website, I then use an internal linking strategy to funnel readers towards the services I offer. Depending on what the original article is about, the linking structure will vary. This way I'm able to target local business owners by providing valuable information before trying to convert them to a paying client.
Thanks to Ben McLaughlan, Easy Mode Media!
#2- Create targeted and helpful content
We use our blog to educate our audience (that mainly comprises of physicians) about crucial financial matters. Besides making them better understand how we can assist them if they decide to hire us, our blog provides them guidance in career and financial planning from contract to retirement. Our blog is really meant to be a resource that all physicians seeking financial assistance can use. That is why we have also included free eBooks on our blog to educate physicians and equip them with the knowledge that can help them in understanding their current financial situation and in massively improving it.
Thanks to Justin Nabity, Physicians Thrive!
#3- Three things
First, we use it to brand our firm and discuss who we are and what we do outside of the cases we handle. Second, we use it to discuss specific cases we handle and the success we have. Finally, we use it to push our focus on consumer safety so we include articles about law changes, safety recalls, and other things that involve consumer safety issues. Once we decided how to focus our blog, it is much easier to develop content and stay consistent.
Thanks to Justin Hill
#4- Mostly for SEO
We write our own unique articles, brainstorming ideas to them as well as tracking popular search requests. The topics are related to software development: aspects of outsourcing software development, customer-company interaction within software development projects, pros and cons of this or that development methodology, working model etc. Since recently we have been also posting about digital transformation to E-Government, product management, software development for startups. Against the background of the COVID pandemic and lockdown issues, we focus on useful content mostly instead of promotional one.
Thanks to Artur Prokopchik, Code Inspiration!
#5- Using our blog as a stepping stone
For Weiswood Strategies, our blog is a stepping stone between social media and email. For example, I’m a very active LinkedIn user, but posts on that platform have a 1,300-character limit. So I will do a short post one week, expand on that for the blog a week or two later, and we'll then send out an email after another period of time. The email teases the blog post and drives the reader to our website. This flow makes for a smooth content management process internally, and it helps to get our content in front of people multiple times.
Thanks to Emily Weisgrau, Weiswood Strategies!
#6-Establish Authority
We use our blogs to answer the common questions our visitors have and use them to give information to our readers about the latest trend and technology. Anytime we write to our website, we provide some new information for the visitors and the more relevant information our visitors find in our website, the more authoritative we sound.
Thanks to Shiv Gupta, Incrementors!
#7- Personalized communications services
My blog posts consist of: writing client service /product information and news, posting my Q & A's/interviews with clients and extraordinary people, listing upcoming productions and our upcoming (or post) workshop information, travel/places of interest with my nature photography/poetry. Besides my blog, I also have separate website menu pages for my publications, presentations, testimonials and list of clients.
Thanks to Susan J. Farese, SJF Communications!
#8- Demonstrate my expertise
The posts are written with clients and potential clients in mind and are designed to showcase what I offer. They will often elaborate on services mentioned elsewhere on the site and demonstrate my ability to address the client's issue. The spin-off is that Google wants to provide expert, authoritative and trustworthy (E-A-T) solutions to search queries. By regularly producing content that embodies these values, my business garners favor with Google and my website ranks better as a result. Providing expert content that scratches where people are itching is a win-win for all concerned.
Thanks to Norm McLaughlin
#9- To drive organic traffic to our site
We do extensive research on keyword difficulty and search volumes before we write and the majority of our organic traffic lands on blog pages. Organic traffic and good content helps improve our domain authority, which in turn increases the page rank for our service pages and landing pages. Right now, almost 90% of our organic traffic lands on blog pages and 0.5% of it converts to subscribers and 0.1% to leads.
Thanks to Nikita Agarwal, Milestone Localization!
#10- To promote music
I use my blog to promote music and stir curiosity among my readers. This way, I am able to hook them further into other topics related to music. This is a good chance for me as well to introduce my musical instrument business which, of course, translates as my own sales funnel. With this, I must say that my blog is one of my perfect instruments to earn more for my business.
Thanks to James Bullard, SoundFro!
#11- Two ways
We use the blog in two primary ways. First, to target low-hanging fruit SEO keywords. Then we retarget those visitors with a carousel ad to introduce them to our products. The second way we use the blog is to engage our existing subscribers and customers with content. We often email out inspirational videos and articles that help build the relationship and inspire them to want to make future purchases.
Thanks to Chris Cade, The Miracles Store!
#12- Share my food recipe
I currently drive revenue to the site through referral links (mostly to Amazon), sponsored posts, and ads. One of the first steps for monetizing a non-product or non-service blog should be sponsored content rather than affiliate links or ads. Both affiliate links and ads should come later because you really need large amounts of traffic to make a blog net full-time revenue.
Thanks to Jessica Randhawa, The Forked Spoon!
#13- Create evergreen content
Our blog content is the key to our success, and we recently doubled our writing budget. What makes great content, regardless of whether the goal is marketing or entertainment, is understanding your narrative. How should the consumption of your content marketing make your targets feel? What actions should the assets inspire? Knowing, ideally with data, how different groups of people react to your brand, learn your value proposition, and are motivated to take action is the best lesson I've learned. In addition, there are several steps to follow to be more effective with content marketing. First, publish often, meaning every 2-3 days. Second, publish posts that are at least 1,500+ words in length. Google likes to see long-form content and consistently ranks it higher. Third, use images to break up the content and help the reader. Next, share your content on all social media channels to increase exposure.
Thanks to Kevin Miller, The Word Counter!
#14- Affiliate marketing and lead generation
We know what issues and challenges our target audience has and what they may google for. Therefore, we create articles that describe solutions to their problems with the help of our software. For affiliate marketing, create reviews and comparisons for different products, how-to articles let us get affiliate sales and commissions for the products mentioned in the blog posts.
Thanks to Irina Rauchenwald, Supercalifunnelistic!
#15- Few ways for our website
We provide information to current and prospective clients about the current trends in technology. We provide analytical insight into current technology news. We discuss the importance of various areas of technology and why they matter. Through all of this, we share our expertise in various areas of technology. Every article is shared to social media to make sure we get helpful information to folks wherever they may be browsing for it.
Thanks to Pieter VanIperen, PWV Consultants!
#16- Act as a resource hub
We have four tabs that open the page to readers including the business community, growing a business, marketing, and starting a business. The latter three tabs are pretty self-explanatory while the business community is used to share insight from small business owners on topics ranging from COVID-19 business pivots to leadership lessons. Our blog's goal is to educate anyone interested in entrepreneurship with business-related content and to help answer any questions they may have about getting started with a small business.
Thanks to Deborah Sweeney, MyCorporation!
#17- Collect high authority backlinks
To be published by media / news sites I use little bits of footage that I have taken myself. First, get your footage and edit it into a suitable length film. I find youtube excellent as it is readily google searchable and is easily (organically) found in the future. With this in mind title and video description must be thought out to appear in any organic search.
Thanks to Iain Miller, Unique Ascent!
#18- Improve search engine optimization
As such, we update our blog weekly with topics that are relevant to our (fashion) business. For example, How to wear brown stockings fashionably? How to match shoes and tights for every occasion? And Where can I find Stockings for petite women? Not only are these examples of topics we've uncovered, but they are also topics that have converted. Additionally, we use our blog to inform our customers about upcoming events such as pop-up events, fashion-shows, and or guest speaking engagements.
Thanks to Vienne Cheung Brown
#19- As an educational tool
We're in the raw pet food niche, so there's a lot of questions owners have about transitioning their pet to this kind of diet. We provide a lot of helpful guides and go into more depth about topics that require more information than we can provide on our product pages. From a business perspective, our blog also acts as a great lead generation tool. Through our blog, we're able to rank for a lot of informational search terms our product pages are unable to given the difference in content intent. From here, it may be the first touch point for future customers. So it's also a great way for new customers to stumble upon our brand!
Thanks to Melissa Smith, Raw & Fresh!
#20- Submission
The blog is a very helpful tool to bring people back into the funnel. For people that are not sure whether to move on in the purchase process or exit it, the blog can provide a lot of material to get them excited about the product. This is where people search for reviews or other qualities of the product. If you can rank for these searches with the blog posts, this will help get people back into the funnel, which might have otherwise lost it. At least you keep control over this process. At the same time, the blog of a business gives the brand a voice and allows you to tell a story connected to the website, which usually is hard to accomplish. It's much better to have people on the website-blog, than having to bring them to your website from social media or other sales channels.
Thanks to Daniel Warmuth, Sprigbox!
#21- Four ways
Essentially, as an ecommerce business, composing an expository article which answers a prevalent question within your target market increases perceived authority, credibility and brand awareness within your niche market. Additionally, featuring relevant products from your online store within the article significantly improves conversion rates, as readers will be more inclined to purchase product(s) from an informed and reliable source.
Thanks to Bill Joseph, Frontier Blades!
#22- Create internal links
Some people come onto my website and are still shopping for a safari. My job is to keep them engaged and to give them the information they need to inspire them to book. That is what my blog is for. Travel guides, info on safaris etc are all important extras to any set package I have on my site. Without my blog, I can tell you I would never get half the amount of enquiries I get. The bulk of my traffic comes through my blog as well.
Thanks to Shaun Taylor, Moriti Private Safaris!
#23- Solve specific problems
We use our blog to publish content that revolves around our business and can be useful to our potential clients. We write for our customers, and the goal of our blog is to solve specific problems that our customers may have and provide fresh insights into our industry. We publish articles where we share our interpretation of changes in the legislation and business news that may affect our subscribers. We want to demonstrate our knowledge and expertise in topics that our readers may be interested in and earn their trust before meeting in person
Thanks to Mian Muneer ud din, Beaufort Associates!
#24- Three variable ways
Establish a network within my niche: Many businesses focus primarily on the customers and forget about the related networking possibilities associated with blogging. Secondly, utilize the power of sharing.Social media sharing is an incredible way of spreading the word of your business and reaching many more customers. Lastly, valuable feedback. I'm always trying to grow and improve my business and customer feeback is a crucial factor for that.
Thanks to Kevin Mercier
#25- Listen and observe children well being
Our blog is meant to address common questions and topics from our customers. We’re a children’s wellness company, which naturally lends itself to lots of questions, so when it comes to creating topics for our blog, we first aggregate the most common questions, then we write a separate blog post about each topic as a way to build community and create valuable content that can lead to more customers.
Thanks to Darren Litt, Hiya Health!