Why Bother Blogging?

If running your business takes up most of your waking hours – and maybe a few sleeping ones too, why would you want to spend any of your precious time writing a regular blog? Odds are that you’ll fall into one of three categories when it comes to blogging.

1. You get it, and you blog regularly.
2. You get it, but you don’t have time to blog.
3. You don’t get it, but you hear everyone talking about blogging, and think it might be worth exploring.

If you fall into the first group – great, carry on! If you fall into the second one, you should be outsourcing your blogging (more on this later) – and if you fall into the third category, the following reasons will hopefully convince you to get writing straight away:

• Blogging will push traffic to your website:     The most valuable visitors you can get to your website are prospective new customers, those people you’ve not previously engaged with, who know little or nothing about your brand.  You can pay to attract them of course, through pay per click advertising, but blogging is free and it’s effective. Each blog you post boosts the likelihood of your website showing up in search engines, and as a consequence, increases the number of new visitors who will find your site. In addition, blogs are easy for readers to share on social media, which extends your potential reach even further.

• Blogging will convert web traffic into leads:     Getting traffic to your blog is one thing, but what you really need to do is to convert as many of your web visitors as possible into leads. While every business will have a different lead-to-sale conversion ratio, one thing remains constant - upping leads will have a proportionate impact on sales. To make sure as many of your blog readers as possible become leads, you need to include a strong ‘call to action’ at the end of each post. Ideally, your call to action will request the visitor to exchange their contact details in return for something of value – a free guide, trial, e-book, white paper, or webinar for example.

• Blogging will position you as the ‘go to’ expert:     The focus of your blog should be to give your readers high quality, relevant content they will find useful. Many people find it difficult to get their head around the fact that giving away knowledge and information for free (or at least exchanging it for just an email address) can be good for their business. But it most definitely is; over time, as well as building brand awareness, your blog will establish a relationship with your readers, so that when they need your services, you will be top of their list. A well curated blog – that is, one that is indexed by topic and can be easily searched – will become a point of reference for your sector, adding to the overall credibility of your brand.

• Blogging has longevity:     A good blog can have a life that lasts far beyond the initial posting. Each time it’s referenced and shared on social media, it will climb up the search engine rankings, increasing the potential for it to be found by new readers. It’s quite possible for a blog post to be working hard for you, and be bringing traffic to your website years after it was posted!

Is it OK to outsource your blogging?

If you don’t have the time to draft blogs yourself – or even if you do - outsourcing makes sense on a number of levels. It leaves you free to get on with what you do best, guarantees blogging doesn’t grind to a halt when you get busy, and brings a valuable, external perspective. You’ll still need to spend some time briefing your writer of course, but as they get closer to your brand, your business sector, and your customers, briefing should become a very straightforward process.

 Would you like to make regular blogging a part of your sales and marketing strategy?  Whether you’ve never blogged before, or you’ve started but are just not finding time to keep up the momentum, I can take responsibility to give you a completely ‘hands-free’ blogging service.  Call me now to discuss your requirements!