Why Do I Need A Blog For My Business?

Why do I need a blog for my business? What should I blog about? What is blogging for SEO? 

These are common questions we hear from our clients when we start talking about the importance of content marketing. The truth is, if you have a business and you want to drive traffic to that business online, then you should have a blog. 

Regardless of the industry, having a blog cannot only generate you buckets of traffic each month for free, but it can also bring in new leads and paying customers. Maybe you are convinced that a blog just won’t work for your industry. So let’s talk about a few different industries and what you might be able to blog about. 

Photographers: 

• The most popular venues
• How to prep for your photoshoot
• The best outfits for each season

Restaurant Owners:

• Food and beverage pairings
• Favorite recipes and secret ingredients
• Where the food comes from (partners and local ingredients)

Product or Service Owners:

• Frequently asked questions about your products or services
• Tips on how to use each product or service offering
• Benefits this product or service can have to each specific audience segment

If you are still questioning – “why do I need a blog for my business?” – and convinced that your industry doesn’t need a blog, email us! We promise there is a strategy that can work for you. 

Now let’s dive into the why.

Why do I need a blog for my business?

We’ve broken down five reasons why a blog is important for any business. We aren’t talking about just writing an online journal and sharing whatever thoughts venture into your brain. We are talking about writing with intention. Writing with SEO strategies in order to drive online traffic and revenue for your business. So let’s dive in… here are five reasons why you need a blog for your business and the benefits associated with blogging:

1. Ranking 

Having a blog allows you to rank for hundreds of keywords specific to your niche & industry. What are keywords? In short, they are the words and phrases your audience is typing into the Google search bar. The goal of blogging for SEO is to have your individual blog pages rank for the various keywords your niche is searching for. You become the answer to their problems. 

Your website alone can only rank for a couple very specific keywords to the products or services you offer. Your blog can rank for hundreds of keywords. This is because each time you write a new post you are choosing a new set of keywords you want to rank for. 

2. Crawling 

Do you know how search engines work? They are basically the world’s largest filing cabinet, indexing content and filing each piece of online content into the appropriate file. The only way these search engines know what your online content is about, is because they have bugs that crawl your webpages. This might sound sort of creepy-crawly, but it’s true! 

But, here comes the benefit of blogging. Each time you add a new page or piece of content to your website you are basically flipping a switch that tells Google to recrawl your page. Google soon begins to understand that you are an active website and your content should be crawled more frequently than say your competitors. 

Why do I need a blog for my business?

Because consistent blogging is what allows you to outrank your competition.

3. Authority

You are the expert in your industry for your offering. You already know that and your social media followers probably already know that as well. But does Google? Do search engines actually understand who you are and what you do? If you are not sure, the chances are Google doesn’t. By writing long form content you are telling Google that you are an expert on that subject. 

Remember when we talked about how search engines are basically gigantic file cabinets? Think about your business in terms of files. How many folders and files would you have? If you want Google to create these folders for you, you need to create the online content to fill them. The more pieces of content you have, the more likely Google will categorize you as an expert on those topics and begin to rank you higher on these search engine pages. 

Being legit is a real thing when it comes to search engines. You need to prove your value and worth here, just like you would for your audience. 

4. Link Building

This is one of the most important SEO strategies you can bake into your blog. There are two types of links, inbound (backlinks) and outbound (external) links. They are both important, but for today we are just going to dive into inbound links, also known as backlinks. Essentially, these are links to your content on other people’s websites. 

Now why would someone link to your website? Because the content you created is shareworthy, smart and valuable to their audience. Because your blog content is good, really good! And when it’s so good that people are permanently placing it on their website, Google, and search engines alike, notice it. 

One of the best places to start is guest blogging. This is where you partner with complimentary companies and businesses and write content specifically for their audience on their blogs. At the end of these posts you are typically sourcing your website and blog creating a high quality backlink. 

5. Traffic Opportunities

Finally, we’ve made it to our fifth reason as to why you need a blog for your business. Because driving traffic to your website is one of the best ways to increase leads and revenue. In the four reasons above, we discussed why having a blog will tell Google why you should rank better and higher on search engine pages. Now, we are going to talk about how you can use these blogs to drive additional website traffic beyond search engines. 

The answer is social media. Repurpose this content by making it work harder for you. Share these blogs on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest. Pinterest, followed by Facebook, are both our biggest website drivers because these platforms promote direct links to your content, unlike Instagram. In the past year, Pinterest actually accounts for 56% of all social traffic with Facebook following at 28%. 

Think of it this way, without a blog how are you going to get potential customers to click on your website again and again? How will they be reminded each day, week or month of how valuable you and your offerings are? Most people need to be exposed to your business or brand a number of times before they will hand over their money. Creating online content through a blog is like building a digital relationship with your future customers and clients. 

So, why do I need a blog for my business? Because you’ll increase your ranking opportunities, become an authoritative subject matter expert and drive more traffic and leads for your business.

Our Content Marketing Strategy Package

Building a content marketing strategy is one of our favorite service offerings for our clients. It helps answer the following questions:

Why do I need a blog for my business?

What should I blog about?

What is blogging for SEO?

How do I blog with SEO strategies?

We’ve found that when we outline our blogs in advance, it makes it that much easier to be consistent and strategic with our content. We don’t feel forced to write for SEO, it just becomes natural and easy once the initial research has been taken care of. That is exactly what we aim to do. Make your life easier. 

Included in this package is:

• Keyword research specific to your business, industry and offering outlining the monthly search volumes and keyword competition
• The creation of content strategy buckets
• 30 blog post outlines including the strategy bucket, SEO title, blog title, identified keyword and related keywords so you can get to writing.

This is how you jumpstart your blog with SEO strategies. If instead, you are ready to start this process on your own, we have just the tools for you.

Click here to get our absolutely free keyword research handbook. This handbook walks you through the importance of keywords, what they are and how to find the right keywords for your business. We also share four of our favorite keyword research tools and walk through four things you can do today to up your SEO game.