Why your website needs a business blog and how it can drive traffic

Search engines are the most common way for people to find what they are looking for online, whether it’s a phone number, a restaurant or a local plumber. They are most likely to turn to a search engine first and type in what they need to see what comes up. All of this is good news for business websites as all you need to do is make sure your site is the one that comes up.

So how can a business blog help make sure your website pops up in the search results? There are many ways in which a blog can help drive traffic to your website, increase your business visibility and help you to boost customer relationships, so let’s take a look at the reasons why every website should have a business blog.

1. Creating fresh regular content improves SEO

Most people find what they need just by searching, rather than looking at adverts on a search engine, and blogging can really help people to find you. The more fresh and new content you have on your website, the easier it is for Google and other search engines to find you.

Hosting a blog on your website means you are constantly adding engaging, relevant content to your site, as well as increasing the number of pages, the number of times you use keywords, and search engines are constantly crawling to find the newest and most relevant content available to answer searches.

Your blog content will be changing and new every time you create a new post, which means the search engines will be coming across it regularly, and showing it to people searching on that topic. The more new and engaging content you can create, the more likely your content is to appear in the search results. The more you appear, the more traffic is likely to come and visit your website.

If you create blog posts around very specific topics, these can rank really well in the search engines for people looking for information around that particular topic. If you create a suite of posts on the topic in mind, after a while you will end up with a lot of posts which all rank highly on that subject, meaning your website will come up repeatedly.

If you blog on that topic every week you are effectively creating evergreen content - content which never goes out of date and will appear on search engines. By being focused it means that your posts will be very relevant to people looking for information about that particular topic.

2. Blogs attract new visitors to your site

Research has shown that 80% of people who read your blogs are potential brand new customers – in other words people who have never come across your business before. If they read your blog, they visit the website and hopefully you get the chance to convert them into regular customers.

These people wouldn’t have found your company website in their general search but because your business blog addressed a specific issue which they were searching for, it will have popped up high in their search results. This is why a business blog makes so much sense and really is a vital tool to bring more people to your website.

3. More blogs = more traffic

While you may struggle to come up with content ideas on a regular basis, it is worth the effort as research has shown that once you have 50 – 100 blog posts on your site – which would be one per week for 1-2 years – then your traffic increases 53%. Once you reach more than 100 posts, traffic goes up three times, and once you have 200 posts, traffic grows more than four times. All of that traffic to your website means more customers and more business potentially.

People always ask how frequently they should blog and it really is important to commit once you start as a blog which is out of date could be more damaging than not having one at all. Studies have shown that blogging daily can potentially generate five times more traffic and leads compared with blogging weekly.

4. Blogging gives your company a personality

Many smaller businesses worry that they don’t have time to come up with regular blog posts, or that they have nothing relevant to say. Or they think blogs are just for celebrities with a large following. But that’s simply not the case.

Writing a regular blog can have great advantages for your company as well as driving traffic. By writing about and discussing relevant industry subjects, your blog helps to place your business as knowledgeable and leading the way in the industry. It gives your business a distinct voice and personality on the market and has a far greater potential reach than just your email list.

You can create posts which pitch your business as experts and show prospective clients exactly how you can help them - such as case studies and cheat sheets. There are many different types of blog posts which you can create to show prospective customers just how helpful your company could be.

5. A blog can boost your social media marketing

Your business blog gives you instant content to share regularly across your social media – you can turn your written blog into a podcast or video and share it across all of your business social media platforms, as another way to increase your content, raise awareness and drive even more people back to your website.

Using your blog content means you don’t need to come up with new subjects for all of your social media posts, saving time and brain-power. You can also let everyone know via social media as soon as your new blog post has been published, and encourage them to share it for you.

6. A blog helps you engage with customers

Most business blogs have a comment option, which means that customers can actually engage with the post and ask questions and interact directly with the business to find out the information they are looking for. If you respond and engage positively with all comments then you can improve direct relationships with potential customers through your blog. Their questions and ideas might even give you subjects for new blogs to create just for them.

You can also email everyone on your database directly, as soon as you publish a new blog post, so they know to go to your website to have a look, keeping them updated and informed and giving you a reason to stay in touch with them on a regular basis.

Conclusion

Adding a business blog to your website brings many benefits, including improving your SEO, driving traffic and attracting potential new customers to your business. It is a key marketing tool and can also help to increase your social media traffic.

Hopefully these tips have helped you to understand the real benefits of adding a business blog to your current website and how it could help to grow your business.  If you have any questions or need any help or advice, feel free to give me a call (01264 735 333) or leave me a comment below.