Updated: Apr 7
Before converting into customers, people land on your webpage, or your social media pages. They are checking to see if you know what you are talking about and whether you look like the sort of business they want to engage with. Keep them on your website with great content and you are half way there.
1. Connect with your customers
This is my favourite reason for blogging, and it runs through all the others. By writing regularly, your customers get a feel for who you are and how your business works. In these days of internet purchasing and social media followings, potential customers are seeking to relate to you. Many businesses build followings this way, showing customers who they are as well as what they know. Some businesses even set up private groups for discussions about their product or for pre release sales to really connect with followers.
2. Content can be shared
Connection leads naturally into sharing content. Followers who share your content on social media are giving you free advertising. Who doesn’t want free advertising? Social media feeds that bombard followers with pushy sales posts only will quickly be unfollowed. But social media feeds that share useful information with their customers via expert content can build momentum, gaining organic reach as loyal followers share to their networks. Entertaining or problem solving blogs are especially good for this purpose. One blog can be shared to all your platforms, giving you an easy connection to your potential customers.
3. Show your customers your expertise
Lets face it, we all want to engage with businesses who know what they are talking about. Blogging shows that you are this business by showcasing your knowledge. You can even use blogs to provide solutions to your potential customers. After all, if you can solve a problem by just providing an article, who is your customer going to call when they need the bigger issues resolved?
4. Let customers know you are still open
A great landing page is half the challenge as you want to put your best foot forward, but it’s ok for your landing page to stay the same. What you need is a section that you add to regularly that shows you are keeping up to date in your field, and that you are still open. A regular blog or news section solves this problem. It also helps show google that you are current and we all want that!
5. Help google find you
I’ve put this last because I’m being honest. A regular blog, hitting the right key word strings that your potential customers are searching for might improve your rating on google. But without spending a lot of time and money on search engine optimisation or google ranking improvements, for many of us, this is best seen as a great by product rather than the main reason to blog.
Bonus – Your competition is probably doing it. And if they are, then you need to be too.