Business owners tend to be skeptical about the value of a blog, either due to time or budget constraints. But it would be a bigger mistake to not have one at all. Consider these statistics from the Content Marketing Institute:
Having a blog is well worth the investment, but just how can it help contribute to one thing business owners care about: growing the business?
Developing a blog is one of the surefire ways to create content that attracts readers and potential customers. Unlike advertising, relevant content is more valuable to users – something they would actually want to look for and type into a search engine.
In a study of 1,400 companies conducted by Hubspot, increasing the number of your website’s pages by 50-100 can lead to double-digit lead growth.
Blogs aren’t just for reading – they’re effective channels for getting someone to take a certain action. The key is to have a call-to-action, a link to something that drives a certain customer interaction. Here are a few examples:
Set up goals in Google Analytics to track the path and frequency through which your customers convert. This can be an eye-opening exercise that reveals the behavior and thought process of your audience, allowing you to better deliver the content and services they need.
Here’s an example goal visualization in Google Analytics. You can see how it helps clarify which pages are performing best, as well as possible opportunities for improving goal conversion:
Having a blog or news section on your website allows you to show off how much you or your team know about a particular field or industry.
Each week, a news story, opinion editorial, or industry article can give you the platform to both update your audience and exhibit a deeper understanding of your niche compared to your competitors.
One of the best examples of this is the blog of Neil Patel, a digital marketing expert and influencer. Neil offers great digital marketing consulting advice, but he also runs a detailed, easy-to-follow blog on SEO and marketing.
Here’s Arcalea’s blog section for example, on our front homepage:
Blogs are also about what your audience can learn! When you take time to educate your potential customer, they’re more trusting of your brand and more likely to convert or make a purchase.
Take the official Disney Parks blog for example. Their blogs often feature upcoming events to inform visitors what to expect when they visit, as well as a comment section to help answer any customer questions.
As another example, this is a piece of email content sent from Hubspot, inviting people on their newsletter to attend webinars led by professionals in the industry:
Your customers and your audience are real people, and you shouldn’t forget to talk to them like real people either! If your blog has a comments section, you can use that to find relevant websites, network with potential partners and customers, and build your relationship with those who want to interact with you.
Quick Sprout (also owned by Neil Patel) hosts a blog with useful tips on increasing your audience. People like to comment on the posts because Neil will often reply with his gratitude or further context to a piece of information. It’s a great way to develop the human aspect of the relationship, while also furthering the conversion down the sales funnel.
Here’s Neil Patel posting on his own blog, responding to people leaving comments.
Starting a blog is relatively easy. Maintaining and growing it can be an overwhelming project. It involves research, editing, outreach and promotion, engagement, and regular analysis. This may be a lot for one person to adequately handle as a part-time responsibility and may require a team to manage effectively.
Find out how you can hire a team of professionals to develop and manage your content strategy so you can focus on your other business goals.
Follow Arcalea’s blog for more guides and explainers on content strategy, paid advertising, social media marketing, and local SEO.
