Creating and maintaining a professional blog is no longer an optional concern. Blogs are the ideal way to infuse a website with useful content, facilitate customer interaction and ensure that online promotional and marketing efforts are able to be as fruitful and successful as possible. While there is an investment of time and effort in order to manage and curate a blog, the potential benefits that it may have on the overall business are not to be taken lightly.
Businesses would do well to look upon blogs as a way to invest in their future. From establishing a brand that will allow them to stand apart from their competitors to boosting inbound site traffic, conversion rates, and ultimately revenue figures, a well-managed blog can be an indispensable asset. The following reasons serve to highlight why no business should be without a blog.
Optimizing Site Traffic
Websites function as the centerpiece of any online marketing campaign, but even the best site may fail to make an impact in the event that it remains unseen. Blogs have been proven to be very effective at attracting the interest of new clientele and prospective customers.
Content that is informative, well-written, and engaging serves to educate customers regarding the nature and history of the business while also enhancing the overall impact of link-building campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Promotional blogs make it easy to boost site traffic while interacting with customers in ways that are more likely to have a lasting impact.
Encouraging Customer Engagement
Convincing those who may be just visiting a website to make a purchase can be a tall order, especially on sites that fail to spark any interest or to foster increased customer engagement. Only a tiny fraction of first-time visitors to a site may be prepared to do business or make a purchase, blogs that provide useful product information, details regarding service options or that help quell any last-minute reservations that customers may have can make quite a difference. Finding ways to engage and interact with visitors is of paramount importance when it comes to making a sale.
Synergizing With Social Media
Marking online requires businesses to utilize a wide range of tools. Blogs are such a valuable asset due to their ability to enhance the effectiveness of content marketing and other promotional efforts. Quality posts may be of benefit to social media marketing efforts in the following ways:
- The creation of shareable content may create a ‘ripple effect
- Social-media posts serve to boost inbound site traffic
- Blogs offer an ideal arena to interact with customers
Social media efforts and professional blogs share a symbiotic relationship, one that may be easily leveraged in order to create a positive-feedback loop. With regards to online marketing tools and strategies, the sum is often far greater than the parts.
Branding and Image
How new customers perceive a business can have a lasting impact on their actions and behaviors. Businesses that are seen as less trustworthy, those that fail to establish themselves as an authority within the field, and organizations that may be unable to showcase themselves in a more professional light find themselves struggling just to survive.
The long-form nature of blogs allows them to provide more detail-rich content and more useful information than other marketing platforms. Quality blog posts can help businesses to more easily establish their brand or to fine-tune their image in order to ensure customers and clients are more likely to form a favorable impression.
Enhancing the Effectiveness of Email Marketing
Once the undisputed king of digital advertising techniques, email marketing is now a tool that often goes overlooked. When properly utilized, mass emailing coupons and promotional offers or providing an existing client base with a regular newsletter or other publication can be of enormous benefit. Hosting a blog can provide useful content for emails just as an ongoing email campaign can help to build a blog’s readership.
Creating Inbound Links
The end goal of any marketing campaign is to increase sales figures, and that can’t be done without enhanced exposure. Blogs provide numerous opportunities to create external links that can be used in order to optimize inbound traffic. Before content can be shared on social media and the third-party websites that will allow for enhanced visibility and greater online presence, it must first be introduced. Hosting a blog provides the ideal platform for original content that can help to inform and educate customers, utilize keywords as part of an SEO effort, and ensure that greater numbers of prospective customers will be referred to the site through an inbound link.
Augmenting an Existing Marketing Strategy
A professional blog is a versatile tool, one that may be used in order to benefit both customers and businesses alike. Lacking an outlet that will allow businesses to tell their story or to form and maintain customer relationships that will lead to greater success in the days to come may prove to be nothing short of a disaster. Investing the time, energy, and financial resources that may be required in order to establish a blog is something that should be looked upon as a long-term investment.
Blogs serve to encourage visitors to keep returning to a website while enhancing the value and impact of other online marketing efforts. Businesses that choose to establish a blog may begin to see a greater return of investment than they might have thought possible.
Maintaining an active blog is part of the on-site content marketing aspect of our SEO service. Schedule an SEO consultation today to find out how a blog can help improve your company’s online visibility and drive more relevant business leads.
