10 Incredible Benefits of Blogging for Small Business

If you’re a small business owner working with a limited budget, you must always analyze and evaluate your marketing efforts to see what’s working and what’s not.

There are many strategies you can utilize to drive traffic to your website to attract potential customers. Unfortunately, many of these can put a big dent in your wallet. Google ads, Facebook ads and other types of online promotions can get quite expensive.

If you trying to build up a buzz about your brand, you must be wondering if paying for all those ads is the best way to reach your audience and generate more business. If you have unlimited funds and money is not an issue, paying for the ads might be a good option. However, if you’re a small business looking for a cost-effective way to get the results, pay per click advertisement is not what you need. Instead, you should turn to blogging to help you achieve your marketing goals.

Blogging is an easy and inexpensive way to help with your marketing efforts and to drive more traffic to your website. Yes, it often can be time-consuming, but the benefits of blogging for small business can easily outweigh the costs.

72% of marketers chose relevant content creation as the most effective SEO tactic. (Ascend2, 2015) (Source: Hubspot)

The importance of blogging can’t be stressed enough, especially for small businesses with limited options.

So why blogging is so important for small business? Blogging and content marketing has many powerful benefits, including increased credibility, better SEO rankings, more website traffic and visibility, and a stronger connection to your audience.

Your blog should be an integral part of your small business marketing strategy. And if you want your business to succeed, you must dedicate time to creating valuable content and blog on a regular basis.

If you’re looking for more reasons to start a company blog, listed below are top ten benefits your small business will gain from regular blogging:

1. Blogging helps with website SEO

Regular blogging and content updates can help you improve search ranking results. Google likes websites that are frequently updated. If you haven’t created any content recently, your website will likely get downgraded compared to the websites that keep their content fresh.

2. Drive more traffic to your small business website

The more pages you have, the higher your chances of getting found. By optimizing each post, you will increase the chances of people searching for the type of content you provide resulting in more traffic. More content means more results and more organic traffic to your website.

3. Prospecting and lead generation

By creating more content and blogging, you can increase your traffic, but you can also have more ways to convert this traffic into more leads. By optimizing your pages and adding opt-in forms and calls to actions to every page you can increase the number of leads you get from your website.

4. Position yourself as an authority

By sharing your expertise and knowledge, you can establish yourself as an industry thought leader. Over time this can lead to growing recognition which will result in more people trusting you and seeking your guidance. People want to work with experts who are knowledgeable in their field and blogging can help build your authority.

5. Connect with your audience

Many small businesses use a blog to connect and start conversations with their potential customers. By answering questions about your services and products and offering advice, you can build a loyal following. When you engage and educate your audience you also build trust resulting in more business.

6. Blogging helps with networking

Blogging can also be a valuable tool for building a professional network of experts with whom you can connect and interact. By reaching out and connecting with other experts in your field you can build a powerful network that you can use to generate business.

7. Personalize your brand

If you’re a small business, it’s important to distinguish yourself from other brands and show your audience what makes you different. You don’t want to be seen as a faceless corporate entity. This means you have to show a human side of your business. Crafting content and blog posts that show your personality is one way to separate yourself from others and show what makes you and your brand unique.

8. Enhance your social media

Blogging can help you leverage your social media by allowing you to share and publicize your content. If you write relevant and valuable posts and share it on social networks, it will bring valuable traffic back to your website. And if you publish and share regularly you will attract more followers who will be interested in reading and sharing your content resulting in more organic traffic and brand recognition.

9. Engage and inform current customers

You can use blogging to keep your current customers informed about your company and latest developments. You can also use your website blog to ask customers questions, conduct surveys, facilitate discussions, and test marketing campaigns. By encouraging interaction and keeping your audience informed and engaged you can greatly increase the loyalty to your brand.

10. Best ROI (Return on the investment)

Blogging is one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies around. Yes, it can be time-consuming to create valuable content, but it’s also free if you’re willing to put in the time and do it yourself. Creating content, especially evergreen content can bring a constant stream of traffic to your website which you can then convert into fans and customers.

So as you can see, there are many benefits of blogging and blogging can be one of the best ways to grow your small business online and be competitive.

By regularly writing and publishing new content, you can dramatically improve your organic search results, build traffic and ultimately increase your brand recognition and drive more sales.
Infographic: The Awesome Things Blogging Can Do For Your Small Business