Sitting at my local Starbucks and staring at this blank sheet of paper, I realized something. People are so used to hearing what they should and shouldn’t do for marketing and especially internet marketing. They are probably tired of hearing you need to blog, it will do x, y, and z for your business. Blah, Blah, Blah… I don’t want to keep repeating what everyone else is saying, and I want to give you something you can use, or at least relate to.
Then it dawned on me, why not give a little example of why blogging is important, and even better why not share some information about our process at Half a Bubble Out.
Alert: This blog includes some of our secret sauce to internet marketing, start taking notes! This is a freebie on us to help your business.
The big question we are going to answer today is: “Why Blog?” We have heard it countless times from our clients and business owners. It seems like blogging is on everyone’s minds, but there is one problem. Many business owners still haven’t adapted a blog for their business!
Did you know that businesses that blog see 55% more leads than businesses without blogs?!
For those of you who are still skeptical or leery of blogging, we get it. We have been through the process, and we were in your same position a year ago. We knew blogging was becoming more important and we were blogging a bit, but we also weren't totally convinced of the value. We didn’t know if it was worth us putting many hours towards blogging when there was really no guarantee it would bring us more customers. We had plenty of excuses:
- Not enough time
- Don’t know what to write on
- Didn’t think people would find our writing interesting
- Didn’t think people would care what we said
- Not enough man power, time, or resources for blogging
- …The list goes on.
The Truth About Starting a Blog
The truth is there will be a million reasons why you think your business can’t blog. You will find them and dwell on them until you are absolutely ready to try something new. For some business owners this is the scariest part. They are so used to running their own business, managing employees and marketing how they always have that they think making the shift to inbound marketing will make things even harder. After all, blogging takes time, and you are good at what you do, but you're probably not comfortable writing a daily blog and sharing your knowledge and ideas on the internet. You probably have a million questions of how to do it, and do it right. We did to. We researched, and planned, and researched again until we were ready to take the risk. So we started small with 2 blogs a week and waited to see any results.
Why Blog? Hmmm You Tell Me
Blogging has changed the way we do business at Half a Bubble Out. Our entire business plan has changed, and our responsibilities among employees have shifted. But we made it work, and it was well worth it. Here is a quick look at our growth over the past year since we started blogging.
The chart below shows all traffic to our website on a monthly basis.
Now, what is even more impressive is our organic traffic growth over the past year. Before blogging we experienced little growth and often hit plateaus with our traffic. We relied heavily on throwing time into design changes and on-page SEO, which is a necessity, but it wasn’t getting us the results we were looking for.
What changed? We Did.
We reviewed our keyword and SEO plan, and decided it was worth the time and effort to blog even more. The least we coud do is test it out and see if we saw any results. It wasn’t long that we saw growth and were increasing our organic traffic substantially, which is exactly what you want as a business owner. Organic traffic can bring you qualified customers who are looking for your services or products. They easily convert to leads and customers, and require less work on the business owner. What is Organic Traffic?
Organic Traffic (Def.): Visitors who come to your Website from unpaid organic or natural search engine results.
Our Organic Traffic Over the Past Year:
How did we get this amazing up-tick and growth in organic traffic? We became dedicated and strategic bloggers. Instead of blogging once or twice a week like many business owners want to do, we went all in. We bought the pony, and blogged our hearts out. Our new strategy includes publishing a blog 6 days a week, sometimes more. We use multiple employees who are specialists in different areas of inbound marketing. They create valuable and relevant content for readers while staying on track with our SEO and keyword strategy. As a result we created and published all of these blogs in the month of June:
Great for Us, But How Can This Help You?
In the beginning of this blog we said we wanted to answer the question: Why Blog? These graphs don’t lie. The growth you see above only started after we began blogging. It did not happen over night, but it was faster and more productive than any other marketing plan we have used. We are a small business, just like you. We have limited resources just like any business, and we experience the same cash flow and time restraints as many of you. The difference is we saw the value in something new and unknown and were willing to try it. Your business can blog. It might take a little extra planning and time in the beginning. But once you commit to blogging and hold yourself responsible for your strategy you will see the results. Our clients are already seeing the results. They see the value and have bought in. Have you?
Do you see the value of blogging for your business, but don’t know where to start? Contact us and we can have a chat about your internet marketing goals, and help you create a plan for your business.
