Why Blog? Or Better Yet---Why Not Blog?

Why Blog Well, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with ABC, when you blog you begin with marketing goals. (Okay, so Rodgers and Hammerstein may not exactly like my rendition…)

Let’s start by remembering the overall goal of internet marketing for your business and ultimately the answer behind the question ‘Why Blog?’--

You want more customers and more sales.

So, to use internet marketing to reach your goals, the basic flow looks something like this:

You attract “traffic” to your website.

You offer something valuable to people.

You convert them from just being a visitor to a lead,

then from a lead to a customer.

But how exactly do you do this? There are many different strategies to use to increase the number of visitors coming to your website from all types of “traffic." The avenue for website traffic that seems to get the most attention is organic traffic. It is the type of traffic business owners are asking about when they ask:

“How do I get my company to ‘come up’ on Google when someone searches for______________?” {insert your product, industry or service here}.

Well, to start, you can do Search Engine Optimization work on your website to increase your SERPs ranking. This is a whole other blog you can read about here.

Another effective way to increase your website traffic--especially organic traffic--is to consistently update and add new content to your website focusing on the key terms people are searching for. The more pages filled with content that is relevant to the keywords, the more the search engines rank your website as an “expert” and see it as a good match to the terms entered into the search bar. Search engines are getting more and more effective in matching the search terms with websites that will be helpful.

Adding webpages to your website can get messy, adding more navigation, more links, more dropdowns, and pretty soon it is really hard for a visitor to navigate around and find what they are looking for. This is where a blog brings a great solution to adding new content consistently.

As you blog consistently on keywords in your industry, you are showing your expertise in these areas.

Here is an example using “your” website and “Joe” the potential customer:

You are a company that sells financial software for individuals, not businesses. As you consistently blog on keywords surrounding your industry such as “Money Saving Tips” and “Ways to Save Money,” you are showing the search engines your expertise and your blog articles start to increase in ranking, getting pushed up to the 1^st or 2^nd page in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Now, when Joe, a single working dad is trying to make ends meet each month and googles “money saving tips,” your blog article titled, “Money Saving Tips for Making School Lunches” will pop up in his search results. He reads the short description and wants to know more. He clicks on the address link and goes to your blog page. Joe reads the article and gets some tips he can use to pack his kids lunches and save some money at the same time. Because you also wrote an eBook on “How to create a monthly budget” he downloads that, leaving you his email.

Even though he left your website and went about his week of work, taking care of his kids and living life, you are able to send him a few follow up emails with more helpful blog articles or offers, continuing to build relationship with him and build trust for your business.

By the end of the month, Joe has read 5 blogs on ways to save money, downloaded 2 eBooks on budgeting, and then decided to buy your software, “Budgeting for Novices.” You just made a sale!

Really, because of your blogs, you just gained a customer and helped a single dad be successful.

Now back to the question, 'Why Blog?'

Blogging is a very effective method for adding content to your website and attracting more visitors in an “organic” way. As you write new articles on topics that are relevant to your would-be customers, you are adding more and more pages on these topics to be found by people searching on the web.

The real question we might want to ask is “Why not Blog?” because when you blog consistently, you are writing content that can be accessed by anyone at anytime (with an internet connection) and your leads don’t have to wait for your business to open Monday morning at 8 a.m. They don’t have to wait on hold for someone to help them. They can do their own research and get answers to their questions, and be inspired to seek solutions that work for them.

You are making your business, product or service available to everyone who is looking for what you offer. You are allowing your business to be seen and you are building your online reputation as an expert in your industry.

The other answer to “Why Blog?” is because search engines really like it. They like to see fresh content, focused on keywords, all connected to your website. They like web pages that are relevant and are exactly what the searcher is looking for. Otherwise the search engine won’t look so good to their users if they don’t display relevant websites on the search results page. (note: I do realize, technically search engines don't have feelings and emotions or the ability to 'like' something or not, but they do seem to have preferences).

Why Blog? Here are 3 reasons to sum it all up:

Search Engines like it.
You are adding to your “online real estate” by adding more pages to your website (and search engines like it)
You are adding helpful content to the web for potential customers to find (and people like that!)

So again, the real question you should be asking yourself is “why not blog!” Get started with a business blog and watch the impact it will have on your business.