When it comes to promoting their business or PR, everyone thinks of the traditional channels and opportunities: media publications, social networking, targeted advertising. But often, people forget the impact of blogging.
A blog is a long-term investment in your business and your owned channels for promotion. Here are five reasons that will motivate you to create your own blog.
1. Blogging saves on resources
Publishing articles on third-party resources can be time-consuming and pricey. Have you ever come across articles labeled “Guest Post” or “Sponsored Post”? More often than not, a sponsored post is very expensive, and the cost depends on the type of media. Publishing articles on your own blog is free and gives you the flexibility to arrange content when and how you want it. Plus, you can write about any topic, no limits.
2. You get to pick the topics
I indirectly touched on this advantage in the paragraph above. You can write about anything you want on your blog, whenever you want. Creating your own editorial policy allows you to choose your topics, style guidelines, and any other requirements.
I would suggest focusing on a few specific topics (1-5) in which your company can demonstrate expertise. For example, at Usetech, we develop custom software and work with AI, ML, Big Data and Data Science, so our blog considers articles on these topics.
I recommend maintaining several columns for which you can prepare content, as well as a column for other companies to share their experiences and cases. This can be in the form of interviews or surveys.
3. Building a community of interested authors and readers
A blog is an opportunity to engage with your brand and grow your brand loyalty. You can attract authors and discover new talent with a blog. Many brands build a community of authors around their blog and offer to write articles on relevant topics. Become that brand and expand the number of loyal customers around you.
4. Attracting more leads
Quality and useful content that is ranked by search engines is an opportunity to attract customers to your business. Share really useful things that interest your audience: help solve a problem, prepare guides or checklists, write software or product reviews. This brings you closer to your audience and lets them know you’re willing to help.
Follow the formula for separating content: N% useful content and N% selling content. I recommend dividing content based on your business goals. If your main goal is to sell your products and services, then focus on selling content — 60-70%. And if you want to share your expertise and other useful materials, then emphasize this type of content first.
5. Increasing brand awareness
Of course, at first your blog traffic will be 0 and articles may not make it into search engine rankings. But a competent content plan, optimization of content according to the requirements of SEO will help you to get into the top 10 in the search engines.
The more often you publish useful content and engage authors and experts, the more your audience will learn about you. This will help you gain a niche and become an expert in a particular field.
Build connections, look for new opportunities for collaboration, engage experts and discover new talents. Blogging is an interesting and exciting journey worth taking on the road to increasing your business visibility and customer growth.
Photo Credit: Glenn Carstens-Peters / Unsplash
