5 Compelling Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Blog

5 Compelling Reasons Why Your Website Needs a Blog

Having a credible and successful internet presence is key for any business in the digital age. There’s no doubt that you spent a considerable amount of effort on building your website, getting it to look and feel just right so that your products and services are showcased to best effect.

But do you have a blog on your website?

Wait – aren’t blogs just a bit of an indulgence? Does anyone actually read them? And what about the task of writing a weekly company update or pulling together some pearls of industry wisdom every month – who, frankly, has the time?

All valid concerns, of course, but you’re missing a huge opportunity if you’re letting them stop you. Let’s go back to basics with Sussex based specialists Artemis Marketing and explain why a regularly updated blog on your website is an essential business tool that reaps real rewards.

  1. It’s an effective way to build customer relationships

A blog is a platform through which you can address your audience directly and more informally than on your main website. This gives your customers and potential customers the chance to engage with your brand in a more intimate way.

It’s a space where you can have a bit more fun with your brand and show the human side behind the logo. Tell your story – what makes you passionate about your industry? Rather than a faceless corporation intent on making money. People like to connect with people on a deeper level.

Blogs can also become interactive with the right voice behind – the ability for readers to comment or leave reviews on your post means that you can have a direct two-way conversation with individuals. It’s a more relaxed channel of communication that makes your company approachable, while the personal customer experience helps to develop public confidence in your brand.

  1. It’s an excellent online marketing tool

Online marketing should be more than you simply telling your customers about your company’s products and services. A blog allows you to go into more detail about individual products, answer specific questions, react quickly to queries and generally offer brand reassurance.

It’s an informal medium that encourages people to freely express their opinions, which makes it perfect for market testing and trialing. When people engage on your blog posts, it allows you to collect valuable customer feedback and check the pulse of the market to see if your business is on trend and on target.

If your blog is managed successfully, it can easily become the most popular part of your website, eagerly read by existing and potential customers and widening your client base. Perhaps think of it as your online magazine, interactive customer services and PR department all rolled into one.

  1. It gives you original content to share on social media

Every company’s digital marketing strategy incorporates an element of social media activity. However, when it comes to posting Facebook or LinkedIn updates or sharing content via Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, many businesses find that they are stuck for content ideas. That’s where your blog can help.

Think of your blog as a little gold mine of unique, business relevant content that is perfect for sharing across all your social media platforms. To post, say, a Facebook update, invite the reader to click the link to the original blog post on your website, which has the added bonus of attracting traffic back to exactly where you want it.

In addition, the more your blog posts are shared online, the more natural backlinks will be pointing to your site. It’s a win/win situation.

  1. It establishes you as a thought leader in your field

Sharing your valuable industry knowledge and expertise through the medium of a regular and consistently well-written blog will help to position you as an authority in your business sector. Customers, competitors, and employees will all be able to see that the company is a credible source of information that keeps up with the latest industry developments.

Respected, relevant content is eminently shareable on the web within business circles as well as outside – which is exactly where you want to be. What more could you possibly wish for than for your reputation to grow, while generating a plethora of free and targeted traffic to your website? It’s virtuous circle that you simply cannot afford to miss.

  1. It’s great for your company’s SEO strategy

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, blogs are a very useful way to help optimize your website. Many people think of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as a technical discipline involving tinkering with metadata and URLs, however, Google really likes to see fresh, good quality and regularly updated content, and this is one of the most effective ways to improve your website’s Google search rankings.

Most typical business websites tend to be static – they contain all the usual pages and necessary information, but they’re updated only infrequently when that content becomes outdated. But what is the easiest way to have a constant stream of rich, relevant content added to your website? You’ve guessed it – a well-written blog updated regularly!

What’s more, using new, relevant keywords in your blog titles and blog posts means that you can be ranked for those keywords. Google indexes new content on updated blogs and also picks up the context of the website’s content to generate more traffic.