Recently we have been working on our website and people keep telling me, you should blog more.
Im always thinking, why bother. It seems a chore to sit down and either do the research on the topic you want to talk about or think who (other than me) would want to hear my inner most thoughts.
So like any other person trying to put things off I played on the internet a while and I discovered why I should be blogging
On the face of things, regular blogging can seem time-consuming, and in the very early stages, the results suggest there is very little value in the articles that you’ve published.
But once a blog has become established, the benefits are very real – and the traffic can be huge!
Still need convincing? Well here are 5 reasons why you should bother blogging!
USER ENGAGEMENT
One of the big problems that webmasters face is a high bounce rate. This can occur when traffic isn’t targeted to your product or offering, or if your website is generally naff. Your bounce rate matters because it takes time and often costs money, especially with paid search, to generate traffic to your website. If that traffic leaves without engaging with your site, then that effort has gone to waste.
A blog is a fantastic way to keep visitors on your site, get them engaged with your content and help them relate to your brand.
INCREASE ORGANIC TRAFFIC
Our statistics alone promote just how powerful a blog can be for generating web traffic, with 40% of our visitors coming from our Internet Marketing News and SEO Blog.
But how does a simple blog post get you more traffic? Because your story will rank in Google, and searches for a related keyword will find it.
For example, if you know your visitors want to buy vintage shoes, you can create an SEO optimised blog post all about them – a “10 vintage shoes you simply have to own” styled article would be a good place to start.
If that article ranks, a lot of that search traffic could then be yours.
CREATE NEW CONVERSION FUNNELS
Once that traffic has come onto your website via the blog post, you have the chance to sell your product. Take the vintage shoes example – you already know that web surfer is interested in old-style footwear, and they are reading your blog post all about 10 types of vintage shoe they want to own.
How do you create the conversion funnel? You make sure that a handful of those shoes you sell yourself, and then link to the product. If you sell marketing services and have written about social media marketing, provide a link to your social media services page, and so on and so on.
This soft-sell approach is extremely effective online. Entice the user in with quality information, and then subtly suggest where they can turn this extra knowledge into an owned product or service assistance that will benefit them.
SOCIAL SHARING IS POWERFUL
Social media is extremely powerful in a web 2.0 world. Some of the biggest content curators online, such as Buzzfeed and Mashable, see over half of all their traffic generated from Facebook and Twitter. But it isn’t enough to just have a profile and link to your products.
It is your content that will really drive engagement and generate social traffic to your website, and that content can be your blog posts. Share your articles on social networks, entice followers and fans with intriguing titles and see your monthly traffic averages soar.
GOOGLE WILL LOVE YOU
This last reason is possibly the first reason most marketers will suggest a blog to clients, and it is certainly a reason that you should keep in mind too if you are serious about marketing your brand.
The short answer is Google loves content. It analyses millions of websites each day and evaluates the quality of their on-page content as a key ranking factor. A well written and regular blog keeps Google’s bots coming back to your site time and time again, identifying your keywords, ranking your stories in the SERPs and generating the traffic your website is screaming out for.
Another great reason to create a great blog is that you will acquire natural links from other bloggers who want to refer their readers to your site for more information or cite the fact they used your blog as a source of information for their post.
These natural links are some of the most powerful you can acquire online. They will boost your domain authority, boost your rankings for key search terms, and boost your traffic too.
CONVINCED?
Good. Blogging is a powerful digital marketing tool that can be utilised by almost any business. If you want the professional, strategic and successful blogging approach, talk to Fabric and find out what we’ve already done for some of our clients with our content marketing campaigns.
I am convinced and just wanted to thank particularly Fabric Digital for guiding me in the right direction. You can see fabric here www.fabric.co.uk
