Why Your Business Needs a Blog?

I’m only going to say this once, so listen up! Your company needs a blog! Right now. Get on that. Blogs are not merely reserved for teenagers ensconced in their room. No sir! Not any more! Blogs are no longer just platforms on which youngsters can talk about their favorite pop stars, as they were way back in the 2000’s (Oasis or Blur… Oasis or Blur…). They have grown into so much more than this, and they are now one of the most prominent communications tools for modern businesses. Here are 7 reasons why you should have one.

1. In blog we trust

Before even talking about why your business needs a blog, let me give you some info on it. First things first, you need to talk about your field of expertise and your area of activity. No need to sermonise about subjects you’re not too familiar with or to pretend you have more in-depth knowledge on a topic that you simply don’t. The essential is to communicate about your niche market. It is important to give your followers a good reason to follow you. They need to quickly understand that your blog will be of great benefit to them. If people see that you persist in talking about subjects that have nothing to do with your company or that don’t appeal to them, they are likely to stop reading your articles and following you, so no need to go beyond your original remit. Stick to what you know. You should focus on spreading information and giving advice. Make it personal by giving your own point of view on the matter at hand. People don’t want to feel that you’re eagerly trying to sell them something, so you shouldn’t explicitly talk about your brand and your product/services in your articles. Just place a call-to-action button at the end of the page to remind them how to get in touch and/or interact.

2. Words are key

I know. We’ve said it hundreds of times, but hammering it home again couldn’t hurt. Search Engine Optimisation should be one of your top concerns when it comes to your website’s content strategy. You need to think about your ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
Creating a blog that is accessible directly on your website allows you to publish a variety of diverse content. Do you have an idea of what search engine algorithms look for? Come on! I’m sure you know the answer! That’s it. They love fresh content. They feed off uniqueness and quality. Content that is relevant to your audience and that informs your market. Each article that you create should focus on one precise theme relating to your industry. This means that each time that you write an article, you’re concentrating on a few different keywords and you’re referencing your website with these keywords in mind. This means that the more you write articles, the more you will be referenced in relation to these particular keywords. You need to remember that writing an article and trying to put as many keywords as possible in order to “optimise” it is not effective. It’s way more efficient to focus on a targeted few. Your website gives visitors a general introduction to your business, while your blog is designed to communicate in relation to the themes most relevant to your industry.
If you keep this in mind, and if you have a good publication schedule, you’ll quickly notice the results, with your ranking on search engines improving. In this way, you can increase your visibility, which will give you a greater chance of gaining leads and prospects via search engines.

3. Do it for the cred’

When people are looking for a company to buy a product or service, the first thing they do is to look at the different brands available on the internet. Often there are hundreds of different businesses specialised in the same field and it can be really tough to tell them apart. Of course, potential customers often check out a particular brand or company’s reputation in other places online, but the first thing they’re likely to look at is their website.
Blogs are a perfect way to show that you keep up with current trends and that you stay up to date. They are designed for you to show off your knowledge and share your expertise.If you create serious and well-crafted content, people will understand that you’re a professional, they will trust you and will tend to purchase from you. You will become an established authority on the subject. Moreover, over time, if you write high-quality articles people may end up seeing you as an influencer. Journalists will get in touch with you and ask you for tips. They may also ask you questions for the purpose of an interview, giving you a presence on third-party websites and online magazines. This can be a great boost to your company and your image because you will be seen as a reliable resource to gain info.

4. That human touch

Customers always value a brand they feel is more human and approachable. It is totally up to you to choose the tone you’d like to adopt when communicating, but your blog is the perfect way to express yourself in a more lighthearted manner. Along with your social media platforms, your blog serves as the personality and the voice of your brand. Readers will be more confident in sharing their opinion and their questions with you is they find you accessible at the human level. They will be more inclined to trust you because you create a 2-way exchange, meaning they are more than merely a passive audience.

5. Warning, traffic ahead

Usually websites don’t have a lot of pages and the content of these pages is not frequently updated. Blogs allow you to regularly publish and update your website. Whenever you publish a new piece of content (an article, a video or whatever it may be) it is imperative that you share it on your social media platforms, as your followers will read it, like it and possibly share it. Each platform has it own audience and operates in a particular way in relation to content. Your publications should be tailored to these. For example, it doesn’t really make any sense to publish any kind of long text on Instagram, as the platform is primarily dependent on visual content. This is what people log in for. On Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, even a “Like” or a retweet helps improve your visibility. Indeed, when someone likes your post, this post appears on their friends’ and followers’ respective news feeds, and they can then share it and like it themselves. If it creates a buzz, the article can go viral.
Some businesses, such as B2B companies, can have trouble remaining active and finding content to publish on their social media platforms, and this is where a a blog can really serve its purpose. As long as your content is updated, you can republish it at a later date and continue to drive traffic through your website without losing time and effort. It is a good idea to incorporate call-to-action buttons at the end of each article in an effort to gain information on the reader and as a means of encouraging them to buy your product/service. Moreover, in each of edition of your newsletter, you can add links toward your articles and your blog. This too will drive traffic… provided that your blog is a sexy well-written one, as is the case for Mediateo.

6. Dream team, revenue stream

You can create sponsored blog articles in which companies may be commissioned to draft blog articles that talk about your product or service. This can also work the other way around, and if it’s well-executed and positive, such articles can flatter the business’s ego and reinforce the relationship between your companies. Sometimes companies also look for backlinks (placing a link on third-party websites that redirect towards yours in order to improve your SEO ranking) and are ready to pay companies to publish on their website. You can come to a mutual agreement by placing some backlinks that redirect towards their website and they can do the same in return. They can intervene as professionals within their industry and write articles for you, give advice or share tips. This creates content on your website and will improve your traffic. This is the essence of third-party advertising. With some backlink arrangements, you can establish a rate with the other business and introduce a tracking features that allows them to measure how many readers are clicking on the backlink in question, thus giving them insight into how effective it is.

7. This is the voice

Each member of your team has their own role and function. It can be a good idea to let them express themselves on matters they have a good deal of knowledge and expertise in. This divides the workload a little bit when it comes to creating new content and it’s always nice to show your employees that they are important to you and to your company by allowing them to put forward their two cents. It can be fun for them to talk about the subject they know and are interested in, and it means that all the actual drafting work doesn’t become the responsibility of just one person. It is also a good team-building exercise. Your employees can also gain insight into what their co-workers do… So Annabelle can finally get an idea of what Gerald from the second floor does, which will spare her some awkward small talk at the water cooler. This may even allow them to engage in some more meaningful conversation for once, and who knows? Maybe one day Gerald will even offer to buy Annabelle a coffee and they can discuss the last article related to progress reports in greater detail. A few years down the line, and this office romance may have blossomed into a lifelong project. And all this thanks to employee participation in writing blog articles. Communication can be a beautiful thing.

Today blogs are a must have for most companies. Even if for some people content is of secondary interest and is not that important, let me tell you, it really is! Today more than ever. You need a blog to get content on your website. It will improve your ranking on search engines while bringing you closer to your readers and engaging your audience. It will also help you gain prospects and potential customers. Also, it is important to note that drafting a blog is usually free. So why not make use of them?
One final point though. Before embarking on a blogventure, ask yourself if you’re ready to do it in the long-term, as you’ll have to update it regularly to seem credible, and it’s important to have the right people in charge of this. After all, nothing is worth than checking the blog of a website and seeing that their last article is dated from 2014, 2007 or 1998, the year when Geri left the Spice Girls… lest we forget.

Content Marketing is our thing!

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