We at DeCort think that blogging is an essential practice for most businesses looking to expand their online profile.
But it’s usually met with some resistance. So, today’s post will highlight 3 reasons why we feel it’s an important element to your business’s online success.
DeCort Interactive’s Director of Search Profile Development, Andrew McNaught, often compares blogging to eating vegetables, “You don’t necessarily like them but they’re so good for you! Same with blogging. It’s good for your online presence.”
However, a healthy attitude toward blogging isn’t always easy to adopt. Your designated “blogger” may wear many other hats within the company, and it can be difficult to justify the time spent to blog when it may seem more valuable elsewhere. Also, the rewards of actively blogging via likes and shares can be minimal and take a long time to grow a following, which can make it seem like it’s not worth it.
So, why are we at DeCort such big proponents of blogging? Well…
Reason #1: Differentiate Your Brand from the Competition
A blog allows your company to have its own, personalized voice that is tailored to your audience. And your current audience will digest 3-5 pieces of content prior to a purchase or form conversion. A blog is a business’s platform that creates opportunities to speak to the consumer’s buying persona. It sets your voice apart from your competitors through quality, non-branded, useful content. It can seem like a waste of time when you don’t push a specific product, service or industry event, but it does pay off. This marketing channel is an effective tool to gain buyer trust and showcase your business’s unique area of expertise.
Reason #2: Widen Your Target Audience
The key to successful blogging (as you will hear us say over and over again) is to provide QUALITY, non-branded content that is useful to your audience. Often, this comes in easily digested articles that provide tips, instructions, interesting facts or how-tos. Articles posted through social media platforms for your current target audience have the potential to be shared on their social outlets if they find the information useful. The key word in that sentence is useful. Don’t spit out generic, keyword-stuffed slop. It’s tacky and will do little to gain likes, shares and followers. Speak authentically and provide value to the reader. Doing so will (back to Reason #1) help differentiate your business from others around it.
Reason #3: Increase your Site’s “Freshness Factor”
As our Search Strategist explains, “Consistent blogging and posting through social media channels signals to the search engines that your site is being regularly attended to.” Search engines take kindly to this sort of attention as it shows that your site is being actively managed (over, let’s say, a site that hasn’t been touched in 6 months and is ripe for a cybercrime).
We call this the “freshness factor” as it also compliments the two reasons above. Regular posts through social media of blog content contribute to increased exposure to feed cycles and offer lots of opportunity for easy exposure to your audience.
Summary
Blogging is a key element of success for a business’s online marketing strategy. Provide quality, useful content to your audience that showcases your business’s expertise to increase the potential to broaden your target audience. Consistent blogging provides a freshness factor to the search engines and is a great complement to your business’s online search profile.
Tell us about your success and challenges with blogging. Leave your comments below.
About DeCort Interactive
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Contact us today to improve the performance of your website.
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