Simple answer, it depends.
A blog can help every business in different ways, but it really depends on how you execute it.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself first:
- Are you going to be the one writing?
- Would an employee be writing?
- Have you considered outsourcing the writing to a professional writer?
- Once the blog post has been written how will you promote it? In other words, how will people know it even exists?
- What is the point of the blog? Will it be educational, informational, promotional, or story driven?
- What platform will you use for the blog? WordPress? Shopify? Square Space?
- What topics will the blog be based on?
Once you can answer the above questions you’ll be in a much better position to consider starting a blog for your business.
Then, once you’ve started the blog you need to seriously consider how people are going to find your content in the first place.
I wrote somewhat about this in a previous article called Build It and They Shall Not Come, where I expressed how just creating something doesn’t mean people will see it. You have to invest in what you create.
But before even jumping into that…
Why start a blog for your business?
I’ll give you a few reasons here:
- People trust businesses more when they are active.
- A blog shows that a business is not shut down.
- Having a blog on your website helps you rank higher in the search engines, resulting in more eyes on your business.
- The longer you blog, the more benefits you can get out of it.
- Blogging shows you as a resource vs just a company.
- You can feature other companies in your blog and they can do the same for you.
- Your competitors are most likely not blogging, resulting in you filling a space they aren’t.
How can you promote your blog?
Blogging is a long term strategy, the benefits come from consistency. The more you blog the more opportunities you’ll have in ranking in the search engines. But that’s not all, you’ll also need quality content that helps convert those eyes into leads.
And now, once you’ve created your blog you’ll need to promote it. Instead of sugar-coating, here goes:
- Set aside a minimum of $30, but a recommended $300 minimum for a monthly budget to promote your blog on Facebook and Instagram. Think of this more like an investment and not for immediate results. Promote every blog post for a minimum of $5, but a suggested $75 minimum.
- Join forums and communities in different social networks where you can use the blog to answer questions in depth.
- Write a blog post for a single lead, then send that lead the personalized blog post without giving away any of their personal information. It will create more trust, shock the lead, and potentially help others in the future.
- Simple tell people that you have a blog on the website. Make the URL easy to access like Businessoptimizer.org/blogs/blog
There are plenty of other methods, but first you have to start the blog. The easiest technique I can tell you to use is to start writing or having someone else write before you even invest the time into creating the blog if you don’t know how to. You can always hire a company like Business Optimizer to assist in the creation of the blog as well.
