“Should my small business be blogging?” is a question we get asked a lot by small business owners. We’re usually asked this half-begrudgingly as few business owners actually want to take time out of their day to type up a blog post when they could be focusing on so many other areas of their business.
The truth is, whether or not you’re writing the blogs, your business shoud be blogging consistently.
In this post, we’re going to talk about why, what to blog about, and how to get the most out of your efforts.
Are you ready?
Good, then let’s get into it…
Why Blogging For Small Businesses Important
1. Improve SEO
Blogging can have a tremendous benefit for the SEO of your site.
Here’s how you can benefit:
- Increased Domain Authority: When you write high-quality blog posts, other sites will take notice and link to your blog posts. This transfer of authority between domains can increase the authority of your site. As a result, you’ll have an easier time ranking for your target keywords.
- Internal Linking: Another way blogging can benefit your site is through internal linking. When your posts attract links, you can pass of the authority to your product/service pages by linking to them in your posts. Again, this will provide a nice little boost for their ranking.
- More Traffic: This is the most obvious benefit of blogging. When you choose the right keywords and write in-depth content, your blogs will start to rank on Google. When this happens, you will get more traffic to your site!
2. Increased Omnipresence
Blogging can make your business “appear” a lot bigger than it actually is. Think about when you see a company on a billboard in your hometown. It may not increase your likelyhood of buying from them, but you’ll probably hold their business in higher regard compared to before.
The same is true for when a customer hears about your business from one place, then an hour/day/week later sees a blog post of yours.
3. Social Proof
When a customer lands on your site, they will have a lot of questions floating around in their head.
For example:
- Is this company still in business? (You’d be amazed how many small businesses go out of business but still have their website and phone number!)
- Do they know what they’re doing?
- Can I trust them?
Posting blogs can answer all three of those questions for potential customers.
The "Big Four" Of Small Business Blog Post Ideas
1. Questions Your Customers Have That Your Service Solves
When considering whether or not you should be blogging, it’s important to understand the customer journey and their “awareness stage”.
What is an awareness stage?
In layman terms, it’s how aware someone is of their problem and the available solutions to them.
Here are the three ones you need to worry about:
- No Problem Awareness: They have a problem, but don’t know it yet.
- Problem Awareness: They know they have a problem, but don’t know that a solution exists or is available to them.
- Solution Awareness: They know that a solution for their problem exists, they just don’t know who/what’s going to solve it for them yet.
Most businesses spend the majority of their time targeting people who are in “solution” phase.
They are 100% right to do so.
These are red-hot leads who are steps away from making a purchase. You’ll want to strike while the irons hot before your competitors do or they decide their problem isn’t big enough to pay someone to fix it.
But what about people in the problem phase?
The best way to reach them is to show up where they’re looking.
For example, if you’re a painter, an ideal client for you may be someone who wants to increase the value of their home. Now, there are lots of ways to go about doing that. Since their open to suggestions, they could get a new patterned concrete driveway, install a pool, or paint the exterior of their home.
Of course, you’d love for them to go with the exterior painting option.
How can you connect with them?
By writing a blog post about how repainting your exterior is one of the most cost effective ways to increase the value of your home.
2. Customer Success Stories/Testimonials
First impressions are everything.
When people are making a buying decision, they’re going to look at various factors like reviews and reputation to determine if you are worthy of their business.
3. Corporate Responsibility
It’s nice to show that you’re more than just another business, but a part of your community. Don’t be afraid to share the good you do in your community.
4. Employee Spotlights
Your best marketers will always be your employees, closely followed by your customers.
Treat your employees right, and they will sing your praises from the rooftop. A great way to recognize your employees is by featuring them on your blog.
In fact, by doing this you can knock out two birds with one stone (sorry PETA).
Here’s how that works:
Ask one of your employees to do a day-in-the-life blog post/video. Have them go through their day and talk about the impact they have on your customers.
