If you own a business but do not yet operate a corporate blog, the time to make this change is now. Blogging has become an invaluable tool for any business, and any time invested in using this tool will reap great rewards. If you have been considering creating a business blog, but are unsure if you really want to, consider these benefits of corporate blogging.
Unique Content Is King Online
Anyone educated in Internet marketing knows the maxim “content is king”. This simply means that search engines are looking for fresh, unique content whenever someone types something into the search browser. Old or plagiarised content will not receive high rankings on any search engine. Every business owner’s desire is to increase traffic to their site. By updating their site with fresh content and new information, they will increase their page ranking, and stay there. A blog is the perfect outlet to publish these items.
Creating Back Links
If you write an interesting or humorous blog entry, your readers will naturally create back links for you. They may post a link on Face book, Twitter, Pinterest, or other sites. Their network of friends and family will click on the link and be directed back to your blog entry, therefore very easily and effectively increasing your traffic. While being on the first page of the search engine results is definitely important, the importance of back links cannot be underestimated either. Someone may see a link to your blog entry many months after it was published and still click on it. While the entry may be too old to be considered fresh content by the search engines, it can still generate interest through back links.
Effective Communication With Customers
There are other ways of writing and posting online besides blogging. However, one of the best aspects of corporate blogging is that the readers can leave comments on what you have written. This is a great way to receive insight into what your customers are thinking and feeling about your company or products. Positive comments are great, of course, but negative comments can also help you by showing areas in your business that may be lacking. Readers leaving comments shows that you have successfully engaged them and they are more likely to come back later and read more.
Blogs Produce A Ripple Effect
Blogs are a great way to produce a ripple effect. As mentioned briefly before, a blog can generate back links from social media sites. They can also be used in your newsletters, posted as an RSS feed and linked to from other blogs and websites. If you can publish at least one awesome blog entry that gets your readers talking and sharing, it can boost your traffic for many months.
Personalise Your Business
In this era of social media, people are searching for personal connections with the companies they do business with. By writing regular blog entries, you are becoming more personal to your customers. As they read your blog entries, they will begin to trust you and your company name. Everyone is much more likely to purchase a product from someone they trust. Once they have decided you are trustworthy, they will recommend you to their family and friends.
All of these points are points you should remember when wondering whether or not to operate a corporate blog. However, there are also a few things you should realise about blogging to ensure you reap the full benefits of this tool.
- Not everyone reads blogs. It is important to know your target audience and understand what they want. People of the older generation still tend to consider a blog as simply a personal play by play of someone else’s life, and may not be interested in reading your blog. If you will be publishing your blog on a website used by older people, you may not want to call it a blog. You can simply place it under a tab called, “Resources”, or “Information”.
- Be careful about what you publish. If your focus is on business, you want to mainly steer away from writing a lot of personal content. If your college age son just bought a new printer and had a horrible experience, you can definitely write about it on your blog about office supplies to show the benefits of buying directly from you. But unless you can directly relate the personal story to your business, keep your personal life off of the corporate blog.
- Be original. Again, unique content is king in the online world. Read your competition’s blogs and steer away from writing similar entries. If you are interested in writing about the same subjects, try to write about them from a different point of view. The search engines will not rank anything they deem to be unoriginal content.
If you follow these tips when creating and maintaining your corporate blog, you will notice increased traffic and an increase in sales as well.
Please leave a comment and let us know your views on the benefits of a corporate blog, or share this article with your friends and followers by using the social buttons!
