What does your blog say about your organization? Is it a true representation of your mission and your commitment to your audience, or is it a half-hearted attempt at cashing in on a current strategy? We’re prepared to give you three reasons why your blog should be more than just a time filler and six recommendations for making yours better.

Chip Off the Old Blog

Believe it or not, blogs have been around for more than 20 years--20 years! Ever since January 1994, when Justin Hall created a simple page showcasing his musings and favorite links, people have turned to the internet for the personal experiences and professional insights of others.

So why does business blogging still feel relatively new? Have blogs not proven their value yet?  Are they risky or ineffective? Should your organization put blog strategy in a dark corner, in the company of fax blasts and telegraphs?

Certainly not. Ramona Sukhraj, Content Marketing Manager for IMPACT, a marketing agency specializing in inbound marketing, claims that blogging not only has great marketing value for businesses and organizations today, but also that business blogging has a bright future. In her January 24, 2017, article, “24 Little-Known Blogging Statistics to Help Shape Your Strategy in 2017,” she says that business blogging is both on the rise and has more long-term ROI than traditional marketing efforts.

The Big Picture:

Three Reasons Why Businesses Need Blogs

 Better long-term ROI than traditional efforts?  How can that be?  Well, as “everyone knows,” once something goes on the internet, it’s there forever.  And for marketing, that’s a good thing.  Building a repertoire of blogs increases your company’s credibility and helps build trust with prospects, clients, and donors. 

But there’s a more practical aspect to it, too.  The more information you have on your website, the more content search engines have to crawl and index, which increases your search engine optimization.  In fact, Search Engine Journal reported in its 2016-updated article, “24 Eye-Popping SEO Statistics,” websites with a blog tend to have 434% more indexed pages than websites without blogs.  More indexed pages means more leads, and in SEO, the results are substantial.  According to that same Search Engine Journal article, SEO leads generate a significant and spectacular close rate: 14.6%.  Compare that to a 1.7% for traditional, outbound leads like direct mail and print advertising and you’d have to be foolish to not incorporate such a low-cost strategy into your marketing.

Finally, blogs make businesses feel more personal.  They offer marketers an opportunity to have a more intimate voice and to offer readers a small portal into the personality of the business, a chip off the old block, so to speak.  As such, readers view blogs as the fifth most trusted source of information on the internet, according to a survey conducted by Technorati. What did readers identify as sources they trust more than blogs?  News sites, Facebook, retail sites, and YouTube.  Less trusted?  Google+, groups/forums, online magazines, brand sites, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.  Your website tells your audience what you do, but your blog shows them who you are. 

The Little Details:

6 Ways to Improve Your Blog

 If your company still isn’t blogging, or if it’s not seeing the results indicated possible by statistics, consider the following tips and reminders for success.

Frequency matters.  The more often you blog, the more effective it is. In 2015, the Content Marketing Institute reported that the majority of bloggers--2/3 of them--published less often than daily but more often than monthly. In other words, having a blog won’t necessarily make you stand out from your competitors, but publishing more often than your competitors can give you an edge and help differentiate you from the rest of the field.

Keep content useful.  Tim Wilhoit, the owner/principal of Your Friend 4 Life Insurance Agency in Nashville, TN, puts it this way, “You must realize you are not the smartest person to ever own a business. You don’t have trade secrets. There is always somebody building a better mouse trap. Just write about something useful or helpful.”  Your content should benefit your readers.  It should add value, not sell products or services.  You have multiple channels for advertising.  This is not one of them.

Include visual appeal.  According to Jeff Bullas, whose mission is to “inspire and educate people on ‘How to win at business and life in a digital world,’” articles with images get 94% more total views than articles with text only.  We live in a visual world.  Images get people’s attention.  Include a meaningful photo or graphic with every blog to increase the odds of getting read.

Go bigger.  Initially, blogs were relatively short.  IMPACT’s Sukhraj says that short blogs no longer do the trick: in-depth content that provides a ton of value are now the preferred form of blogging.  Just how big should you go?  According to Sukhraj, the average word count of top-ranking content in Google is between 1,140 and 1,285 words.

Get help.  If you’re struggling to create new blog content on a regular basis, you’re not alone.  The Content Marketing Institute claims that 60% of business-to-business marketers reported that their biggest challenge (in 2016) was producing engaging content.  Fifty-seven percent said their biggest struggle was producing content consistently.  One solution?  Enlist the services of guest bloggers.  Finding experts in your field or industry who can provide insight and tips will not only give you and your staff a break, but it will also help your organization gain ground with your guest blogger’s audience.

Share!  If the only people who know about your blogs are the ones who visit your website and stumble across it, you’re wasting a valuable opportunity to build relationships and trust with prospects.  Don’t rely strictly on search engines to drive traffic to your blog.  Share your marketing blog on all of your social media sites.  Direct prospects and existing clients to your blog from written marketing materials.  Include a reference to your blog in your contact information.  The more people know about it, the more influential it will be.

Business blogging takes more time than it does money but shouldn’t be bumped to the bottom of your to-do list.  Make the commitment, take the time, and track the rewards. 

Does Your Audience Matter?

The answer to that question, of course, is always YES!, even in the context of business blogging.  According to the “2017 Social Media Marketing Industry Report,” although both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) businesses use blogging, B2B marketers are much more likely to use blogging as a marketing tactic than B2C marketers.  Why?  B2B companies tend to give more emphasis on lead generation than B2C companies, who tend to use live video more than B2B companies.

Very truly yours,

Milt