With the meteoric use of social media over the last 20 years, many might believe that company blogs are dead.
Au contraire! Why? Social media posts don’t have the shelf life of blog posts. (Have you ever tried to search for a post on someone’s Instagram page from ten years ago? Yeah. Impossible.)
Current statistics you should know about blogs to help you change your mind about blogging:
- There are 70 million new blog posts each month
- There are 600 million blogs in the world out of 1.9 billion websites
- At least 60% of people read one blog per week.
- Currently, 48% of companies say that they have a marketing strategy that leverages blogging.
- Of those companies, 56% of those companies say it is an effective marketing strategy.
Company blogs are seen as a way to get the top-of-funnel consumer, the one who is discovering your brand and learning to trust (or distrust) your brand. Let’s look at how a blog will help your company in a way that social media can’t.
The top reasons companies should have a blog include:
Reason 1: Increase Search Engine Ranking and Website Traffic
Having company blogs means that your site is listed in Google’s search results. Every time you publish a blog post, Google indexes yet another page for your site, creating a higher percentage of being seen on the coveted Page 1 of Google search results. And as you publish more posts, Google will start checking your site more often, going “Oh, this website might be valuable to our users! Let’s keep up with it!”
Google likes seeing active blogs because they then know the website is active and not dead and long forgotten–and of no use to their users.
While Google and Bing are important search engines, so is Google Image Search, so make sure to include relevant images with metadata Google can index and that users are searching for. Metadata are the invisible words that tell Google what it’s indexing, such as alternative text (alt text) that you name a photo or graphic. (This is not a caption–metadata doesn’t show up on the page itself. For instance, the alt text on a picture of your latest widget might say “Company XYZ’s Widget is a cleaner that removes soap scum.” That data goes into the search index for your website to improve your ranking for that keyword. Neat, right?)
And the gold standard of search engine optimization (SEO) is still keywords, inbound links, backlinks, and internal links–all of which can be found in a company blog post.
Reason 2: Company Blogs Convert More (Unpaid!) Leads
Every post you write and every post that is indexed by Google is another post that may generate new leads. But you need to seed that post with a call-to-action to generate those leads that comes with a link to click on. This could be through lead magnets such as free ebooks, free guides, or free webinars. (Notice the “free” here.) It’s free because you are asking the user to give their email in exchange for this “free” content.
When you are coming up with lead magnets, think about what your ideal customer needs a solution for. Make sure it’s interesting, it can be quickly consumed, and it isn’t just a glorified ad pretending to be helpful.
In the end, the CTA, the magnet, and the overall experience shouldn’t be sales. It should be helpful (like this blog!).
Reason 3: Show Thought Leadership and Increase Perceived Expertise
Not only do your company blogs increase SEO and leads for your company, but it also creates something Google’s algorithm really likes: E-A-T. This stands for Expertise-Authoritativeness-Trustworthiness.
You can create E-A-T through a blog. Not only can you be a source of information about the current state of your industry, but you can also be a thought leader about the future of the industry by giving your opinion about predictions.
Remember to address the key needs of your ideal client through these blog posts by creating a solution to a blog visitor’s problems/challenges. By being the company with a blog (remember, only 25% of companies have a blog!), you can tip the scales in your favor to be the more trustworthy company that likes to help your future customers through informative and consistent posts!
To come up with content, ask yourself who your ideal client is and what motivates or inspires them? What are their pain points and what questions are they asking Google? (You can find this out through Google Trends, a free interface from Google that shows what people are searching for!)
Reason 4: Create Content to Repurpose Across Social Media
A popular phrase in the marketing world is “multi-channel storytelling.” This is when content you create in one place can be parlayed across platforms (once you tailor it for each platform, of course!).
And since time is money, a company blog creates a content library you can always draw from. This can lead to less work for your marketing team who now doesn’t need to constantly come up with new content every single day. One single blog can create between 10-15 social media captions, a couple of LinkedIn articles, a few short-form talking head videos, and even possibly a YouTube video.
A win-win-win!
Reason 5: Increase Website's Overall Value and Purpose
Today more than ever, consumers want companies that are transparent and who lead with their values. This helps a company stand out against the competition who may not care to be transparent or take a public stance with their values.
Company blogs do this. It shows the tone of a company and even the opinions of a company within a thought leadership piece. Blogs build community and attract users who have a pain point you can solve at that moment.
As you create a plan for your company blog (which we hope you now know you should have!) make sure to have a goal for that blog. Is it to make people like your brand? Is it to help people understand what you sell? Is it to generate new leads? This will attract your ideal client persona and bring the right people to your blog, to your website, and ultimately to your products.
digit-ALL is a full-service marketing company that focuses on the people side of marketing. We focus on websites, social media, blogs, newsletters, and even corporate event planning. We’re here to help when you’re ready for it.
SOURCES:
“Are Blogs Dead in 2023? We Asked 10 Marketing Experts,” Martina Bretous, Hubspot.com.
“2022 Marketing Statistics, Trends & Data — The Ultimate List of Digital Marketing Stats,” Corey Wainwright, Hubspot.com.
“6 Reasons Why Blogging Is Important For Marketing And SEO,” Kristi Hines, SearchEngineJournal.com.
“Blog Benefits: 38 Ways That Blogging Helps SEO and Rankings,” James Parsons, ContentPowered.com.
“Eight Reasons Blogging Is A Worthwhile Investment For Businesses,” James Parsons, Forbes.com.
“How Does Thought Leadership Help Businesses To Grow?,” Forbes.com.
“The Content Marketer’s Guide to Thought Leadership,” Rebecca Riserbato, Hubspot.com.
“Why Blog? The Benefits of Blogging for Business and Marketing,” Hubspot.com.
