Now that your business is up and running, you may be wondering how you can get your brand in front of a wider audience. After all, what good is the business for you unless you can get it out in front of your target audience and start converting the audience to paying customers?
One of the most effective, cheapest, and easiest ways to start gaining some exposure online is to set up a blog as part of your website, where you publish content that your audience finds interesting and useful. If your content solves someone else’s real problem, they will sooner or later find you online. And if you’ve already solved their problem once, chances are they’ll come back for more later. Before you know if, you’ll have a loyal base of people who frequent your blog.
The Early Days of the Internet
When the Internet first started to rise back in the mid to late 90s, blogs basically started out as online diaries. A place for people to share what was going on in their lives. Think of it as a prehistoric version of Facebook, except that photos, GIFs and memes weren’t a thing yet.
At first, a blog was nothing more than a monologue where one person shared his or her thoughts. As time went on, however, features like the comments section and hyperlinks became more common. This made blogs more interactive, allowing the author to communicate directly with his or her readers.
Blogging in Recent Years
Today, blogs have evolved into more than just an online diary. Lots of blogs provide information on niche topics like tech, entertainment and politics. Sometimes they’re aimed at the general public, other times it’s mostly for a niche audience.
But like anything else in the world, blogs can also be used for evil. Although most bloggers share valuable and good information, others are used to spread “fake news,” rumors, lies about other people or companies, etc. This is a natural consequence of suddenly having a new type of media that no longer relies on editors and moderators to approve content before it is published.
Business Blogging
As we all know, online visibility is key for any modern business to break through and continue to prosper. A business blog helps tremendously in making your brand visible whenever somebody searches for topics related to your business.
The articles you write for your blog should position either yourself or your brand as an authority and an expert in your field. The key then is obviously to be in a niche that is not too difficult to break through in. The more specific your niche is, the easier it will be to break through and become the number one authority within that niche. And if you can manage that, your website will also tend to show up near the top of search engine results whenever someone searches for your services, bringing you more business as a result.
So, let’s take a closer look at the main benefits of running a business blog:
- Search Engine Optimization – One thing you should know about search engines is that they love fresh content. This means regularly updated blogs automatically gains traction and shows up with higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). This keeps you constantly within reach of people who are looking for your services.
- Let’s you get closer your customers – Utilize your blog to get conversations started by adding questions at the end of the posts, which readers can respond to in the comments section. By going over comments and responding to them, you are creating a dialogue with your potential customers, and they will start to feel a sense of community with you and your brand.
- Shows a personal side of your business – When a famous brand or big company is mentioned, people sometimes think of large buildings and guys in suits discussing business. Since a blog is a less formal format, it gives you a chance to show your readers who the real people behind the brand are. Remember that keeping a conversational and friendly style in your blog updates is essential to connect with your customers on a more personal level.
- Opportunities for sharing – Make sure to share all new blog posts on your company’s social media channels. This allows customers to see your new content, and makes it easy for them to share, comment, like, and generally interact with the content you produce.
As you have probably realized now, there are countless benefits of having a blog for your company. As long as you continue to produce and publish useful and valuable content, people will come to you – become your customer – any time they need to solve a problem. That is the essence of good content marketing.