Why a blog is important to a small business…

From improving SEO to expanding brand awareness, there are many benefits of running a business blog.

By Jamie Hoyles, Clook Internet Account Manager

 

Nowadays more and more businesses are using blog posts to publish information to their customers. There are many benefits in doing so…

SEOOne of the main reasons a business or organisation will start a blog is to benefit from improved Google rankings and to gain organic traffic from the search engines. Blog posts are a great way to produce optimised SEO content. A post written with certain search terms in mind can result in visits to your website from people searching for that particular phrase. This is a great way to increase exposure and awareness of your brand.

An active blog will result in an increase in the number of pages on your website, all of which can be indexed by the search engines and provide more opportunities for Google, Bing, etc to bring people to your website.

Customer InteractionJust as a Facebook/Twitter presence is important to a business, a blog goes hand in hand… Being active on social media provides a platform for an organisation to engage with it’s customers – be that as a way of providing support or marketing new products. Sharing your blog posts across other social media avenues is a good way to increase exposure of your brand.

Lead GenerationOnce you’ve got people to your site via the blog post you’ll want a next step. You can use a blog post as a method to generate leads, to increase brand awareness or as an indirect way of selling a product. If you’re able to bring a visitor to your site you should make that visit count.

You could include a lead generating call to action within your blog post – a newsletter sign up for example. Capturing an email address means that they become a more qualified sales target further down the line.

Product InformationA blog is another place for you to market your products and services. Typically an ecommerce website may not allow for an expanded product description, however a blog post will allow you to go into as much detail as you wish. You are able to describe the individual features and benefits of your services, that you may not have had space for on your website.