Blogging is the Heart & Soul of Content Marketing

Chances are, you have heard one or two web gurus mention the importance of having a blog. It helps drive traffic and keeps your customers engaged. However, if you don’t understand the actual role that blogging plays in regard to your business, you are missing out on vital information that could be the difference in an “ok” website and business, to one that blows the competition out of the water.

Blogging and SEO

In May of 2015, it was recorded that more than 47 billion web pages had been indexed by Google. For businesses, especially small businesses, who are looking for an effective way to leverage the World Wide Web to find new customers, this can be an intimidating number.

Digital marketing revolves around growing engagement. It is essential to develop an ongoing relationship with the visitors coming to your website, so they will begin to see you (and your business) as an industry authority and so that they will trust what you publish. Search engines are now so “smart,” they actually look for this level of engagement.

Publishing a blog provides you with a great SEO tactic that will help your website to build its reputation, traffic and brand. When you take the time to update your blog on a regular basis, you will have the ideal platform for producing highly valuable and fresh content. This will help to keep page visitors on the page, boost your engagement and your ranking.

The Social Connection

A question for some business owners is how to get people to find your blog, besides ranking for keywords. This can be challenging, but is when social media comes into the picture.

There are hundreds of social channels out there. Each one serves a specific market or audience. Once you post a blog, it can be quite helpful to share this on social media. It is important to determine what sites your audience use since it is virtually impossible to be present on them all.

Let people know you are constantly publishing new content to inform, engage and, as a pleasant side effect, increase authority for your business and encourage visitors to keep coming back.

If you use WordPress for your blog, there are plugins that will automatically publish snippets of new blogs on social media.

Authority and Trust

As mentioned earlier, blogging regularly and sharing this content with your audience via social media can also help to build your business’s industry authority. When you are doing more than just trying to sell customers something, they will see your business as a valuable resource of information they can rely on. This will make them willing to keep coming back and eager to see what you post next. Over time, you will develop a loyal following and become an industry authority.

Beyond Social Influence

The life of the blog doesn’t have to stop with social media. When you take the time to create and publish relevant, valuable content for your audience, you can take these blogs and expand on them. Create podcasts, eBooks or something else of value. You can distribute these larger resources as a type of “free gift” for your audience in exchange for contact information. Not you have a direct connection to your customer – which is extremely valuable in the realm of the internet.

Utilize the Voice and Expertise of Others

Even if you are considered an industry authority, you don’t know everything. This is where guest posting can be valuable. Reach out to other influencers in the business and see if they want to write a post for your blog. In some cases, you can exchange posts and links, which is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Not only are you going to get some new visitors due to the guest post, you will also gain a backlink, which is not considered heavily when your page is being ranked.

Blogs are a powerful tool to have in your marketing arsenal. If you have yet to invest in your own blog, it is a good idea to look into it now. The value of a blog can be significant if you put a bit of time and effort into developing it.