Customers are looking for help and knowledge. Queries beginning with “how to” are among the most popular type of search on YouTube and have enjoyed a growth rate of 70% as recently as 2015. Some of these lessons are better done on video, others opt for the standard written blog. Nevertheless, given the growth of this particular type of search, helping customers and clients with a blog can be greatly beneficial to a business’s social media presence.
One significant benefit of blogs is increased search engine optimization (SEO). Keywords are critical for one’s website to appear on page one of a search when a description of one’s website is entered. Blogs are a great platform for increasing the use of the desired keywords that drive viewers to one’s website instead of a competitor’s. Obviously, the more blogs that are written, the more often the necessary keywords can appear in a website, prompting better search engine results, and by extension, more traffic to one’s website. That benefit will also be increased when you or other share blogs on social media sites. Another advantage is over time, a blog can become a knowledge base. If the knowledge is regarded as reputable and helpful, the site, and by extension the business, reinforces their reputation as an industry expert. Third, customer trust is built and reinforced. By repeatedly reading a blog, a customer relationship is built. If the customer has been helped or entertained by the blog, it’s likely the customer is open to hearing about product or service offerings and ultimately making the purchases that are necessary to sustain a business.
How often one needs to blog depends on a particular business. However, sites with over 200 blog posts tend to see increasing amounts of traffic. Most small business should post at least once a week. Assuming a business can post more often while keeping the content both engaging and high quality, once per business day can also be beneficial. Quality is more important than quantity in this regard, and speaking of quality, it’s best to post to blog on one’s own site and avoid blogging sites such as WordPress. And as mentioned earlier, once the blog is written, it’s critical to post to all relevant social media—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and (with blogs) Tumblr—to maximize the exposure and benefits of the blog. It’s also recommended that businesses go back and update old blogs. It’s estimated that 70% of blog related traffic comes from posts that are over one month old.
While blogging can be an activity where many do not want to participate, the benefits of online exposure are tremendous. Companies such as prose4seo.com can help a company with blog articles if the business leadership is unwilling or unable to write blog posts themselves. Once a site builds a reputation for offering content that’s high quality and consistent, the SEO, reputational benefits, and ultimately, product and service conversions, are too great to ignore.