There are a few things that blog posts can do for a business.
A blog post can serve as a direct statement from a business. It can be a source of truth if the business feels that a topic about it is being covered elsewhere that isn’t entirely accurate. A blog post can be a way to provide customer service for existing customers. A post could be a way to show appreciation for employees.
But perhaps the most popular reason that companies start blogs and write regular blog posts is that they want to raise awareness for their company or for their brand. They want to bring in more people to the company and sell more of what they’re selling.
But how does a blog post or an ongoing schedule of blog posts accomplish this?
1. Source Of Helpful Information
Over the 10+ years that I have been blogging in the business world the most effective strategy I’ve found for attracting readers is to answer questions the target audience is asking or searching for. Even if someone searches for information online, reads your post and leaves, I consider it a win for all involved. The person likely went away happy. You’re adding something positive to the world.
And if you do that enough times you’re going to see a payoff. A certain number of people will look at the header on your blog and see the brand that provided the information. That can lead to them becoming customers and to other sorts of benefits. But it really starts with just being helpful.
2. Long-Term SEO Effect
And the more you provide valuable information the more the search engines seem to recognize you as a source of this information. And the more you do it the more you benefit in terms of rankings.
If you keep helping people in a certain field, the engines will see that people are benefitting from your blog posts and they will send more of their users to more of your blog posts. Your other posts get more traffic and you likely will see a post in traffic to your main pages such as your home pages.
This happens over the long-term. It takes awhile to build this kind of reputation. You have to do a lot of helping and you’re in competition with others. But the longer it takes to build the more secure you likely are once you reach a certain status level.
3. Memorable Story
You can tell stories with your blog posts. You can share experiences. You can provide an answer to a question and use a case study to make the answer unique and more impactful.
And the cool thing about stories is that they are often memorable. There is something about humans and storytelling. We likely sharing stories. It’s how our ancestors used to communicate all types of information.
A good story has the power to connect with many people.
4. Word Of Mouth
You can help the reader of a blog post, but that reader may feel the urge to share your post with someone they know. Or they may look at your logo in the header, read about what you sell and share it with someone they know that recently mentioned a need for such a product.
People like being useful. Part of being useful is sharing helpful information and companies with those we know.
5. Product Introduction (Internal Linking)
I’m not a fan of overly promoting your brand and products on blog posts. I especially don’t encourage writing posts that talk about products. That type of content is meant to be a product description. It’s great, but put it on the product page.
Obviously it’s a balance. There are different answers for every business. I think you’re okay if you put one “ad” on a blog post for your business. I also think you can do some helpful things with internal linking in a blog post. I mostly encourage you to link to other blog posts. This encourages readers to discover more helpful content.
And in the right spots you can also use internal linking to link to your product pages. It’s a subtle but effective way to increase awareness of what you offer to a (likely) first-time reader.
6. Repeat Visits
You’ve heard about algorithms. They’re all a little different, but a lost of them are designed to learn what you like and send you more of that type of information. If you start reading blog posts from a certain source, you’re likely going to start seeing more recommendations from that same source.
The streaming services can be similar. They might notice that you are watching movies from a certain director and they start recommending other movies from that director.
As a blog owner, this can be great because once you prove to the algorithms that you’re helpful to a person they are likely to encourage repeat visits and more visibility from that person.
7. New Audience (Guest Posting)
Another way to build awareness with a blog post is with guest posting. You get to tap into a new audience by offering some helpful and entertaining content. You can earn their attention and bring some of that attention and awareness back to your properties where they may interact and even buy.
Actors have been doing this for decades by going on afternoon and late night talk shows. People start realizing that they’re seeing an actor on all these shows and they quickly realize that the actor has a new movie coming out and they might consider going to see that movie.
Conclusion
Blog posts are one way to build awareness for your business. But it’s a long-term strategy. It takes more posts than most people expect. But that’s also the appeal of it. Because it’s so challenging, only a few businesses are willing to take blogging the distance. But those that do often see the benefits they seek.