Tactical Web Design   •   April 23, 2019

You know your business better than anyone else. And more than likely you started your business because you love what you do. So why not write about it? If “I can’t write, I am not a writer” is your first reaction, you are selling yourself short. You would be surprised how much the knowledge you must share when you decide to put your expertise and passion to paper (well, digital paper).

Not only will sharing your knowledge with others help customers learn about you and your business, but blogging will also increase your “street credibility” on the web and with search engines. This can increase visitors to your site which can increase your sales!

Where to start?

Where to start, where to begin…the hardest place to be. The easiest thing to do is just start writing about what you KNOW and LOVE. If you own a brewery, write about how you know exactly what beer to pair with food. If you are an event planner, write about how happy your clients are after a meaningful event. If you are an insulation company, write about why insulation helps save money. If you are a photographer, write about the favorite photo you ever took. Getting the picture now?

Writing can be intimidating—I know this personally from writing these blogs for my own business and frequently having to write about ‘internet marketing’ (see how I snuck that keyword phrase in there?) But I enjoy it because I love how SEO works and love watching the success of my clients. Starting with that blank page can seem daunting at first, but don’t let that stop you. You don’t need an outline, a beginning a middle or an end to start. If you just start with the basics what you know and love, then the rest will follow.

How does this help my business and website traffic?

It helps because CONTENT IS KING. It is now the primary way to gain the above mentioned “street credibility” with search engines. These engines do not just look for “keywords” any more, they look for a whole array of phrases, words, images, alt tags, title tags and more – they put all of these together to gain the “big picture” of your website. The more content you have the bigger the picture becomes with the search engines, that gives you more “credibility and your rank will be higher in searches. When you write about your business you already instinctively are writing and adding keywords and keyword phrases relevant to your business to your content.

Blogging is not about pressuring your visitors with hard sell tactics or blatant marketing materials. Blogging is about talking to your visitors and sharing your knowledge with them. Picture yourself talking about your business at a dinner party with friends. Draw them in with your personality, anecdotes, your expertise and knowledge.

In addition to “keyword credibility” there are several other advantages to blogging as well.

The more blogs you write, the more visitors will be directed toward your site. The more visitors that come to your site for your blog the more links to your blog are produced through those visitors sharing your blog with others they know with similar interest. Inbound links are very important to marketing your website (Come back next month for more on Inbound Links).

The more you blog the more pages you create that contain keywords and content relevant to your business. The more pages you have, the more opportunities you must be found and ranked. If your website has 100 pages about your business compared to another website that has 3, it seems straightforward that your 100-page website will be found quicker and faster.

Social media is here to stay. Interaction and content can go hand in hand with a blog. By sharing your blog through all social media outlets and allowing your blog readers to comment, you are encouraging interaction. Interactions leads to shares which means -> more visitors -> more customers. This is a core principle of inbound marketing.

You may think that it’s a waste of time to write a blog considering everything else you must do to run your business. But you cannot afford to NOT take the time. The benefits to spending a couple of hours a week far outweigh the negatives. Once you get started you will find it can actually be fun and the interaction you gain with your visitors is not only personally satisfying but also financially rewarding. The competitive advantage of websites that have blogs vs those that don’t are solidly proven. A website that has a blog simply has more visitors than one that does not. This is a fact.

Blogging today is easier than ever.

There are many free blog sites you can get started with right away. Want to blog under your own domain instead? There is also a wide array of blogging software packages that are free to install and use. So there really is no good excuse for not blogging… so why aren’t you doing it? There is nothing to lose and so much to gain.