Discover how small business blogging brings big benefits.
How can you drive people to your website?
It doesn’t matter if you’re a one-man show working from home; a small team of five building a brand new business; or a large corporation that’s been around for ages. At the end of the day, everyone wants to attract qualified visitors to their website—the more, the better! The reality, though, is that it’s not all that easy increasing website traffic.
Website traffic sources
These are the different ways prospects can get to your website.
1. Direct traffic: People type in your URL
Maybe you met at an event and traded business cards. Or you’ve a sign out front that displays your web address. Either way, direct traffic doesn’t come via other sources—people access your website by typing in your URL in the address bar. In short, these individuals already know you exist.
2. Organic traffic: People take an interest in your content
Organic traffic comprises individuals who searched for something online and found the answer in the form of your content. In other words, these are visitors that come to your website thanks to effective inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing includes such things as:
- Optimizing your pages for search engines (SEO);
- Writing useful blog posts, which is what this post is all about;
- Publishing interesting videos;
- And so on.
3. Paid traffic: Searchers click on your ad
These are individuals who access your website via pay-per-click (PPC) ads like Google AdWords.
While this method takes immediate effect, PPC ads have several disadvantages.
- They can be quite expensive.
- They only bring in visitors while the ads are running, i.e. once you stop paying for them, then they stop being a source of traffic.
- Many users (as in nearly 80% of them) ignore paid ads, preferring to focus instead on organic results.
4. Referral traffic: Individuals come via backlinks
Some visitors get to your website by clicking on a link on another website such as an online directory or blog.
5. Email marketing traffic: Readers click on your call to action
The marketing emails you send to subscribers can be another source of website traffic. That is, your messages may contain a call to action or link that leads to a landing page, blog post, or other page on your website.
6. Social media traffic: Visitors navigate to your site via social media
You can drive traffic to your website via social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. Your own social media posts and content can direct readers to your website or your link can be promoted by influencers you work with.
Are you undecided about blog content writing?
Raise your hand if this scenario sounds familiar: You invested valuable resources into developing a beautiful website. Then you went to great lengths to craft compelling SEO copy for each and every one of your pages. But you’re still struggling to drive traffic to your website. In fact, if you’re lucky, you get just a handful of clicks per day.
Fact is, the internet is a competitive space—attracting visitors isn’t as easy as “if you build it they will come”. To grow web traffic, you need to put in far more effort than that. That’s where content writing, more specifically blogging, comes in.
Let’s take a closer look at the marketing benefits of blogging for businesses.
What are the benefits of a blog for small and new businesses?
Did you know? Companies that blog:
- Benefit from 434% more indexed pages than those that don’t?
- Receive 55% more traffic than counterparts that don’t blog?
- Enjoy 97% more inbound links compared to those without blogs?
And that’s not the end of it! Here are 8 reasons to start blog content writing for your brand today.
1. Blog content writing is great for SEO
Search engines love fresh content. But it’s not as simple as making minor page adjustments or continuously adding low-quality pages to your website—you can’t trick your way to better rankings. So what can you do? Blog! Every new blog post equals new information, which is exactly what search engines look for.
Takeaway: Blogging regularly means consistent updates that search engines value.
2. You can gain valuable inbound links
Blogging is an effective way to attract inbound links from other websites. Readers that appreciate your post (because it was relevant, helpful, interesting or even just entertaining) are more likely to share your link across social networks and forums; email the link to family and friends; or add a dofollow link from their own website to yours. Of course, you need to write link-worthy content to benefit from this.
Takeaway: High-quality blog posts can help you gain more backlinks.
3. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to grow your website traffic
Fun fact: Businesses that publish 16 posts or more per month see 3.5 times more traffic than those that posts 4 times or less in the same period.
In other words, the more you write, the higher the likelihood your pages can be found on search engines. That is, you can drive people to your website without having to pay for ads. Again, the prerequisite here is that you have to write useful and relevant SEO content.
Takeaway: Blog posts are a great source of organic traffic.
4. One piece of writing can be repurposed
What you write today can bring in readers next week, next month, and—if it’s evergreen content—even for years to come. That aside, whatever you write for your blog can be adapted to work for you on multiple channels. You can include it in your newsletter, create an infographic with it, publish a presentation, or even use it in a video.
Takeaway: Blog posts aren’t just adaptable – they also have a long shelf life.
5. Acquire new leads at a much lower cost
You have more opportunities to acquire new leads as more people click through to your blog posts. That is, someone that reads your post may take an interest in your products or services and choose to send you an inquiry, which you can then nurture into a sale. In other words, it’s one of the most comfortable ways to grow your business. You can literally acquire new leads without leaving your desk!
Takeaway: Well-written posts can stimulate demand—directly or indirectly—for your products and services.
6. It’s an opportunity to earn your target audience’s trust
Blog content writing is an effective way to gain consumer trust as well as build credibility. And if you’re a small business, you want to seize every opportunity to demonstrate how knowledgeable, dependable, and trustworthy you are in your field. There’s also the added benefit of showing would-be customers that your business still exists. The fact that you’re active online is reassuring.
Takeaway: When done properly, small business blogging shows you have what it takes—you have solutions and you will deliver.
7. Business blogging builds relationships
Another benefit of business blogging is that it allows you to connect with your audience in a natural way and without obligation. It’s risk-free to them—they don’t have to buy or commit to anything, they can just consume your content. Plus if you interact with readers in the comments section, such as by answering questions or concerns, that can help you win over on-the-fencers and turn them into sales prospects.
Takeaway: Your blog content can capture readers at all stages of their purchase journey; engage and keep them interested; and inspire them to come back to your website again in the future.
8. Gather insight on your actual audience
There are two things worth noting here:
- Keeping an eye on conversations in the comments section can be a useful source of information, ideas, and feedback from your target audience. It’s also less time-consuming and less costly than other information-gathering approaches.
- Sometimes, the audience you want to attract isn’t the audience you actually drive to your website. Together with your analytics program, you can get a good idea of who your real audience is; the pages they’re reading; what they find interesting; what they’re clicking on; where they click through to; if and when they convert; and so on. You can make data-driven changes to your marketing strategy from there.
Takeaway: Your blog posts provide a window into getting to know your audience and therefore who your potential customers are.
No stress, no hassle when you hire a content writer
While these are all very real, very attainable results, the benefits of business blogging don’t happen overnight—and certainly not without a content plan or keyword strategy. You also need to be persistent, consistent, and patient.
But if all that sounds like too much hassle, why not outsource your content writing needs? There are plenty of reasons to hire a content writer including that you get to skip all the hard work and jump straight to reaping the benefits!