A good few years ago, blogging was a lifestyle business. Something people into fashion, or food, or travel did.  So, if you’re a business owner not in those sectors, why write blogs?

The answer is simple and detailed all in one.  I’m going to break it down into straightforward reasons why you SHOULD, absolutely, be writing blogs.

Website SEO

Once you have a sparkly new website published, you can’t just leave it alone to gather digital dust.

Google want you to publish fresh content every month – approximately 2000 words of fresh content.

You see it keeps their ‘bots’ interested as they’re crawling your website. 

A static website will be crawled less and less frequently, and that’s really not good for your SEO.

So that’s the first, very good, answer to the question why write blogs?

Your Prospective Customer

According to Google’s stats, a whopping 97% of first time visitors to a website leave without making contact with the company.

In many cases this is because they want to do further research before committing to anything.

So, why write blogs? To answer your prospects questions, educate them, and show your expertise.

Using internal links in your blogs, to other blogs you’ve published on connected subjects, or to a page on your website, will also keep them on your site longer, reduce your bounce-off rate (when someone only visits one page and leaves), and give them a much better overall experience.

Your website copy and all content being person-focussed and giving a great valuable experience is what Google wants.

Blogs Get Returned in Searches

If you do some fairly basic keyword research for your blog and use your primary keyword in the right places and right density within the blog, Google will return it when someone looks up that phrase.

Some of our clients’ report being as high as the third company returned within only a few days of publishing their blog.  And one client has told us he still gets more calls per week from a blog we wrote for him 18 months ago than any other part of his website.

If you’re not sure about your keywords, think about the phrase your prospective customer would type into a search bar.  That’s your primary keyword (a keyword is a phrase, not a singular word).

(How to do keyword research is a whole other blog, so watch out for it being published or use the category ‘SEO’ to find it.)

Why write blogs?  To educate and entertain

Blogs should be valuable content aimed at your target audience.  They should provide knowledge and educate. 

Not all blogs have to be written in this sort of style.  You could write them in the form of a diary, a case study, as a fictitious character watching your daily routine… as long as they are a quick, simple, and easy read, the style is less important.  Quirky will often help get traffic to the blog and so to your website.  Just ensure it fits your target customer.

On top of giving the reader a great experience and imparting knowledge, writing blogs will establish you as an expert in your field.  This is a two-fold win.  It’s one of Googles requirements for content, and it means when the prospect, or someone they know, is ready to buy your services or product, you will be the name they think of.

What are people going to be interested in?

One of the major stumbling blocks I hear people talk about when it comes to content creation, and in particular blogs, is the subject matter.

What do you write about?  What are people going to want to read about?

If you have done any thinking about your marketing in the past, you are likely to know the ‘pain-points’ (problems) that your product or service solves for your target customers.

Your website pages shouldn’t concentrate on how you solve them – that copy should focus on the benefits once they’re solved – but your blogs can go into the ‘features’ much more.

Think of all the questions you’ve ever been asked by customers, prospective or active.  They make great subject for blogs.

And if you get stuck, look at your competitors and see what content they’re putting out and use ‘Answer the Public’ and receive a free report on what questions people are asking when they’re searching for your product or service.

Why Write Blogs?  To Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

I get it.  Writing blogs is a pain.  It takes time.  If you don’t enjoy writing it becomes a task you really don’t look forward to or give priority to. 

But a blog is not just a blog!

There are lots and lots of ways blogs can be used over and above publishing them on your website – which should always be number one priority.

You can take snippets from the blog and create social media posts to drive traffic back to the blog and your website.  Big SEO tick!

You can use part of the blog content to create an email to your list – again driving traffic back to the full blog and your website.  Big tick 2!

You could use the blog as a script and record a video.

You could take a number of blog articles, put them together and create a lead magnet for people to download from your website (in exchange for their email, of course, so you can build a relationship with them moving forwards).

You could use a blog for the subject of a webinar or podcast episode.

You could even create a book from a collection of blog articles and become a published author.

Why write blogs?  Because you get so much traction out of them, why would you not!  Find out more about Raspberry Flamingo’s SEO blog writing service here.