Tapping into the online world and starting a website for your business is easy and inexpensive. Anyone can do that. The real challenge is making your website stand out amongst your competitors and building a strong online following for your business. With around 1.8 billion websites on the internet today, there’s no denying that the web is a crowded place. With thousands of businesses offering the same products or services as you, gaining traction and building a strong online presence in such a clustered space can be a nightmare for small to medium-sized businesses. 

So, what can you do you to add value to your online business ventures and gain a competitive advantage? Well, one of the simplest, most cost-effective solutions is to start a blog. The most obvious benefit of blogging is that it will help you attract more traffic. Sharing engaging content on your website regularly will also keep things interesting for your current audience, making sure they stick around. 

This works in your favour as higher traffic naturally means more leads, which will make a direct impact on your sales charts. Plus, the more traffic you get, the higher you will rank on SERPs! For all these reasons, it is essential to start a business blog and plan a killer content marketing strategy for your business.  But that’s not it –blogging can do a lot more for your business than attracting more traffic! Let’s take a look at what blogging entails and how it can help you achieve your business goals.

What Is Blogging?

Creating a website is always the first step to taking your business online. A good website is well designed and easy to use with a user-friendly interface and compelling content. However, a website alone is not enough to get you hoards of customers. Your targeted audience is unlikely to stumble on your website accidentally and give your business a try unless you put the word out. 

Look at it this way. Imagine you start a restaurant in a neighbourhood already packed with restaurants. You take your time setting it up, choosing the right theme, staff, menu, furniture, and what not! Finally, you manage to set up the perfect restaurant. However, is it enough to get you customers? No.

A few curious customers may decide to try out your food while you sit and wait for your restaurant to fill up with customers. However, your restaurant is likely to remain empty for the most part. In a neighbourhood already packed with eateries, your tiny, new restaurant will hardly get noticed. So, how can you get the attention of your customers? Well, you need to promote your business!

In this analogy, the neighbourhood is the internet (already packed with businesses offering the same products or services as you) and the restaurant is your website. However, all your efforts are useless unless you promote your business and website to attract your target audience.  This is where blogging comes in. Blogging about what you do can attract potential customers! Think of blogging as the guy you hire to stand outside the restaurant with a bright spinning board to attract customers during the peak hours. In other words, a blog ensures that your potential customers know about your business and recognize it as one of the best.

Can Blogging Really Help Your Business?

Blogging is an excellent way to promote your business because it is highly effective yet extremely cost-effective. In fact, publishing a monthly blog post on your website will cost you a fraction of what you may spend on putting an ad in the paper. However, keep in mind that you must post high-quality, engaging content on your website regularly in order to achieve the desired results. According to HubSpot, companies that publish 16 or more blogs in a month enjoy 3.5 times more traffic on their websites as compared to companies that publish 4 times or less in a month. 

Statistics don’t lie. This is all the proof you need to realize the effectiveness of blogging when it comes to attracting potential customers to your business. To answer the question – yes, blogging can really make a difference in your sales reports. It plays an instrumental part in marketing your products or services and acquiring new leads.

Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of starting a blog for your business is to gain an internet following by establishing a regular readership. It helps you build a loyal customer base. Moreover, you will emerge as a credible source of knowledge in the market. People will look up to you to find a solution to their problems. It will allow you to build a meaningful relationship with your current and potential customers. Loyalty gained via blogging is no match for the temporary attention you may divert towards your business through expensive television ads or billboards.    

Even bigwigs like Google understand the importance of blogging. They’ve taken to regularly blogging online about their product updates, press releases, and on a variety of pertinent topics such as, digital well being.

Let’s get this straight – you can benefit from blogging regardless of the size of your business, its niche or industry. All you need to do is execute blogging the right way and you will have the perfect lead magnet to make record sales. Check out the top three benefits of starting a business blog.   

1. Creates a Brand for Your Business  

One thing that is common among all successful businesses is that they are known by their brands. Let’s look at the following: 

• Adidas – Impossible is Nothing
• KFC – It’s Finger Lickin’ Good  
• LÓreal – Because You’re Worth It
• Sony – Make Believe

All of their products and services are known for their brand. For instance, while you can get shoes from just about anywhere, Adidas’ Yeezy shoes enjoy a fan base of their own! 

In other words, brands have a loyal customer base that plays a big part in their success. While a small or medium-sized business may not be able to match these legends, establishing a unique brand and voice for your business is still crucial for its growth. And blogging is the best way to establish a distinct voice for your business and promote your brand. 

But what is a brand, anyway, and why is it so important to build one for business growth? 

Well, a brand is more than just a catchy slogan or logo. It is what sets you apart from your competitors. You can think of a brand as the identity of your business. It builds trust and credibility, allowing your customers to recognize and prioritize your products or services over other options available in the market. 

The reason why building a brand is so important is that while products and services can be replaced – a brand is irreplaceable. So, once you become a brand, you become irreplaceable. You now possess something that your customers cannot find anywhere else. 

The good news is that blogging is a simple yet highly effective way of building a brand. From the kind of tone and topics you choose for your blog posts to the colour theme you go with, everything in a blog helps promote your brand.  Moreover, blogging allows you to create value for your customers. Therefore, your blog must be relevant and valuable. It also helps you emerge as a leader in your niche, building loyalty and affinity among your targeted audience. You develop a distinct voice, which makes you unique and helps build a relationship with your followers. Finally, frequent blogging ensures that you stay on top of your audience’s mind. As the blog grows, more and more people start to recognize your business and trust it. Eventually, your business develops a voice and becomes an irreplaceable brand.

2. Brings in More Traffic and Leads

Blogs can help you generate leads quickly and regularly. Good blogs keep bringing you customers as long as they are SEO optimized and the content stays relevant. The same cannot be said about other, more conventional marketing approaches, like publishing advertisements in a newspaper or running television ads. Such approaches create a short-term marketing effect. They will remain effective only as long as the ad runs.

Moreover, frequent re-runs can cause your budget to take a serious hit, which is not great for ROI. This makes it obvious that blogging is a better option as it is easy, relatively inexpensive, and highly effective when it comes to generating leads. 

Another reason why blogging is the ultimate lead magnet is that it promotes your products or services to the target audience. There are two types of marketing – push and pull. 

Push marketing involves pushing your products to the audience. In other words, you take the product to them. Flyers, newspapers, radio and television ads are all types of push marketing. The problem with this approach is that it is focused on your target audience. For instance, a television ad will be played on its slot regardless of how many people from your targeted audience watch it. This means that a lot of your marketing efforts are wasted. Plus, your ad may not even reach your potential customers. Plus, push marketing strategies are difficult to execute and generally not good for the ROI. 

Pull marketing, on the other hand, involves bringing the customers to your product or services. Sure, this objective is harder to achieve, but it comes with great rewards. Blogging is a type of pull marketing. It connects you with people who are already looking for the products or services that you offer. All you need to do is make sure that your blogs are focused on the terms and keywords that your customers are searching for. Your blogs should be SEO optimized in a way that they pop up when your customers enter certain titles or keywords. If you can find the right keywords, your blogs will enjoy an immense reach focused on your target audience.    

Since blogs are shareable, readers will also share them on social media platforms, increasing your reach. At no cost, your reader will act as your marketer, promoting your products and services. It is also an excellent way to promote your brand as sharing blogs on social media is the modern-day equivalent of publicity by word of mouth. Additionally, businesses that publish blogs tend to enjoy more inbound links to their business websites than companies that don’t publish blogs at all, and around 55% of marketers claim that blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority.

All things considered, blogging is the ideal way to increase your reach and bring more traffic to your website without spending a fortune!

3. Improves ROIs

According to a report published by HubSpot in 2019, marketers who prioritize blogging are 13 times more likely to receive positive ROI. Higher ROI happens when your audience finds what they need on your blog. Engaging blogs with attractive visuals and valuable information works like a charm to attract and retain readers onto your website. 

However, keep in mind that the longer your readers stay on your blog, the better it is for your business. So, along with providing valuable information, it helps to make sure that your blog is aesthetically appealing and easy to read. You can divide your content according to subheadings to increase readability.  It is interesting to note that the time you choose to publish the blog makes an impact on its effectiveness. A great way to ensure maximum traffic on your blog is to publish it during peak hours. Publishing at the right time will help you engage more viewers during the busiest times of the day. This translates into more customers. So, by publishing at the right time, you can expand your reach drastically. Higher traffic translates into increased sales, which in turn leads to a greater ROI.

How to Get Started?

Now that you know why blogging is essential for your business growth, the only remaining question is, where do you start from? Blogging can seem daunting, especially if you are just starting out. However, once you get the hang of it and streamline a cost-effective process for it, you will be able to publish new content regularly without any trouble. Scroll down to take a look at how you can start your blog.     

Find a Reliable Source for Content

The first thing you need to do is find a reliable and consistent source for high-quality content that will get your readers hooked to your blog. There are three main ways to go about it.

1. Write the Blog Yourself

This one’s a no brainer – you can write your own blogs. Nothing can match the insights you can offer into your brand. However, keep in mind that there are millions of blog posts on the internet. The story you want to tell or the information you want to put out is probably already out there and there’s nothing you can do about it. What you can do is present the same information or retell the same story in a new, unique and different way. 

A customer looking for a particular service on the internet may pause on your website if you offer them better rates. However, this is not enough to entice them and encourage them to keep coming back. In order to do that, you must offer them a unique perspective. In other words, if your blog simply details the services you provide, it will probably fail to retain readers and build a loyal viewership. However, if it engages the viewers with beautiful visuals and adds value through interesting content, your blog will be a hit in no time!

· Pros 

Writing your blogs yourself allows you to instil unique brand personality. It allows you to connect with your audience, and if you do it long enough, you will eventually build a loyal following of readers who care about you and your product deeply. It is your unique perspective and voice that will keep them coming back to your blog.   

· Cons    

The problem with blogging is that you need to publish high-quality content continuously to satisfy your readers. However, it is not always easy to come up with winning content, especially if you are not a professional blogger. Blogging takes time and effort, which is why it is not always easy for business owners to juggle content creation with multiple other things on their plates. 

Plus, if you look at the bigger picture, blogging does a lot more for your business than customer retention. When done right, it helps attract new customers. However, in order to attract new customers, you need a unique voice AND expert knowledge about blogging. You need an extensive understanding of SEO if you want your blogs to rank. Without SEO, your blog will never rank high on SERPs, which means that it will never be discovered by readers in the first place. So, you need to learn all about standard tools to categorize your blog posts, like Tags, Meta descriptions, Primary and Secondary keywords, etc. Learning all the tips and tricks to make your blog rank is another lengthy process that will take a lot of time and effort. 

Another reason why taking up the task to write your blogs may not be the best idea is that good blogging requires excellent writing skills. While you may be the best in your own trade, if writing is not your best suite, you will be unable to create engaging blogs. This is why most small and medium-sized businesses prefer to hire blog writers to ensure a steady flow of blog posts that are optimized to rank high on SERPs.    

2. Hire a Freelance Writer 

Freelancing is readily becoming a popular career choice, especially among young professionals. A lot of motivated people with a wide range of skills and talents are available for blog writing. So, if writing is not your thing, you can hire a freelance writer to manage your blog. 

· Pros 

Cost-effectiveness is one of the biggest advantages of hiring a freelancer. Since freelancers work on a per-project basis, you can strike a good bargain and get the rates that you are comfortable with. If you like the content that you receive, you’ve hit the jackpot and you can hire the freelancer on a regular basis. On the other hand, if the content is not up to the mark, you can always look for another freelance blogger to get the job done. Since there are thousands of freelancers looking for work, you will never run out of options. 

·         Cons  

Hiring is the tricky part when it comes to outsourcing your blog to a freelancer. Finding a good blogger on a freelancing platform is like finding a diamond in the rough. While it is good to have many choices, too many choices can turn the hiring process into a nightmare. The problem is that most freelancers are looking for work only to make money on the side. Most of them are not as motivated or skilled as you’d like them to be. So, even if they manage to make a good first impression, there’s still no guarantee that they’ll get the job done. Freelancers are also notorious for missing deadlines, which makes them an unreliable source for steady content.  

· Where to Hire Freelancer

With the rising trend of working from home, the freelancing business has turned into a massive industry in the last decade. There are multiple platforms that are designed with the sole purpose of connecting clients with freelancers. Here’s a list of some of the best websites to hire freelancers from. 

• Upwork 
• Fiver 
• ServiceScape
• CloudPeeps
• Freelancer

3. Hire Services of a Content Writing Agency 

Savvy business owners understand the benefits of blogging, which is why they are always on the lookout to find the best team to handle their blogs. With millions of people looking to hire professional blog writers to manage their blogs, blogging has become a specialized industry with content writing agencies offering their services.

It is important to understand that managing a blog is not a one-man job. Plus, creating high-quality content is not just about writing. For managing and writing a blog, you require the services of writers, editors, content strategists, and SEO experts. Content writing agencies, like Content Development Pros, bring all these professionals together to create a specialized team to manage your blogs. 

·         Pros 

As compared to hiring a freelancer, agencies are a better option for two main reasons. Firstly, agencies offer an extremely high level of professionalism that most freelancers are unable to match. It saves a lot of time for busy business owners as the hired agency takes complete responsibility for their blog. Secondly, agency employees are not motivated by side money. Instead, every individual in the team works to build a career in this space. So, you can rest assured that their work will be fuelled by passion.  

Moreover, a content writing agency can do a lot more than writing blogs for you. A blog writing and management team can create long-term content marketing strategies for your business, recommend keywords that will make your blog rank higher on the SERPs, and also publish all your blog posts in a timely manner to boost their effectiveness. You can also expect proactive communication with the team and customer service. It will help you streamline the process of updating your blog regularly. 

The best part about hiring a professional content agency is that you won’t have to worry about the quality of the content that you receive. Blog writers employed by content agencies are thoroughly trained and experienced. Plus, they are familiar with the latest SEO trends and strategies. Therefore, you can rest assured that you will receive only high-quality SEO optimized content. However, good content agencies always allow for revisions. So, while it is unlikely to happen, if you find any flaws in the content, you can send it back with your feedback. You can expect prompt revision and timely publishing. 

Another thing to consider is that agencies have teams of writers with varying expertise. The agency you hire will find the perfect writer for your blog based on your individual requirements. Since agencies have multiple writers, scaling up is also easy. A team of professional writers can create content in bulk without compromising the quality of content. No job is too big or too hard for them!  What’s more, is that content agencies use paid tools to ensure that your blog posts are optimized for maximum readability. Tools like Readable, Hemingway Editor, Yoast SEO, and Word Count Tools are all used to improve the quality of content in one way or another. Other tools, like Google Trends, Buzzsomo, and Keyword Planner are used to identify the best titles and keywords for the blog posts. This helps drives maximum traffic to your blog and website.

·         Cons

The downside to hiring a content agency over a freelancer is that you can’t strike a bargain. However, you don’t need to as reputable agencies that care about their clients offer content writing services at suitable rates. You can rest assured that you won’t be overcharged for the services you avail. 

 The only real problem is finding the right agency. With so many agencies offering content writing services, it can be difficult to choose a professional agency for blog writing and management. You will find many agencies that manage to make a good impression at first but fail to deliver on their promise. This is why it is essential to know how to hire a content development agency. 

·         How to Hire a Content Development Agency?

Hiring the perfect content development agency is easy if you know what to look for in an agency. You can’t just hire the first agency you find on the internet. Instead, do your due diligence and look for an agency that fits your requirements. Here are a few things to consider before you hire a content development agency. 

• Quality: Quality is of utmost importance. Reputable agencies don’t falsely advertise all their content as best. They are honest with their clients and offer writers with different quality ratings.
• Price: Budgeting is an important part of all kinds of marketing. So, it only makes sense to consider your budget and content writing services rates offered by the agency. Look for agencies that offer excellent services at affordable rates along with various reasonably priced packages. 
• Service: As stated above, blogging is not a one-man show. Managing a blog entails a lot more than just writing. So make sure that the agency you hire is well equipped to manage all parts of blog management, not just writing.
• Editing: Editing is an essential part of blog writing. Therefore, before you hire a content development agency, make sure they have a separate editing team. Only then, you can expect to receive flawless content that is free from mistakes and plagiarism.  
• Support: As a business owner, nothing’s more frustrating than struggling to contact the agency you hired or waiting for days to hear from your blogging team. This makes it important to ensure you get a dedicated account manager and support is available 24/7.  
• Online Reviews and Rating: Finally, don’t forget to check the online reviews and ratings before hiring an agency. Most clients are quite frank and honest with their reviews, so they will give you a pretty good picture of how well suited the agency is for you.

There are multiple platforms that you can check out to find content development agencies. Some of the most popular platforms include Clutch, Design Rush, Find Best SEO, and co. It is best to clear all your questions and concerns about the working process of an agency before you hire blog writers. If you plan on hiring a content development agency to manage your blog, we suggest you check out this link.

How Many Blogs Do You Need? 

The number of blogs you need to make an impact depends on what you aim to achieve through blogging. In some cases, publishing a single blog post can produce better results than posting five blog posts. Other times, some blog posts steadily build the audience over months to help you achieve your goals. 

The content agency you hire can help you choose the right approach. They have extensive data that will allow them to discover the right number of blogs for your business. However, there’s no denying that blogging has a positive impact on small and medium-sized businesses. Building readership with regular blogging is always one of the best approaches. To find out how many blogs you need, consider the following question. 

· What Is the Current Market Trend?

You can find out the market trends by taking a look at what your competitors are doing. So, start by analyzing your competition. Even if you are not able to tell how well your competitors are doing, you will still gain some valuable insight about blogging in your niche. 

The first thing you need to do is identify your top competitors and see if they are blogging yet. If yes, check how many posts they publish in a day, week, month, or year. Analyze their blog posts to determine the average length of blog posts that make it to the first page of Google search. Don’t forget to read through the blog posts to see how well they are written. Do you notice any patterns emerging? If yes, you have some valuable information that you can use to your advantage.  Another option is to ask the content development agency you hired to run a competitor analysis research for you. Based on the findings, they will develop a content strategy based on various factors, including your niche, industry, the location you operate in, market competition, etc. The content strategy will include the ideal number of blogs you need to publish to make a significant impact.

· What Do You Wish to Achieve With Your Blog? 

Explore your reasons for blogging. Why do you want to start a blog and what do you expect to achieve from it? Identifying your goals will give you a clear picture of how many blogs you should post. For instance, if your aim is to increase your sales through inbound marketing, you need to publish aggressively. On the other hand, if you simply want to improve your brand and retain your current customers, publishing a single blog in a week should be enough. 

Remember, blogging is not about publishing the most content. Instead, it is all about providing value to your audience. So, regardless of the goals you have set for yourself, make sure you publish only well-written, high-quality, optimized content.  

It is also advisable to discuss your goals and even budget with the content development agency you hire. It will allow them to tailor an effective blogging strategy for your business.   

Choose the Ideal Word Count for Your Blog 

A common mistake that most business owners make while writing blogs is that they like to keep it short and sweet. While it is easy to think that readers want short blogs, the truth is that long posts are significantly more lucrative. These posts rank higher on the SERPs and are more effective for inbound marketing. Longer blog posts are shared more often by readers. Plus, they engage more readers. This is evident from the comments sections. With a little research, you can see for yourself that longer blogs generally get more comments than short blogs. 

It is best to reserve short blogs of 300 – 500 words for making announcements or sharing a quick thought with your readers. On the other hand, when you want to provide value to the readers, go with a long-form blog of 800 – 4,000 words. Based on SERP data from SEMRush, BackLinko estimated that the average word count of the blogs that make it to the first page of Google is 1,890 words. Therefore, it is better to stick with long-form content, especially when you are starting out. 

Some experts believe that focusing on the word count is not even important. If your brand has developed a strong online presence, you can stop worrying yourself with trivial matters like word count. Once you have a following, you can expect to get results regardless of the length of the blog. However, if you are still in the early stages, it is best to go with long blogs. 

Let Content Development Pros Help You Build a Strong Online Presence

Millions of blogs are abandoned each year. From failing to implement winning blogging strategies to misinterpreting your target audience or hiring the wrong agency, a lot of factors can keep you from achieving the desired results. However, our team of experts can take care of all your blogging needs!

Consider hiring Content Development Pros for writing and managing your blog.

With valuable knowledge and years of experience, our team of writers, editors, and SEO experts will ensure that every post on your blog is well-written and provides value to you and your readers. You can rely on us to come up with blogging strategies that will take your business to the next level. What’s more, is that we offer amazing content writing services at the most affordable rates. Contact us today to learn more about our services or fill out this short form and one of our blog consultants will get in touch with you shortly.