Searching for the benefits of blogging? You’re in the right place. Many years ago, blogging was seen as an online journal or diary where you could jot down your thoughts and ideas. But those days are long gone. Today, blogging has grown to become a powerful online marketing tool that no business can afford to ignore.
In fact, statistics reveal that:
- 92% of marketers consider blogging to be worth the investment
- At least, 54% of Fortune 500 companies now have public facing blogs
- 89% of marketers used blogs in their content marketing strategy in 2020
In this comprehensive guide, we’ve rounded up 19 tangible benefits of business blogging you need to know, whether you’re a startup founder or an established entrepreneur.
What is Business Blogging?
Unlike blogging about personal hobbies or interests, business blogging involves creating high-quality, valuable content focused on topics that appeal to your target audience while also promoting your business offerings.
For instance, HubSpot is an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps businesses attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. On the HubSpot marketing blog, they publish posts on topics like improving website conversions, email marketing best practices, SEO tips, social media strategy, and similar content.
Now let‘s dive into the 19 compelling reasons you should be blogging if you want to grow your business.
19 Benefits of Business Blogging
1. Provide Value and Engage Your Audience
One of the biggest advantages of blogging is the ability to regularly offer value to your potential customers. In fact, 77% of all internet users still read blog posts and 61% consumers spend 3x longer on blog content than emails.
Since your audience loves consuming blog content, you can use it to:
- Provide helpful information they are searching for
- Answer common questions they have
- Educate them on topics they care about
- Offer solutions to their problems
Not only will this attract and convert potential customers, but blogging also helps nurture relationships by delivering consistent value.
According to Neil Patel, co-founder of NP Digital, "Blogging brings in a 202% increase in leads for businesses using it."
2. Boost Brand Awareness
Your audience constantly scours the internet for solutions, insights and learning opportunities. They also research online before making purchases.
Once you publish high-quality blog content targeting these needs, strangers can stumble upon it while searching online. This expands your reach beyond existing network and attracts new leads globally.
In short, blogging boosts brand visibility by putting your business in front of more eyeballs. The more content you produce, wider the awareness for your offerings.
3. Build Trust and Credibility
According to a survey by Demand Metric, 91% of B2B buyers are more likely to consider vendors who publish custom content.
When you consistently create content delivering value, readers begin to see you as an authority. This builds trust so they turn to you for products, services or advice.
Blogging helps cement a genuine online presence and reputation. You become an industry leader people rely on.
Brian Clark, Founder of Copyblogger, rightly said, "Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. And trust drives revenue."
4. Delight Existing Customers
It costs 5 times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. Also, repeat customers spend 67% more than new ones.
Use your blog to engage current customers and encourage repeat purchases by publishing:
- Product guides: Explain key features and benefits
- FAQs: Address common customer questions
- Tutorials: Teach them how to use your product effectively
Such evergreen content provides more value from their purchase and makes them loyal advocates.
According to research by Invespcro, companies that prioritized blogging acquired 67% more leads each month.
5. Attract Backlinks and Improve Domain Authority
Backlinks from external websites not only drive referral traffic but also signal search engines that your content is valuable.
In fact, websites with blogs have 97% more inbound links compared to sites without blogs.
More backlinks strengthen domain authority and boost search rankings because Google considers links as ‘votes‘ for good content.
So quality blogging leads to exponential growth in backlinks over time, fueling organic search traffic.
6. Generate More Internal Links
Internal links connect different pages within your website for easy navigation. They help search bots crawl your site better and understand structure.
Without blogging, your site has fewer pages to link internally.
Whereas a blog generates tonnes of new content that can be tied together using internal links. This signals search engines about your most important and related pages.
7. Improve SEO and Organic Reach
Your blog is essentially an SEO machine that boosts organic rankings in multiple ways:
- Regularly adding new pages with unique content keeps your site fresh for search bots
- Backlinks earned amplify keyword rankings
- Internal links spread authority across your site
Moreover, identifying popular search keywords and optimizing blog posts for them attracts more searchers.
The more SEO-friendly articles you publish, wider the keywords you can target. This expands organic visibility and traffic exponentially.
8. Drive Qualified Website Traffic
Your blog content pops up in search results when people look for information related to your offerings. More content means showing up more often for a variety of searches.
In fact, HubSpot grew its organic traffic by 55% within a year through blogging. Also, blogs can increase website visibility by 434%.
Bottom line – blogging brings laser targeted visitors already interested in your niche, directly from search engines.
9. Generate More Leads
Websites with blogs generate 67% more leads than sites without blogs because high-value content Converts visitors into subscribers.
Simply add a call-to-action like "Join our newsletter" or "Download this free guide" below each post. Offer a lead magnet to entice sign-ups.
This incentive helps capture contact details of visitors showing intent or interest. Now you can nurture them into customers by sending helpful content directly to their inbox.
10. Encourage Repeat Visits
One-time visitors without intent to purchase immediately may browse your website and leave, never to come back.
But an updated blog gives then reason to return again seeking helpful information or checking for new articles.
This turns fly-by visitors into returning readers. The more you post, the stickier your website gets.
Readers love passing on content that enlightens them. So naturally they‘ll share your blog posts if it solves their problem or offers value.
And not just on social media. It gets shared within communities, groups, forums and messaging platforms.
Now imagine an influencer with millions of followers tweets your article or it goes viral on Reddit. Your content and backlink can suddenly reach massive audiences beyond your own network.
12. Subtly Promote Without Being Salesy
While aggressive selling turns people off, two-thirds of shoppers still want to learn about companies through blogs versus plain ads.
So create helpful articles educating readers, while indirectly showcasing your products within the natural flow. This subtle promotion while providing value works like magic!
Jay Baer, Founder of Convince & Convert, rightly said, "Content builds trust and trust drives sales."
Your blog allows communicating real-time company developments like:
- Product launch updates
- Awards or achievements
- Community support initiatives
- Events, promotions, rebranding
When readers get a sneak peek behind the scenes, it humanizes your business and makes it relatable. This attracts more customers because people support brands they connect with emotionally.
14. Showcase Customer Wins and Reviews
Show appreciation for best customers by interviewing them and highlighting their journey or success with your product on your blog.
You can even directly share glowing testimonials from happy clients. This builds trust and nudges prospective buyers nearer to a purchase decision. After all, 74% consumers rely on social proof for evaluating a business.
15. Recognize Employees
Share employee spotlights celebrating their work anniversary or contribution to the company.
You can also get team members to guest blog about their experience working with you.
Such public recognition motivates staff and makes them feel valued. Even potential hires get a peek into your work culture.
16. Send Value-Packed Emails
Struggling for email content ideas regularly? Repurpose your blog posts by sending subscribers an email notification whenever you publish a new article.
You’ll see high open and click-through rates because recipients look forward to consuming such informative content.
In fact, companies with blogs generate double the leads from email marketing compared to non-blogging peers.
17. Reduce Customer Service Workload
Over time your blogs become a searchable knowledge base solving customer issues and queries proactively via self-service.
Whether it‘s product usage instructions or order troubleshooting tips, staff can simply share relevant blog links instead of explaining everything repeatedly. This frees up their time to focus on complex complaints.
18. Automate Social Media
Struggling to constantly dish out social media updates? Simply repurpose blog posts.
Extract key takeaways as tweets, share graphics on Instagram or run excerpt snippets on LinkedIn. You can even serialize long posts into a social video series.
Such recycled content cuts the effort of originating evergreen social updates.
19. Unlock Additional Revenue Streams
A blog not only makes money indirectly by sales but also directly via monetization avenues like:
- Sponsored posts
- Digital products
- Affiliate marketing
- Memberships
- Coaching/Consulting
- Display ads
When aligned with business offerings, multiple income streams can significantly fatten your bottom line.
The Proof is in the Pudding
The smartest businesses realize the marketing superpowers of blogging.
No wonder blogging ROI convince thought leaders like Seth Godin to observe:
If you want to get more customers, you should blog. Please, do it next week.
Similarly, here’s what Groove CEO Alex Turnbull tweeted about their venture’s runaway blogging success:
Blogging brought us 55,000 email subscribers, 50% of all our sales and saved us $320,000 in advertising!
As the saying goes, numbers don’t lie. Blogging delivers smart businesses brilliant marketing results on a platter.
So step up to the plate and start swinging because content marketing home runs await!
