The advantages of having a blog on your website

Running a blog on your website can be a huge investment, but if done right, it can pay off. Businesses often don’t have the time or skills to dedicate to frequently publishing new, interesting content on their blog. It’s important for businesses to know what benefits you can expect to see if you start running a blog on your website.

1. Search engine traffic

Every time you post a new blog article, you’re adding new content to your site. This means there is more for search engines to crawl and index, meaning you’ve got more chance of ranking. This will then increase your organic search visibility, and you will see your traffic continue to increase. Just make sure you undertake some keyword research and know what keywords to use throughout each of your blog posts, to help with your search engine rankings.

2. Social media

You can also drive more traffic to your website by promoting your blog posts on social media. Every time you have a new blog post, you have more new content to share on social media. This not only helps you drive traffic to your site, but gives you more opportunities to engage with your following who comment or share your post. It also means you can expose your business to an audience who may not have heard of you before.

3. Establishes authority

What really sets your business apart from the competition? A blog is a great way to assert your authority in your industry. Use your blog to write about relevant topics within your niche. This will show your audience you actually know what you’re talking about. This, in turn, will build trust with the readers, and they will be more likely to become a conversion.

4. Builds conversions

How can you tell how often a business is active online? Are they even still in business? Aside from keeping your social media accounts active, a blog is a great way to show your business is still alive and cared for. To communicate this well, you have to remember to continually update your blog. There’s nothing worse than going to the blog section of a website, and seeing the last post was from a year ago. If you’re able to frequently blog, you’ll see an increase of conversions. In fact, Hubspot found business who prioritise blogging experience a 13 times increase in ROI year after year. That’s definitely enough incentive to start blogging.

5. Building links

If you’re trying to improve your SEO, you’ll know you need to include inbound links on your website. One of the easiest ways to do this is through having blog posts. Each new post is another opportunity to include links to authoritative sources. If the content you create is viewed as a good resource, others will be more inclined to share it and cite or link to that content on their own blog. This can greatly improve your SEO.

6. Increases leads

Generally, businesses don’t just want to see an increase in traffic to their website - they want that traffic to turn into a lead. The more pages your website has, the more leads it’s going to get. How do you get more pages on your website? By blogging! Hubspot found websites with 401-1000 pages of content will receive 6 times more leads than websites with 50-100 pages. The more content you create, the more pages you’re making, and the more leads you will generate. Ultimately, this means there will be more sales for your business.    

If you’re going to consider running a blog for your business, remember:

• Host the blog on your website: sure, you can consider hosting your blog on a free blogging platform. But that means you won’t reap any of the SEO benefits. It’s far better to make sure the blog is on your own domain.
• Post frequently: decide on a blog schedule and stick to it. People will become used to receiving blog updates daily, once a week, once a fortnight. It doesn’t matter how frequently you post, just make sure you don’t overcommit yourself and your resources. Choose a posting schedule you can stick to.
• Don’t promote your brand: people don’t want to read about your brand. They want to read something that’s insightful and helpful. It’s a good idea to follow the 80/20 rule. That is - write about your products 20% of the time, with the remaining 80% dedicated to interesting content your audience will want to engage with. If you promote your products or service too often, you run the risk of losing followers and potential conversions.