6 Reasons You Need A Blog On Your Small Business Website

Here’s a classic conversation I’ll have with my clients about 1-2 months after we launched their website. Generally, as a result of their checking out new upgrades on their competitor’s sites: Client: “Hey Solomon, I see [competitor company] has a blog on their website. Do you think I should have one too?” Me: “I say an emphatic […]
Solomon Barayev
October 27, 2021

Here’s a classic conversation I’ll have with my clients about 1-2 months after we launched their website. Generally, as a result of their checking out new upgrades on their competitor’s sites:

Client: “Hey Solomon, I see [competitor company] has a blog on their website. Do you think I should have one too?”

Me: “I say an emphatic yes. But it depends on how committed you’ll be to writing and posting articles to that blog consistently.”

Client scratches their head thinking to themselves whether it’s worth the effort.

In order to give you some clarity, here’s WHY it is absolutely worth it for every business owner to invest some of their efforts into having a blog on their business website:

  1. Soups up your site for search engines
  2. Boosts your authority
  3. Provides you with tools for prospecting
  4. Strategically placed CTA’s
  5. Platform to connect with your true audience.
  6. Opportunity to expand on certain elements of your business

Soups up your website for search engines

In order to show yourself and your business as an authoritative entity to search engines, you need to be able to show that you know the answer to any question asked in your field of business.

A great strategy to do that is to publish consistent articles that address specific questions that pertain to your business.

In essence, you’re not only clarifying ambiguities, but you are doing so by using long tail keywords.

For example: If you sell travel insurance.

You would likely be tempted to settle for a general keyword that all insurance companies use: “travel insurance”.

But imagine you wrote an article on “Things to keep in mind when buying travel insurance” – you can include a plethora of combinations that will form long tail keywords such as “Compare travel insurance plans online for coverage” and “best ways to maximize your coverage is to buy travel insurance that…”.

You hit the subject from multiple different angles, search engines would prioritize showing your site over other competitors who haven’t shown their expertise like you.

According to Hubspot, websites that have consistent blog posts see a whopping 55% increase in traffic!

Boosts your authority

Often times, when visitors land on your website, it is their first impression of your company.

They know nothing about you, so the first impression is key.

Amongst other strategies, one of the best would be to display your expertise up front.

This can be achieved by showing a few sample articles from your blog on your homepage.

Generally these articles should be covering your target markets most frequently asked questions.

If you can immediately answer them, you are now seen as the expert and your company has now gotten a step closer to building that know-like-trust factor customers need to do business with you.

Provides you with tools for prospecting

Prospecting is never easy.

But, one thing that will definitely make it easier is coming to the battle prepared.

Have your arsenal fully loaded with the resources you need when cold reaching out to prospects.

Specifically, I’m talking about blog articles that are geared directly at answering your potential clients questions before they even ask them.

Figure out exactly what your ideal client is struggling with.

Make a list of about 5 – 10 struggles.

Write knockout articles to solve these struggles, providing them with free advice.

Now that you have these heavy cannons, go out there and talk to people. Network. The second the pain points surface themselves, either from you unearthing them, or your prospect sharing their own struggles, you drop an article bomb on them.

Now step away and watch them come back for more.

Strategically placed calls to action (CTA’s)

Once you write articles that answer all aspects of your leads’ questions, you now have the perfect opportunity to drop a call to action. A call to action is what transfers a potential client from passively interested into actively pursuing.

If someone reads your articles all the way through this means one of 3 things:

  1. They are really interested in the subject of the article
  2. They are genuinely interested in your business and are going through your articles to gain more insight on you.
  3. They are your mom and proud of you for any content that you publish.

In the event that we are not dealing with #3, it would be a really good idea to place a call to action in your blog articles somewhere towards the end, to nudge them in the right direction. They’ve gotten this far already, give them a button to click. You will only see more business for it.

And by the way:

You know you want to click it…

Platform to connect with your true audience

In order to connect to your audience, you need to have the ability to interact with them.

It may be tempting to expect to be able to interact with your tribe via social media, and while that may be the case at times, it’s not the quality of conversation that you’d like to have.

Oftentimes, when someone comments on your post on Facebook, it’s not because they intentionally went to your business page, read your post and then interacted.

Rather Facebook’s algorithm served your post to their newsfeed at that moment in time, and they happen to see it and leave a comment in passing.

Commenting in passing with 101 other distractions cannot be compared to blog article readers interacting with your post via the comments section.

Firstly, they are there intentionally.

They are ready to read, and learn more about the headline subject which will yield ultimately to a much higher level of feedback.

You can gain insight on who your tribe is through these sorts of correspondences, and adjust your offering accordingly.

Opportunity to expand on certain elements of your business

When describing your services and products throughout your website, there is a fine line to strike between too much detail and just enough. Often it’s tempting to share everything at once, but at that point you are taking away real estate from showing the benefits to the customer. Feature-stuffing is an easy rabbit hole to fall into, but it is inevitable that at times, you just gotta do it. For those moments, when you need to go feature-deep, blog articles are your savior. You can go as deep as you need, and the search engines will only reward you for the product-specific keywords you use. In the same vain, you can also use blog articles to discuss things like processes, timelines, sop’s, etc. Show how the gears turn within your company. Give some context to what you do. Search engines as well as people love this sort of content.

Consistency Over All

What is important to remember when it comes to leading a successful blog is that consistency is king.

Whether you’re writing for search engines to pick up on your content, or for people to learn more about your company, consistency is your holy grail.

Releasing a blog article once in 6 months won’t bring you much benefit.

There is no need to shell out 10,000 word articles, but any sort of valuable ideas you can contribute over 300 words are worth publishing into an article on your website.

If you are struggling with finding topics to write about I suggest reaching out to your clients, perhaps past clients you’ve worked with and see what they are struggling with.

This will give you a solid starting point, and believe me, ideas inspire each other as you’re writing.

Ready to build a purposeful website with a blog functionality you can use to grow your business? Click below to view our website design + strategy packages and start a conversation about your project today.

If you are ready to build a beautiful website with a blog to grow your business, reach out to us to start your project today.

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