It’s no secret that we believe in the importance of blogging for business considering how much time and energy we invest in curating the Lili Blog to support small business owners like you! Considering blogging is one of the top content strategies used by marketers today, a blog can be a key factor in establishing your brand as a trusted and known name in your industry.
Blogging isn’t just for big brands or influencers either; having a blog for your business’s website can help you grow regardless of your industry. You may be a service provider, an e-commerce brand, or a digital product creator — regardless of what you sell, a blog can put your brand on the map when it comes to SEO and industry credibility.
Here are seven ways a blog can help your small business thrive.
1. Establishes Authority and Trust
Blogging gives you an opportunity to really showcase your industry expertise. Whether your business is product-based or you’re a service provider, a blog demonstrates your in-depth knowledge of the industry, and not just in the eyes of your ideal audience. Your blog also shows fellow industry experts and even search engines that you are a trusted source of information, which in turn builds the trustworthiness of your products or services.
Before someone is ready to convert from viewer to paying client or customer, they need to trust you. In order to build this trust while still generating conversions, you need to properly focus blogs on free value while ultimately pointing back to your product or service.
Example: Social Media Support from Later
Later is one of the top social media scheduling apps in the industry, and they’ve built their authority by growing an engaged audience who trusts their expertise. Later has a blog covering all the biggest social media platforms, helping their audience keep up with the latest trends and algorithm changes. Because they are such a trusted authority, they are a natural choice for many when it comes to investing in social media tools.
2. Grows Search Traffic
A blog is one of the best investments you can make in the SEO health of your website. It offers organic opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords consistently, helping search engines to properly index your website and rank its credibility. By generating high quality blog content on the topics you want to be known for, you’re giving search engines like Google fresh ways to discover — or “crawl” — your website. The better your discoverability and relevance, the higher the chances your website will rank in search results. This higher ranking means more traffic to your website from a given search query.
Example: Small Business Outranking the Competition
All it takes is one high ranking blog post to take your traffic to new heights, even in an industry where you’re competing with much larger brands. Women’s workwear brand M.M. LaFleur strategically curates their blog the M Dash for search engine optimization to both provide helpful fashion trends and styling inspiration while promoting their attire organically. They also frequently share the stories of inspiring business women in their Woman of the Week series, adding authenticity to their pro-women mission.
Their SEO attentiveness, elegant writing style, and female-empowering subject matter make M.M Lafleur’s blog a pleasure to read, priming it to convert traffic into sales. All this without needing to invest millions of dollars in marketing to compete with larger brands!
3. Attracts Conversions
By directing conversations within your industry to your brand, as discussed above, you’re guiding an audience already primed to make a purchase to your website. When a consumer turns to search engines, they’re looking to research and inform their decisions.
If your blog is the information resource that convinces a consumer to invest in a particular product or service, they’re much more likely to buy from you — as opposed to your competition — since they’re already on your website and familiar with your brand. In this way, your blog operates as free advertising, giving you a platform to pitch yourself to a room full of your target audience.
Example: Blogging for Marketers
E-commerce isn’t the only industry that can benefit from blogging. It’s also a powerful opportunity for service providers to book new clients! In the marketing industry, for instance, blogging has become a must-do.
Michael Stelzner has built a name for himself in the social media marketing world largely through his podcast and blog, the Social Media Examiner. Covering everything social media and marketing from Reels trends to analytics and even NFTs, this blog is constantly churning out high-quality content from a team of writers who are true experts in their fields. Due to this focus on content strategy, promoting their events and membership is largely an organic effort.
4. Engages Other Platforms
Although SEO is one of the most significant ways a blog can benefit your business, it’s not the only place a blog can grow your brand’s online presence. Having a blog for your business creates a natural funnel to guide your audience from your social media pages and email list back onto your website, plus it gives you consistent content themes to share on those platforms as well.
Example: Lili’s Bread & Butter
Each month, we send out a bite-sized newsletter to our Lili community keeping them up-to-date on small business news and financial trends. One of the top resources we share in this “Bread & Butter” newsletter is our blog. We give users a quick taste of what we’re sharing on the blog in a given month so they can decide if it’s relevant to them and click over here to get some of that free value we love providing!
In addition to our Bread & Butter newsletter, we share the latest blogs on our Instagram and Facebook pages to keep users and non-users alike in the loop on all things small business and finance.
5. Builds Traffic Long-term
Blogging isn’t just a one-and-done thing — it’s a continuous strategy that invests in your website’s traffic over time. A single blog post can generate traffic for months after its initial posting date, meaning that one blog is continuing to serve your brand’s growth long after the time you took to write and post it.
Now consider how your traffic can skyrocket over time if you’re consistently sharing new blog content! The more high-quality blogs you create, the higher your chances of ranking in search and building a brand that remains prominent online in the long-term.
Example: Ranking Blogs in Google Search Results
Two authorities in the marketing industry — Hubspot and Ahrefs — show up in the top organic rankings for “content marketing tips.” Although they take the top two organic slots for this search, both blogs were originally published in 2021. Because both platforms are dedicated to research-based content with real staying power, as well as updating existing content to keep it relevant and accurate, they are frequent high-rankers for marketing search queries.
6. Networks with Your Niche
A website builds its authority in Google search in part through backlinks. If your content is talked about and referred to often within your industry online — and especially if it’s linked to by other trusted online sources — it has a much better chance of ranking in search results because Google recognizes you as an authority.
In order to generate this credibility with your niche, you need to demonstrate your knowledge to others within your industry. Just as it showcases your expertise to potential clients and customers, a blog can communicate your relevance to fellow experts and bigger names in your industry. In addition to opportunities for backlinks, this could lead to invitations to industry events, speaking opportunities, or even collaborations with industry peers.
Example: The Podcast Guest Revolution
With the exponential growth of podcasts over the last decade has come many opportunities for brands to show up and grow in a new way, and you don’t need your own podcast to take advantage of this. Many podcasts operate as talk shows, bringing in authorities on specific topics to provide value to their audience. If you’ve established your knowledge on a subject through blogging, you’re primed to come on a podcast as a guest expert! Many brands and small business owners have grown this way by partnering with popular podcasts like Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger Podcast.
7. Generates Passive Income
If you’re a solopreneur or freelancer who doesn’t have an e-commerce product, blogging is an especially good opportunity to create passive income streams for your business. This can be through affiliate links, brand sponsorships, or even paid ad space. Although your blog’s primary goal should be to increase traffic and provide free value, it can secondarily become a successful revenue stream for your business.
Example: Blog Making Bank
Your blog can even become your business if you dedicate yourself to generating high quality content and establishing yourself as a trusted source in your niche. The Everygirl, for example, covers helpful topics like packing light for vacations, making a name for themselves in the lifestyle and fashion blogging spaces while earning commissions on the products they recommend.
No Experience Necessary for Blogging
If Imposter Syndrome is telling you not to bother with blogging because you don’t have anything to say or haven’t been in your industry long enough, don’t listen to it! One of the best parts about blogging is that it gives everyone a voice. This isn’t a corporate job application — you don’t need a professional level of expertise to qualify for blogging. Plus, it’s easily customizable to your own style and branding and can even act as a testing grounds for figuring out what your brand voice actually is.
If you’re ready to take your passion from hobby to business, a blog is an excellent first step toward growing your authority online as well as building up your own confidence in yourself. Your first several blog posts may not be masterpieces, but they are important stepping stones for learning how to create those high-quality blog posts that will dramatically transform your website’s traffic.
