Studies show that on average, adding a blog to your site can double your traffic. These studies also show that blogging significantly increases leads. Go ahead, Google it. You’ll find tons of stats that support these facts. So that’s your answer right there - your small business needs a blog because it will significantly increase traffic and leads. Simple enough right?
But you’re probably saying the same thing that most small business owners say to me. Where do I start? I don’t have the budget for this? Where am I ever going to find the time to do this? My answer to that, is you can’t afford not to, so let’s explore some tips on how to get that blog of yours up and running and generating traffic!
At this point, you may be thinking “you had me at ‘double your traffic’ and ‘significantly increases leads’”. But if you need a little more convincing, here’s some blogging food for thought:
- Blogs increase your traffic because the addition of content on your site means the addition of more keywords, and new keyword phrases. This increases your chances of being found in searches for more than just your main keyword phrases. And, those searches tend to convert better.
- Blogging can help you build authority. Authority helps you rank better. If you are a blog author, and your content is shared often, Google takes note and your content can rank better because you have more authority.
- Your blogs support the other content on your site. When you want to talk more about a product or service, but don’t have a logical place to put the content, or it just doesn’t fit in your navigation, blog about it! It helps build relevance for those keywords, which can help you rank better.
- If you include social sharing buttons on your blogs, and your content is shared, the search engines pick up on those social signals and can rank you better as a result.
Ok, I’ve convinced you right? You’re ready to hit the blogosphere with amazing content. What’s that? You have no idea what you’re going to write about? Have no fear, there are tons of ideas... here are a few:
- Share tips and tricks about, well, anything. People love tips.
- People love numbers and lists. “5 ways to...” or “the top 3 things...” or “10 steps to...”
- Case studies! Your clients and customers can be your best sales pitch. Let them represent your business, and link back from your blog post to the main landing page on your site that provides information on the product/service that helped that client achieve success. And share the link love and be sure to link to your client’s site too.
- Opinions. Everyone has one. You know the saying. If your market feeds on a lively discussion, go ahead and throw your opinions out there. It can generate a lot of activity and social sharing.
- Humor. We all need a laugh now and then. Lighten the load and post something fun on Fridays to hype up your readers for the weekend.
- Customer service. Do you keep getting the same questions from your customers? Post a blog with a detailed answer and then direct them all to the blog! People will link to and socially share useful content like this.
- Video and images. Let’s face it. Humans are lazy. We don’t want to read. We like pretty pictures and things that move.
- Make it personal. If you interact with the public, give each of your employees a blog profile and let them add their own flavor! A salon website would be great with a blog post by each of the stylists sharing their own style tips.
If you’re like most small business owners, you are probably overflowing with ideas, but still grumbling at the thought of having to find time to write them down. You are too busy running your business to write a blog. You are the idea person, not the blogger. Who the heck has time for all this? Yep, you guessed it, I have answers for you on this one too:
- Guest bloggers! If done right, it can really take some of the load off your shoulders. Seek out other experts, authors, well known bloggers, clients, customers, business associates, etc. who can contribute something useful to your site. Example - our attorney recently guest blogged for our site about a very important topic regarding who owns your site content when you hire a web designer.
- Freelancers and paid writers. Of course, you can always pay someone to write your blog. There are tons of freelance sites out there like Elance where you can find good freelance writers.
- Interns. Sometimes they are willing to work for free, just for the experience or college credits. As a small business owner, most of us are super cost conscious, and we love the price tag of free!
- Ghostwriting. Oooh spooky! No, not really. Perhaps you’re the smartest guy around the office, and no one knows how to talk about this stuff like you do. But you only have time to write down a few key facts. So you hire a professional writer to take those facts, make them sound good, and put your name on it.
- Use your internal resources. Think back to the salon example. If you have 10 stylists in your salon, and each of them writes a few blog posts here and there, you end up with a ton of content, and a nice personal touch to your site. You’ll be amazed at how some people really get into it and take ownership of their little space in the blogosphere!
What’s next? Bonus tips!
- Use Wordpress for your blog, but make sure it’s installed on your website and not wordpress.com. You want all that juicy content to help give your website authority and help your site rank better. Most servers will allow you to install Wordpress on your site, and many hosting companies have something built right into your hosting account. But you can go to wordpress.org and download the software too. And the price tag? Your favorite: FREE!
- Allow social sharing. If users love what they read, you want them to tell the world. There are tons of plugins for Wordpress that easily install and allow users to share your blog right from your page. We like Share Rail.
- Don’t forget the call to action! What do you want users to do when they get to the end of your blog? Contact you for more info, leave a comment, ask a question, view your products page, register for newsletter updates, purchase something, read more... the possibilities are endless. Just tell them what you want them to do and make it easy for them!
So there you have it, a veritable boatload of bloggy-fresh ideas and tips. Now get out there and get to blogging! Your customers will thank you for it, and so will your small biz
