Drive Traffic, Leads & Brand Sentiment with a Business Blog

Don’t you get crunchy every time you think of updating your blog? Doesn’t blogging just seem to take a lot from you?

Many of us view blogging as a necessary evil. We already know blogging is an indispensable marketing tool, yet we slack and fail to produce top quality content. We come up with so many excuses for not blogging such as:

1. I am not a good writer
2. I don’t have time to write
3. I am not good enough
4. I don’t need a blog
5. I don’t have a huge marketing budget
6. All possible topics are already taken
7. This is not the right time
8. I don’t have enough good ideas, etc.

But let’s not pretend here that blogging at the highest level is easy. It isn’t. Let’s face it. Writing and maintaining high-quality blog content with consistent brand messaging is time-consuming and requires discipline. In other words, blogging at the highest level is not for the faint-hearted, nor is it for the impatient lot.

Having said that, blogging is indispensable. It is the Holy Grail of online marketing, and without it, your marketing efforts will suffer.

According to Hubspot, blogs are responsible for 97% of inbound links to companies’ website. Moreover, 37% of marketers consider blogging as the most valuable form of marketing. According to another source, Blogher, 81% of online UK consumer consider blogs as a trustable avenue of gathering information. Regarding SEO, sites with blogs have 434% higher chance of being indexed in search engines. Generally, businesses that have blogs get 126% more leads growth than businesses with no blogs.

Overall, there has been an increase in the number of blogs published over the years, which underscores the fact that marketers are increasingly noting the important role blogs play in attracting strong leads.

Enough of the stats! The bottom line is that blogging is vital.

Five Reasons Why You Need To Start Blogging Today

A common misconception about blogging is that blogs are not a priority. If you are serious about creating a profitable online business, you need to invest your time, money and effort into blogging. Here are five reasons why blogging is important for your business.

1. It is a powerful branding tool

Branding is a big deal for both small and big businesses. People trust brands that they are familiar with. So big companies invest millions of pounds to build their brands. Small businesses can also build their brands by blogging.

Blog posts give one an opportunity to share ideas, views and creative reflections with your audience. This creates trust and credibility. Hence, your audience will keep coming and even buy your products.

1. It attracts audience

Through blogging, you can reach billions of internet users globally. Therefore, blogging is one of the best tools to promote yourself. If you create a blog that is value to people, you will be able to attract visitors to your site. People who are looking for valuable information may end up buying from you.

Think about it. Would you rather click on a page title “Buy Marketing Services from the US”, or a page that says “10 Vital Marketing Lessons from Expert Marketers?” When you create a valuable blog, you attract an audience which you can eventually convert to customers.

1. It fuels social media

If you are frequently posting high-quality content, your social media followers will increase because people tend to share posts that make a good impression on them. Include social share buttons on your blog to encourage people who like your posts to share in the social media timelines. This will not only increase your social media followers but also improve your search engine rankings.

1. It creates engagement

Here is the first lesson you learn in marketing: people will not do business with you if they don’t like or trust you. As a marketer, this should be your first priority. Ensure your audience like you by creating likeable content. Likeable content is one that solves their problems by striking an emotional chord with their inner feelings.

1. It helps you to grow your email list

What better way is there to grow your email list? Blogs are the best fishing grounds for an email list, and money is on the list. Most marketers use their blogs as lead generation tools via opt-ins. Visitors who like your content become subscribers and eventually buyers and raving fans.

You see, the bottom line is, if you are not blogging, then you are losing a big chunk of your customers to those who are blogging.

How Do You Write Better Business Blogs?

Writing blogs just for the sake of writing is a waste of time and money. Blogging is both science and art. It is a science because to produce high quality, viral blogs, to follow certain fundamental rules/plan. It is also an art because a blog is where you express yourself creatively. Just because you are a natural talent doesn’t mean that you automatically have a knack for writing fantastic blog posts. As Shakespeare once advises, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the blogging world.” Blogging is crucial for your business reputation. Therefore, you have to get it right.

Here is how to write great blogs…

The internet is awash with content. If your content is average, you have a little chance of attracting few visitors here and there. If your content is bad, sorry to say, you have zero chances. However, if you have great content, you have a chance. Content is not king. Great content delivered to the right audience at the right time is.

1. Brand yourself as a superstar

If anyone is going to become a superstar blogger, they must brand themselves like one. Heard of the phrase ‘fake it till you make it?’ The way you carry yourself says a lot about your business.

Mimic, copy, learn from and behave like other great bloggers in your industry. How do they write? What resources do they use? Do not settle for cheapness; rather, aim for greatness.

1. Become insane and never admit it. Become hypnotized

Throw in an insane amount of work per week. Producing one post every month sucks. Try 2, 3, 5, even ten posts per week, but don’t overdo it. Remember to maintain quality. If you have to choose between quality and quantity, go for quality. All the time.

1. Share names of influential people in your blog

Not name dropping. But mentioning influential bloggers helps in terms of spreading the word. One can even dedicate an entire post to an influential blogger. E.g. 5 Copywriting Tactics You Can Steal from Seth Godin. Quote them. Disagree with them etc. This can form a very genuine reason for them to comment on your blog, share it, react to it and that means more links, social mentions and eyeballs.

1. Offer over-the-top generous free resources

There is a time to receive (sell) and a time to give (free resources like e-books). Don’t expect to receive something for nothing. If anything, you must tune your mind to the fact that you must give a lot in order to receive a little. So offering over-the-top generous free resources such as an e-book, a free trial, a sample and so on is one way to attract visitors to your site.

1. Write (almost) too-good-to-be-true posts

In the blogging world, there exists a generous room for a bit of exaggeration. This is not to say bloggers should lie, but they should not be afraid to make bold statements, e.g., “How to Start a Small Business and Make $20,000 Profits in 21 Days”.

Warning: The post should at least live up to its pompous headline; otherwise the blogger’s credibility goes out through the window.

1. Make a conscious decision to become memorable

There are some tech & psychological hacks bloggers can use to become memorable in the minds of their readers. This include:

1. Easy Blog design
2. Respond to blog comments from your readers
3. Inspire audience in a unique way e.g., giving inspiring stories, providing insights, motivating them to take action, etc. Be funny, play with words. Use never-heard-of analogues and similes
4. Walk in the shoes of the audience. Help them avoid pain. Help them find happiness. Show them that you care
   Use visuals such as images, infographics, graphs, etc.

• Sharpen your saw for longer. Think like Einstein

Superstar bloggers are lifetime students. For them, true learning started the day they acquired the blogger’s pen. From there, there is no going back and they have to think like Albert Einstein; give each topic a unique angle, think differently, find time to be alone in a room. It is what I call the “blogger’s quantum learning.”

1. Establish spiritual connection with your readers

I will borrow some Joe Vitale’s ideas in his book “Spiritual Marketing”. It is about connecting with readers on a deeper level than just issuing information. It is about becoming one in spirit with the audience.

Additional Reading: 7 ways to increase customer engagement

1. Understand social media like the palm of your hand. Watch what is trending

The social media landscape keeps changing and tweaking. Do not be left behind. Be active on social media or hire someone. Know what is happening. It is an ever-changing world.

1. Unlearn what you already know

There are some common myths about blogging which you need to unlearn as quickly as possible. They include:

1. “If you build it, they will come”—wrong. You will have to go out and look for them. You have to use all means to bring your prospects to your site—guest blogging, social media, blog commenting, pay per click advertising, SEO, video and animations on YouTube, etc. are all things you need to do to attract traffic.
2. “Write many 500-700 words posts because readers have short attention spans”—wrong. Readers have no problem reading a 1000-5,000 word post so long it is filled with quality content, and you provide useful information. In fact, longer posts tend to do better than short articles.
3. “You don’t need to pay for a premium hosting since there are many free ones”—wrong. Free hosting accounts come with some undesirable limits such as bandwidth, the number of visitors, space, speed, security and domain hosting limitations. Free hosting is not good for serious business.
4. “If you link to a competitor’s blog, you will lose your readers”—you don’t lose visitors this way. In any case, you stand to win.
5. “If you can’t write impeccably or English is not your first language, you can’t blog”—if that were the case, we wouldn’t be privileged to read great blogs like ShoutMeLoud. Focus on delivering great content at a fairly easy pace that can be understood by a 5th grader and leave the complex grammar to the English professors.
   Additional reading: 6 blogging myths bustedhttp://www.entfire.com/2016/03/6-common-blogging-myths-debunked.html
6. “Blogging is a fad which will eventually fade”—well, blogging is here to stay. I doubt blogging will die in our lifetime. Instead, we will witness more advanced forms of blogging.

“You have to post every day”—no you don’t have to, but if you can, that would be awesome.

1. Change water into wine and extract water from rock

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel to become a superstar blogger. You can change an already boring topic into a viral content people would love to read and share.

E.g., a superstar blogger can change a drab topic like “How To Monetize Your Blog” to something like “10 Little-Known Blog Monetization Strategies That Even Neil Patel Will Agree With”

1. Venture like Christopher Columbus

You can blog about unusual topics or unknown territories. This is for those who can see where others can’t (e.g. blogging about future technology)

1. Write more and more about less and less

Unless you are a super human, you can’t be a jack-of-all-trades and a master-of-all. Superstar bloggers often focus on a very particular niche
It is easy to start a blog, but it is hard to build a successful blog and maintain it. If you want to drive stronger traffic, and create strong brand awareness, consistency is the key. Certainly, you can’t get away with a bogus blog. Either Google will punish you for providing your audience with crappy content, or your customers will move to other useful sites or both. But one thing that I cannot guarantee is overnight success. In the blogosphere, there is no such thing as overnight success. Make sure you stick to the right strategies and you will eventually start reaping the fruits of your labour even it takes months.