No matter how large you believe your company is, there's always that risk of a competitor gaining marketshare at your expense. There's always a good chance that you'll wake up one day to find that your most loyal clients have jumped ship and went with your competitor.
With the intense growth of ecommerce over the recent years, it's no wonder so many businesses have also entered the blogisphere. After all, blogging has been proven by plenty of Internet marketers to be a powerful means of promoting your products and services and making your company more known in the market.
How Blogging Benefits Your Business
Don't just start blogging because everybody else is doing it. It's very important that you actually understand how blogging can actually grow your business.
Here are some of the top reasons why you need to engage in blogging:
Credibility
You simply can't expect most customers to trust you and believe in what you're offering at the beginning of the sales cycle. But when you constantly blog about what you know, share tips within your field of expertise, and are transparent about your company's efforts, your credibility increases over time. People begin to have faith in your promises and claims. You'll discover that more people are willing to give your products and services a try.
Authority
Blogging can help you establish yourself as an authority figure or thought leader in your industry, hence drawing people closer and making them perceive your company as trustworthy and reliable. Potential customers will likely pick you or your organization over competitors as you establish yourself as an authority figure on a given topic.
Traffic
It's not enough to simply have wonderful on page descriptions and great photos for your catalog on your website. When you continuously blog about topics that your target audience is concerned about, you'll be able to attract more people to your website who may eventually take interest in your products and services. These blog readers and visitors are also likely to explore your site and subscribe to your email list. Over time, if not immediately, they may turn into actual customers.
Relationship
Blogging doesn't have to be a one-way street. It's actually another remarkable way to build and maintain a good relationship with your existing clientele. Sharing free information that's valuable to them will make them feel that you or your organization truly cares. You can therefore establish a stronger lasting relationship and encourage them to keep informed of your items and offers. Furthermore, you can motivate these customers to give feedback through comments as well as participate in your promos.
How to Grow Your Blog Followers
Now that you have a better idea about why blogging is important for business, the next step is to learn how to grow your blog’s followers. You can't just keep posting blog entries blindly. There are specific methods that you must apply in order to make the most of it.
Take a look at these major factors that you'll have to take into account when blogging:
Content
Don't just blog anything. Blog only relevant, high quality content. This means that you need to provide significant info with a nice, easy-to-read writing style that your customers will appreciate. It also means that you shouldn't always try to sell or market anything in every post, but instead focus on giving quality content.
Moreover, always proofread or get a professional to do it for you. Wrong grammar and poor writing can drive people away and lower your credibility.
Appearance
How does your blog page look? It ought to have a professional look, so make sure that you fix the layout well and pick out good fonts. If you can, it would be good to actually ask a website design specialist to handle the appearance of your blog so as to look amazing while incorporating the branding of your company.
Interaction
Many blogs managed by businesses forget to encourage interaction. One great way to do it is to always have a "call to action". What do you wish for the readers to do? If you want them to sign up for your email list, then go ahead and ask. If you want them to check out your ongoing clearance sale, then get straight to the point and ask. Don't hesitate to add this "call to action" and be direct, not necessarily in every post.
Furthermore, why don’t you also motivate readers to leave comments about the issue you're discussing? People like to feel that their opinions matter. Therefore, if your blog post is about beauty tips, you may ask readers to share in the comment box those that they've already tried and other tips that they may want to impart to the other readers.
Variety
You should also inject variety into your blog entries. Aside from giving tips related to your industry, you can interview specialists, feature customers, share industry news, show and discuss relevant videos, and many more! This way, you can grow your readers and keep existing ones interested and engaged.
Optimization
Have you heard of SEO? If you've been running a website for a while now, you probably have. Well, this search engine optimization must also be applied to your blog. It's not just how you integrate pertinent keywords that may help web searchers discover your articles. You need to link your blog with your social media accounts and share your posts there. It's also crucial to install and utilize wonderful SEO plugins. If you're not sure how to go about these things, get a SEO expert to handle this for you.
Subscription
Develop loyal blog followers and readers by coming up with a subscription wherein people can opt-in. Prepare a good landing page that includes an optimized form and encourages visitors to sign up and thus always be notified of new blog entries. Aside from the design itself, it's essential to offer something enticing too, such as exclusive promos for blog subscribers or a raffle they could enter by being part of the group.
With these factors in mind, you can maximize your blogging efforts and really expand your exposure in the long run. And when your blog is on a roll, you can expect the sales to keep going up too.