Blogging is often overlooked as a marketing tool, but done properly it can have a real impact on what your business earns. Here is what it actually involves, where the value comes from, and when it is not worth your time.
What is blogging?
Blogging is a form of online publishing where individuals or businesses share their thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences with a wider audience.
A blog post typically includes text, images and video, and a blog is updated regularly with new content. Blogs can cover anything from personal experiences to news and current events to specific areas of expertise. They give people a way to express themselves, share information and engage with others in a conversational way.
Is blogging important?
Blogging has become an important tool for businesses, organisations and individuals looking to establish an online presence, build their brand and connect with customers.
Through a blog, a business can share useful information, show what it knows and engage with its audience in a meaningful way.
Think about it this way. When you read a post that genuinely tells you something, you are more likely to remember the name of the company behind it and have a look at their website. And if that company keeps producing useful content, you are more likely to buy from them when the time comes. That is the real value of blogging: it gets you known before anyone needs you.
Five ways blogging can help your business grow
- Improving search engine optimisation (SEO): regularly updating a blog with relevant, high-quality content can improve a website’s ranking on search engines and make it easier for potential customers to find you.
- Building brand awareness: by publishing informative and engaging content, a business can establish itself as an expert in its field and build a loyal following.
- Generating leads: by including calls to action in blog posts, businesses can encourage readers to take a specific next step, such as filling out a form or making a purchase.
- Engaging with customers: a blog gives you somewhere to answer questions, address concerns and share your own experience, rather than waiting for people to ask.
- Staying top of mind: keeping a blog updated with fresh content helps keep your business at the front of customers’ minds and increases the chances of repeat business.
The SEO side is the one most business owners underestimate. In fact, businesses that blog receive 97% more links to their website. Those links help your site rank higher in search results, which makes it more likely that potential customers will find you.
Regular blogging also gives you more opportunities to use the words and phrases your customers actually type in, so you turn up for the specific things you do rather than only for your company name.
What to actually write about
This is where most business blogs come unstuck. People sit down to write something impressive and end up with general advice that already exists on a thousand other sites. The posts that work are much more mundane than that.
Start with the questions you answer on the phone every week. What does this cost, how long does it take, what is the difference between these two options, do I need planning permission, can you work around my opening hours. Each of those is a post, and the answer you would give a customer on the phone is the post. Write it in the words you would actually use.
After that, look at the jobs you are proud of and write up what was tricky about them. Specific detail is what separates a useful post from filler, and it is the part nobody can copy from you. Local angles work well too: if you fitted something in a particular type of building, or dealt with a problem common to houses in your area, say so. That is the kind of post that brings you the right sort of enquiry, and it supports your local SEO at the same time.
When blogging is not the right call
We would rather say this than sell you something you do not need. Blogging is not worth it for every business.
If you are a one-man band whose work all comes from recommendations and a strong local listing, your time is better spent keeping that listing accurate and collecting reviews. If your site is slow, confusing or hard to use on a phone, fix that first, because adding posts to a site people leave straight away achieves very little. And if you cannot see yourself keeping it up, two posts and then silence looks worse than no blog at all.
Blogging earns its keep when customers research before they buy, when what you sell needs explaining, or when you want to reach beyond the people who already know your name.
FAQ
How often should a small business blog?
Less often than most advice suggests, but consistently. One genuinely useful post a month beats four thin ones, and it certainly beats six in a burst followed by eighteen months of nothing. Pick a rhythm you can keep up during your busiest period, because that is when posting usually stops.
How long should a blog post be?
Long enough to answer the question and no longer. A straight answer to a specific question might take 400 words. A proper guide to choosing between two products might take three times that. Padding a short answer out to hit a word count makes the post worse, and readers can always tell. Say what you need to say, then stop.
How long before blogging shows results?
Months rather than weeks. A new post takes time to be found and ranked, and the effect builds as posts accumulate and start supporting each other. Expect a few months before you see steady traffic from search, and treat anything faster as a bonus. It is a slow compounding exercise rather than a campaign.
Do I have to write the posts myself?
Not necessarily, but your knowledge has to end up in them. The posts that work have real detail in them, the sort you only get from doing the job. If someone writes on your behalf, give them the awkward questions and the stories from difficult jobs, otherwise you end up with the same bland advice as everybody else.
Where to start
If blogging is not part of your marketing yet and the points above sound like your sort of business, start small. Write down the ten questions customers ask you most often, then answer one of them properly. That is a better first step than any content plan.
Here at Strand we offer a local SEO package where we take all of the stress out of blogging. We will write and add 9 subject-specific blog articles for your website as part of a monthly package. If you would rather talk it through before committing to anything, get in touch and tell us what your customers keep asking you.
