Online blogs began appearing for the first time in 1994 and they’ve been an important part of the internet ever since.
In the most basic form, a blog is a website that is routinely updated by an individual or group of people, with the overall tone of the website conversational and informal.
For an individual, it might be a kind of diary or journal. For a business, it’s an avenue to keep in contact with customers.
At first, blogs were primarily something that people did to share their creative writing. They’ve now grown into a powerful marketing tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
We’ve all seen personal blogs for businesses here and there, but how are they beneficial exactly? Let’s take a look at the reasons why blogging for businesses can lead to retail success.
Drive traffic to your website
Every time you publish a new update to your blog you’re increasing the chances of your business appearing higher in search engine results.
This drives traffic to your website and by extension, creates new opportunities for sales and forging of longer-term relationships with customers.
Regular blogging for businesses also tells Google and other search engines that you have an active website that should be crawled regularly for new content. That goes a long way to keeping you towards the top of search results.
Repurpose content
Creating authentic, interesting and worthwhile social media posts every day can become a challenge.
One sure-fire way to help with content creation and increase website traffic is to promote your blog posts on social media platforms, effectively ticking two boxes at once.
Each link to your blog that you share on social media has the potential to be shared further by your followers, reaching new audiences and potential customers.
Convert traffic
When you’re blogging for a business each new update helps convert website traffic into new leads. At the end of each article, there should always be some kind of call to action. An action you want the reader to do after they finish reading.
This call to action should be linked to a landing page that invites the reader to provide more information or to simply contact the business directly.
Consider including some sort of offer for free products or reduced prices, either on the update or on a separate landing page. The more people that follow this call to action, the more chances you have to convert traffic into leads for your business.
Establish yourself as an authority
Successful business blogs will try to answer the questions they feel their readers and customers may have.
It’s an approach that is beneficial for multiple reasons. The most straightforward benefit is that it helps your customers. The added benefit is that it places your business or brand in a positive light as an industry leader.
Your audience will begin to view your business as a reliable source of helpful guidance and this practice goes a long way towards creating trust between a business and customer.
When it comes to customer priorities, trust in a business is always a highly-sought characteristic. For jewellery retailers, trust is what keeps a customer returning. It also increases the chance that they will share or recommend your products or services to those they know.
Long term returns
The beauty of blogging for your business is that your updates have the potential to continue bringing traffic to your website long after they have been posted.
In marketing, ‘evergreen’ products or tools are those with lasting appeal or value. An evergreen post or update for a blog is one that keeps readers returning long after it has been posted.
The level of traffic generated by an update or post usually drops off after a few days, however, if it’s well ranked by search engines or features information that’s worth revisiting for customers, an update or post may gain long-term value.
It’s important to revisit older posts and find ways to edit them to keep them relevant. It can be as simple as replacing older links or adding new information that fits with the current climate.
Share business news
One final way blogging may benefit your business is by acting as a conduit for sharing exciting developments that impact your business, be they big or small.
These sorts of posts and updates humanise your brand, build trust with customers and help your audience see that it’s not always about selling a product or service.
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