Blogging For Individuals And Businesses: How To Get Started
People often wonder if blogging is a necessary part of online business. Does it really make such a difference for a business to have or not to have a blog?
The main reason why blogging is highly recommended is the fact that it brings so many benefits for both individuals and companies.
Also, numerous statistics and industry reports keep confirming the fact that companies that blog see a lot of benefits from this activity, regardless if they generate leads, increase traffic, or boost sales.
Why is blogging so popular?
With 91.8 million new posts published each month on WordPress alone, there is no doubt that blogging has become mainstream.
It is an ideal outlet for everyone to have their voice heard. Apart from many benefits blogging can bring, there are three principal reasons why blogging has been growing in popularity over the past years.
#1 Reach
Blogging allows you to reach online users. It is an amazing asset for search engine optimization. With blogging, you create content, and search engines love new content. This directly increases the reach of your blog and expands the influence of your brand on the internet.
#2 Possibilities
With so many possibilities blogging provides, it is no wonder so many people blog. Starting from growing your traffic and reach, to building an entire career and becoming an influencer, blogging offers so many exciting possibilities.
Exploring these possibilities is based on your goals and the vision of how you want to grow your blog and which directions are perfect for your development as a blogger (or blog owner).
#3 Ease of use
Apart from an idea and an internet connection, you do not need anything else to start blogging today.
The online blogging platforms and tools are incredibly user-friendly, enabling everyone to take up blogging as a hobby or start their new career. Additionally, you will find lots of online tutorials, guides, and courses to explore the possibilities of blogging further.
Benefits of blogging
When talking about the benefits of blogging, it is essential to differentiate between individuals who blog and companies. A lot of these benefits do overlap for both cases, but due to the particular characteristics of blogging in both of these situations, some distinctions exist.
Benefits of blogging for individuals
The development of blogging has brought a unique opportunity for individuals to share their experiences. Individuals can share insights on the topic or circumstances they have personally experienced.
Not only does this become a great outlet for them to share knowledge, about both good and bad, but this kind of blogging is a way to truly make a difference. You get to affect people and help them with what they are going through, by sharing your own thoughts about the topic.
Besides experience, knowledge can be shared through blogging as well. If you are educated on a particular topic, and you believe some people are interested in learning, you can take up blogging and create your brand.
You can become an expert on the topic. Apart from growing your influence as a blogger, this can open many additional opportunities for you, such as being invited to workshops, speaking at conferences, etc.
The best way to improve as a writer is to write every day and to work on developing this skill consistently. Blogging can help you grow as an author and improve your skills with every new post.
Additionally, you get to publish your works without much effort. You do not need an editor or a publishing house.
Your writing can instantly be available to all online users when you start blogging. Of course, writers have an opportunity to grow their careers through blogging and eventually being offered book deals or other interesting collaborations with people from their industry.
#4 Start a business
A large percentage of well-known bloggers and influencers nowadays started their blog as a hobby.
Blogging is a hobby that offers so many ways to grow and turn your hobby into a business. You can become a speaker, you can advertise your services through a blog, or you can even open up your online shop. There are plenty of opportunities to monetize your blog (as you will see in one of the following chapters).
#5 Gain influence
As a blogger, you get a massive online audience you can reach through your content. Blogging enables you to gain the trust and respect of blog visitors. This influence opens up so many doors for you.
Collaborations with brands, interviews with celebrities, or even books deals are only some of the opportunities that you can have as an established blogger.
#6 Create an online community
A blog has that social aspect, allowing you to establish yourself as an author, but giving you an opportunity to chat with the readers at the same time.
Encourage visitors to participate with engaging questions, ask them for their feedback, or to leave a comment. As your blog reach grows, so will the online community. Many readers will be eager to join the discussion and start
interacting with you, as well as with the other readers. Earning respect from this community is possible through quality content.
Over time, this free community can grow into a premium club, which is another way you can start earning from your blog.
Benefits of blogging for businesses.
#6 Increase traffic
A blog provides content for your website. Ideally, this content is optimized to use keywords related to your business.
The more content you have, the more indexed pages you will get. This results in improved organic search visibility because search engines will have more of your links stored in their database, which are then shown as a response to a particular search query.
If you manage to get your website to come up as a result of many queries, you will increase website traffic. However, those search queries must be related to your content and your business.
#7 Improve SEO
Blogging is beneficial for website optimization in multiple ways:
• Keywords – Having a blog gives you more content that you can optimise for the keywords that are relevant to your business.
• Relevancy – The more relevant visits you have, the more likely the search engines are to see your website as relevant for the specific topic. This will give your website a high status and help with gaining a reputation.
• Off-site SEO – Content of exceptional quality generates links, which is one of the most relevant metrics used to assess a website’s reputation through off-site SEO elements.
• Freshness: This is another factor that will help you with search engines because they love seeing new content added and the old being updated.
The improved SEO rank also includes long-tail search queries. There are fewer long-tail searches than single-keyword searches. Still, long-tail keywords are considered to be higher-converting, which is why they are better for your overall website performance.
#1 Build influence in the industry
Blogging helps you increase your influence by establishing yourself as an expert in the industry. A blog is a platform where you can share industry-related information, study reports, insights,
and guides that your audience will find helpful. Building influence helps you increase trust. Online users start to identify your brand with a particular industry, they associate the brand with high quality.
This wa,y you already have an established connection with potential consumers, which can have a significant impact on their buying decision.
#2 Create a personalised approach
Even amazingly presented website content (on the homepage or about us page) cannot give your business that personal touch that a blog can.
Companies use blogs to add a personal side to their business by sharing stories about the production process, about employees, events, etc. This approach is guaranteed to increase trust in your brand and enable visitors to relate to your brand.
#3 Generate inbound links
Without a blog, you will have a hard time generating inbound links. Other blogs and influencers are less likely to link to the homepage of a business. On the other hand, if you have a useful guide for the industry you are in (for example, a guide for starting a blog), you can expect many relevant web pages to link to this content.
Many blogs that focus on the related topic will include such a link as a recommendation for their readers if they find it helpful and valuable. Not only are these links an important source of traffic, but they are also good for your website optimization.
#4 Collect emails
More content increases the opportunity to collect emails. Increasing your audience is going to encourage more interest in your brand, allowing you an opportunity to collect emails and further develop this business-to-customer relationship through email marketing.
You should make sure you use engaging CTAs and high-converting landing pages to collect more email addresses.
#5 Increase sales
Finally, all of these benefits companies see through blogging accumulate to an increase in sales. More collected emails, better search engine visibility, increasing traffic, and gaining more influence are all factors that directly increase sales.
This is how blogging becomes an asset in the sales strategy of your company, helping you generate sales through blog content.
Action Point
PS: I know you might agree with some of the points raised in this article or disagree with some of the issues raised.
Please share your thoughts on the topic discussed. We would appreciate it if you could drop your comment. Thanks in anticipation.
