THE IMPORTANCE OF BLOGGING

Blogging has come a long way since its first appearance in the late 1990’s. Blogging was initially used as a unique platform to share a person’s thoughts, feelings, opinions or experiences – an online journal or diary with a minimal following. Today, it has grown into a platform used by millions, everyone from individuals to businesses. The simplicity of a blog makes it easy for anyone to launch a blog and become a self-proclaimed “expert.” But how is it important in the business world?

A company blog can:

• Improve Your Website’s SEO (search engine optimization)
• Increase Traffic to Your Website via inbound links
• Enforce Your Brand as an Expert in a Particular Field

One of the most recently recognized benefits of blogging as a business is a blog’s ability to improve your website’s SEO. As discussed in “Google’s Love for Content,” Google has recently improved their algorithm to heavily focus on a website’s content and frequency of posts/updates. Therefore, if a blog is well-managed, meaning regularly updated and based on relevant topics to your business, it will increase your website’s SEO.

A company blog will also allow you to increase the number of relevant inbound links that will direct readers to the main parts of your website. This, along with SEO, will allow you to increase traffic to your website and the length of time that visitors spend on your site. You may even gain new customers as a result.

Another benefit to having a company blog is that its content gives your customers or readers the confidence to trust in you and your brand as an expert in your particular field. Many times this benefit is overlooked. There are readers at the other end of your blog, whether or not this is your main reason for building one. Keeping this in mind, you will be able to enforce a stronger brand connection with your readers and hopefully encourage those readers to return to your site for other relevant information or even purchases.

Blogging is no longer just an individual’s hobby; it has become an influential tool for the businesses of today. It has created an even playing field among businesses, allowing “mom and pop shops” to compete with the Fortune 500 companies. You do not need millions of dollars to maintain a blog; it simply requires someone educated in your field or even willing to do research in order to consistently update and educate your readers.