As we get closer to the end of 2015 we are often asked why we blog, why should I blog, what is in it for us, and why should I use it for my business in 2016? For us there is no better way to answer this than to answer why we blog as a company, what we gain from blogging, and what are some of the reasons we see that blogging is important. By explaining why and how we blog you can take that information and compare it against your business model and see if it is something that works well for you.
We blog to further our own corporate knowledge and become true experts at what we do for you from Northwest Indiana. There is simply no better way for us to truly understand a technology better than by teaching it to others. We know many of our customers enjoy learning and have the time available to use the knowledge that we provide. For our customers that also like to read and better understand what we provide for them through our digital marketing services is another reason that we write blog articles. We have a deep desire inside of us to teach others what we know and become true experts in our field. We feel we cannot ask you to consider us an expert if we don't willingly share our expertise freely.
Having a blog allows JM2 to stay focused on what our company does best. By consistently writing about what our company does we are stating that this is a core value and belief of who we are and what we feel is of value to others.
A blog is a long-term effort. You can think of a blog as a marathon rather than a sprint. It can take months, even years, for your blog to attract an audience of quality followers. You don't write one blog post and then say you're done. You need to do so consistently and at a minimum of once every month to keep people engaged. We strive to achieve post articles at a lot faster pace than every other month. This post will be number 46 for us for 2015. This is an increase of 34% compared to 2014. This isn't about just increasing your posts each year though. You have to provide quality content and not just a quantity of content.
Our choices are decided at the end of the year for a large majority of our posts. We start our marketing strategy in October and finalize everything by the end of the November for the coming year. The remaining posts are based on what our current clients ask for throughout the year. This allows us to stay agile to the needs of our customers.
By creating unique content that is quality driven you will find that you will start attracting people that are interested in what you have to offer. As you grow your blog presence more people will also share your content as it is valuable to them. If you consistently create this quality content people will be watching to hear more about what you have to offer. With this quality content you will be strengthening your authorship with your audience which will also help you on the search engines.
Having a blog does not guarantee you a position one slot on the search engines. In fact, nothing can guarantee you an organic (free) position one slot. What we can say is the search engines look at consistent updates of quality content, expertise within your given field, and authority of the writers of your blog. Being a small company it can be an uphill battle to achieve authority but once you do reach that tipping point (there is no magical formula for this) you will see your search engine results improve.
With a blog you can strengthen your social reach with your blog content. Whether you use your website as a means to just inform or to your eCommerce having a blog can benefit your social media account. You can share your blog on your social media feed and have quality content on your social media site that links back to your website. Being part of a social media network is about sharing good quality content in your voice. By writing a blog you can let people know what your core values are, what type of person you are, and give back to those in the community. Your blog will also have ways of sharing your content on one or more social media platforms that you see as beneficial to your company brand.
When you start to blog consistently on topics others that are interested in learning more will start coming to your website. By having an active blog, you are providing a value to your customers. This value can lead to increased business, brand loyalty, and a way to increase awareness of your products and services.
We are certain that if we hadn't been creating our own original content and sharing it that we wouldn't be getting as many visitors to our website. We know this is subjective as viewership almost always will increase. In 2015 we have had over 7,000 unique visitors to our website each month. Of those unique visitors over 80% from previous months are returning to our website. Based on how they interact with our website we know they come to our homepage and then go to our most recent blog article. After that they will also go to other blog articles as well as visit our services page to see how we can further help them achieve success.
Having a website allows you to start building your company brand. You have a consistent color scheme that matches your company for starters. Each blog article (post) allows you to build authority and trust among your customers. Having a blog allows you to speak to your customers in a consistent tone of voice. This allows them to gain trust in who you as a business are. People tend to do business with people that they feel they know and can trust.
Your company's brand is one of the most important factors you will find that helps define the eventual success. By culminating blog information into your corporate culture you are building and strengthening your brand at the same time.
Absolutely not! Let me say that again – absolutely not! Although what we've covered above says all of the pros to what a blog is we see all too many that blog infrequently, blog once and quit, share content that they didn't write, or don't have a plan when they blog.
If you are not going to be creating unique content that can provide value to your customers, we strongly encourage our customers to not start blogging. We also suggest that you do not create a blog just to create a blog because your competitors have one. You need to have a value proposition for people when you decide you will be writing a blog. If sharing is more your style, then share information that others write. A great way to just share information is to use the Retweet option in Twitter or the Share button on Facebook.
For us writing and blogging is a passion of ours. Each article reinforces to us what is important about our desire to help businesses grow and learn. By teaching we are strengthening our expertise, educating others, building our company brand, and building an audience of people that have a desire to learn to make their websites better. Whether they do it themselves or have JM2 Webdesigners from Valparaiso Indiana helping them create an excellent service offering.
If you would like to learn more about how together we can solve your business problems, we would love to talk to you. You can reach us at @BUSINESSPHONETOLLFREE@, email at @BUSINESSEMAILADDRESS@, or through our online contact form here.