What role does blogging play in your online marketing strategy? How important is it? Is it even worth doing?
Like most forms of content marketing, blogs have become a very popular medium. There are about 70 million posts being published each month by WordPress (a website & blogging software) users. Also, 77 million new blog comments are generated by readers each month.
These statistics show that more and more companies are jumping onto the bandwagon of blogs.
But why is it important to have a blog?
Why do blogs exist?
The creation of search engines (particularly Google) has brought a lot of people online, seeking answers to the many questions they have.
Whenever a person makes a search, Google and other search engines go through different websites on the internet to find contents that match the keywords used in that search.
The results shown are a collection of web pages that are related to the search keywords.
A blog makes an attempt to provide answers to certain things people are likely to be searching for, so that the search engine can recommend the page to the audience.
But … why should a company care?
Businesses and companies pay a lot of attention to blogs because it serves as a form of indirect marketing.
When you search for “how to ride a bicycle,” Google returns a collection of results. These results are provided by different sources which include companies that are also selling bicycles.
So as you click on a search result, say from Bicycling.com, you will be taken to a blog article that explains how to ride a bicycle. And that’s the magic.
Through the blog post, Bicycling.com has been able to bring you into their store (website) and so have the opportunity to also market their products to you.
Since you searched for “how to ride a bicycle,” there are chances that you may want to get a bicycle. Bicycle.com have been able to position itself as a choice.
This simple analysis describes the fundamental reason why companies are investing time and effort in blogs. It is a free and more trusted form of marketing.
What do blogs do?
Blogs solve problems.
They provide solutions to the 5.6 billion searches that are made every day. And if done strategically well, blogs can also serve as a major source of leads.
Articles written on blogs are pure forms of value creation. “Google know everything,” not because of its marvellous algorithm, but because of the millions of people that are creating content online every day.
These are the people that are providing solutions to the problems individuals are facing. But not all blogs are created equal; some are more effective than others.
Important points to remember
- Your blog is mainly an attempt to solve problems, not to make money.
- Creating quality blog content is very important.
- Blogs can serve as an easy way for you to generate leads
- Leads generated from blogs are likely to have higher lifetime value
- If you don’t have one, go on and create a blog for your business.
