Should You Add a Blog to your Small Business Website?
“Should I add blogs to my website?” If you’ve found yourself asking this question, you are not alone. It is one of the most common questions asked by almost every small business website owner. However, the answer to that question is not as simple as it seems. There’s a lot of things that go in writing a blog, and most people don’t seem to understand how much they have to work.
With that said, blogs are one of the top marketing techniques to improve your website’s visibility and reach out to your potential customers. It can also drive traffic to your page, improve your brand’s reputation, and enhance SEO capabilities.
So, should you add a blog to your small business website? Let’s dig in and find out if it would be suitable for you.
First, let us look at the cons of adding blogs to your website:
The Cons
Requires a lot of time and commitment:
SEO experts will tell you to put up blogs if you want your website to do well. However, one thing that they will miss out on is just how much time and commitment it requires. It is not the early 2000s anymore. You cannot just add a blog and expect everyone to be pleased by it.
In the present competitive age, you actually have to work hard for it. You will need the best content along with a great strategy, visuals, and an undying commitment to promoting your content daily.
Back in the day, blogging was all about quantity. The quality did not really matter. As long as you posted something and posted consistently, you would reap the rewards. But now, readers, as well as Google, have become smarter and very difficult to please.
To write something that would actually reach your target audience, your blog should be at least a thousand words. Most of the top pages on SERP (Search Engine Result Page) had an average of 1,800 words. This is one of the reasons why some of the best bloggers are putting up blogs of around 4,000 to 8,000 words to generate leads.
To give you an idea of what it takes to post an effective blog, here are some of the things that you would actually have to do:
- Research your keywords.
- Create multiple graphics that you can use while sharing your post on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
- Do some more research to create the best headline.
- Write a description for different social media accounts.
- Post it on every social media account.
- Make videos or infographics to post with the blogs.
- Monitor your performance and see what type of content performs well.
- Update your old post to improve SEO and bring in new traffic and engagement.
Tons of Competition:
If you haven’t realized already, you’re going to have to deal with a ton of competition. And not just any competition but with professional marketers, writers, and bloggers to get the attention of YOUR target audience.
So, it goes without saying that a large portion of your competition will be really good at what they do. Blogging is a career for them, and it’s something that they do all the time. With some of the best content, huge audiences, and regular promotion, you have to know that your competition will be extremely tough.
You also have to remember that whatever you are thinking of writing, some other blogger may have already done it and done an amazing job as well. So, how are you going to write something different?
If all this information seems a bit intimidating for you, believe us, you should be. However, we’re not saying it is something impossible, and you should give up on it. We just want to let you know that you should not expect miracles overnight.
If your only plan is to add some blogs every once in a while and share them on a few social media pages, you’re better off blogging nothing at all. You’ll gain no benefit our of it. If all these make you feel that blogging does not seem the right option for you, don’t worry. It does not work for most small businesses as well.
With all that said, let’s look at some of the reasons why you should blog for your small business.
The Pros
SEO:
Blogs can be one of the best ways to help you reach the number one spot on SERPs. How? You can write a blog for your page revolving around specific keywords that your target audience may search with. Make sure you have the answer that searchers look for because that is one of the main things that Google really cares about.
Establish Authority:
If you want to be successful with your small business, it is extremely important for you to establish authority early on. And blogging can help you do just that. You’ll be able to reach a wide range of audiences through your blog.
Your blog should be able to educate your potential customers and provide all the information that they might need, such as, what you are selling, what you’re good at, or what industry you’re performing under.
Drive Traffic through your social media:
If you want to reach out to your potential customers online, you need to have a social media presence. In order to build a relationship and engage with customers online, you should have a kind of message to get to them. That’s where blogs come in.
With attractive titles and content that make people stay, you can drive more traffic through social media by using your blogs.
Conclusion
It is clear that blogging comes with a certain number of drawbacks that may seem intimidating to many. However, if you look at the pros, the benefits definitely outweigh the disadvantages, provided that you’re willing to remain consistent and work hard. With good blogs, you can effectively increase your page visibility and bring in more traffic. However, if you’re not willing to put in the work, you’re better off with no blogs at all.