Why Every Business Should Be Blog Marketing

While blogging has become a popular form of communication, many might wonder if it is still an important platform to build a brand — considering all the other forms of online communications out there from social media to mobile advertising.

While blogging may sound so 2004 – it is very much 2014.  Many people have used blogging to become thought leaders in their industry vertical and build a personal brand than can surpass corporate rivals with much higher marketing and PR budgets.  Blog marketing is one of the most cost effective brand management tools for business.

Here are three good reasons why every business should blog:

Thought Leadership

A blog is an open forum to become a thought leader in your space.  In addition, experts say “…You are building trust, too. The more you can show that you are well-versed in your field, the more likely your consumer will trust you to supply what they need.”

Search Engine Journal notes that many tech bloggers who started out with a few readers are now a legion in their field. Examples include Robert Scoble, Pete Cashmore and others who have turned their blog marketing into successful business enterprises.

That said, on your journey to becoming a thought leader, it is important that your blog content is not self-promotional.  You need to think of content that is provocative or helpful but a blog is not just an excuse to publicize your company.

Search Engine Journal says: “Technology thought leaders focused on publishing long-form, brilliant articles that put their talent and knowledge on display. Being an expert is not talking about yourself. Do that and your efforts will backfire on you.” 

Market Research

A blog is a great way to ascertain how your customers are feeling about the issues in your field.  Writing posts and inviting comment can offer you great insight into the customer mindset.  Whether your customers respond to you via social media or on the blog itself – this type of information is priceless.

Search Engine Optimization – SEO

Blog marketing is a strategic tool to get more out of search engines.  If you contribute regularly to your blog, it “incites more online crawling” and that is a great way to get mentioned in relevant online searches.  Being first or second or even in the top five of search engines is a good bet and way to promote your business – without being too obvious about it.  That said you need to make sure your blog is optimized with keyword phrases so that it does gets picked up

According to a recent survey, companies that blog get 97 percent more inbound links, 55 percent more website visitors and generate 88 percent more inbound leads and 434% more indexed pages than companies who do not blog.