5 Surprising Benefits of Blogging
Blogging is kind of like exercising. It’s a great for your business’s overall health and has some surprising benefits that you may not know about.
While I’ve been blogging for over 3 years I still don’t consider myself a blogger. I just view blogging as a way to keep my business healthy, moving forward and further establish my expertise.
Blogging isn’t just great for establishing credibility and showcasing your expertise though, there are some more benefits you may not know of, let’s dive into five of the major benefits today.
1. Blogging gives people a reason to visit your website
The more people can come to your website, the more traffic you'll get, the more people can get to know you, view your services, and potentially work with you.
But how can you have people become return visitors? A great way to keep people coming back is through producing great, quality content on a blog.
When you post valuable, interesting content that your audience loves, you will gain a loyal following - one that will return over and over again to your site to read your posts.
This is why consistency is important in a blog, especially in the beginning stages. You want to establish yourself as trustworthy and a great way to do that is to publish your posts at the same time every week. If it’s 5am on a Monday like what I do, then do that every week. If you post Tuesday and Thursdays at 8am, keep that schedule for yourself. It’s important to keep your posting consistent. That way people know when they can expect to hear from you.
The more you build consistency, the more you build trust. So keep your content interesting, valuable and consistent. You’ll build a loyal audience in the long run.
2. Blogging shows your expertise
I mentioned this earlier, but having a blog is a great way to show your skill and knowledge on a topic.
When you can demonstrate your knowledge, especially in a long-form post (1200 words or more) you have the opportunity to elaborate on a topic, go in-depth and help explain something in extreme detail.
The more you can dive deep on a topic the more you are growing stronger in that area of expertise.
I recently came across a very high profile online business expert, Neil Patel and was honestly so surprised to read one of his blog posts.
It was a long-form post and he didn’t hold back ANY knowledge. He shared everything he knew on the topic and it was so incredibly valuable. He also linked to helpful articles to further explain certain points.
His blog was also easy to read and understand, which was nice since he was explaining a complicated topic. He positioned himself as an expert through presenting thorough and thoughtful information and also in a way that was relatable. After reading his post I really felt like he cared and wanted to help me succeed.
This is a great goal to aspire to do with your blog. Have people walk away feeling like you gave them all the information and didn’t hold anything back. This gives people a real reason to know, like and trust you which will help your business so much.
3. Blogging allows your audience to connect with you
A blog is a great way to connect with people. While it’s very different than podcasting, blogging is a way to express yourself and can start a conversation that may lead to lasting friendships.
I recently was reviewing some of my old blog posts from last year and I saw a thoughtful comment written by someone who later on became a client.
It may have taken 10 months, but that initial connection came from her blog post comment saying how helpful and thoughtful my post was. This thoughtful comment and interaction developed into a friendship, and ultimately an opportunity to work together.
Your blog is a great way to make connections in this way and also for you to share a more personal side of your life. I’m not saying it needs to be a blog about your life, but people feel like they can connect with you when you share personal stories or a journey you’ve been on, or struggles you've been through.
So when you have the chance to share more personal things, or even lessons you’ve learned - think of it as opening the door for connection.
Genuine connection is the goal for all marketing efforts and your blog is a great way to cultivate that.
4. Blogging increases SEO
Increasing your Search Engine Optimization is the goal for a lot of people with a blog.
Boosting your SEO is a great way to get found online, build authority as a business and get more clients.
Every single time you publish a post your chances for improving your SEO grows and blogs that are able to publish posts multiple times a week grow even faster.
Here are some ways your blog will improve your SEO:
Natural keywords
Blogging helps you use keywords naturally which is looked upon favorably by Google search engines. This is also why long form posts are a great idea.
Long-form posts are 1200 words plus and the reason these are great posts to have is because you will naturally use a lot of keywords in that long of a post. Especially when you’re diving deep on a topic, the more knowledge you have on the topic, the more Google will rank your post higher as being a better fit for what the user is looking for.
Google’s main objective is to make the user experience the most helpful, so the most helpful, useful, well-written articles on a topic will be pushed to the front of the line on a Google search page.
Bounce rates
When people come to your site and they leave after arriving on a page, it’s called a bounce. When you have a high bounce rate, it means people are coming to your site and leaving quickly, without clicking throughout your site, which can hurt your SEO.
When you have a blog that is full of valuable information, people are more likely to stay for several minutes to read your content, and maybe click around to links or recommendations. This is also why great design is so valuable to your site. The better laid out your site is and the more enjoyable for the visitor the more likely they will hang out on your site.
The lower the bounce rate, the better chance of improving your SEO. This another reason long-form posts are good. Shorter posts with less information that can be easily skimmed within 30 seconds will make your chances of bounce rates higher.
Links
Linking to other established sites is also a great way to improve your SEO as well. Especially sites that carry a lot of credibility such as CNN, Forbes, a .gov or a .edu, any time you add these links within a post (or link to your site) it increases SEO.
Even if a well-known industry leader links to your site it will improve your SEO. So the more chances you have to be a guest blogger for someone or if someone can guest blog for you and you can link to each other’s sites, the better.
5. Blogging gives you content to share
There are numerous ways to use blog post content after you hit publish.
Not all blog posts just disappear, on the contrary, having a lot of blog content can easily be recycled into an e-book or eventually an actual book, which is what happened in the case of Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity.
Hugh MacLeod, an avid blogger and creative "side-hustler" turned his blog into an Ebook that was downloaded over a million times. After so much success of his Ebook, he was sought after to put his book in print, which is where it lives today but it started out as a blog.
You can also use blog content for downloadable PDFs, or you can pull out phrases or quotes for other social media platforms. You can even turn a blog post into a video and talk about the topic on Facebook live, on a YouTube channel, or a podcast… the options are endless.
The more you share your content, the more you can be known for the things you write about.
If you haven’t started blogging for your business, or maybe you started once but have lost motivation or energy around it, I hope you’ll consider it as a great and healthy practice that can accelerate your business through growing a loyal audience and positioning yourself as an expert.
Tell me, do you have a business where you think blogging isn’t that important?
Do you talk yourself out of blogging sometimes? Or, if you do blog, have you noticed some of these benefits?
