So you have a website. Great. Nothing unusual in that unless it’s an exceptionally high performer, or an exceptionally low performer. What changes on your website? Is it the same each and every time someone revisits it? Would you get bored visiting a site like yours if nothing had changed each time you went there?
Search engines love fresh content
Unless yours is a retail website with an ever-changing array of goods on offer, the likelihood of the information changing on your website, and thereby enticing visitors back over and over, is pretty low.
Not only does this create a stagnation effect on your website content, but it also results in poor rankings on the search engines. A static site, especially one with a low rate of repeat visitors has very little to offer the search engines, so it slips, page by page.
You could change the content. You could rewrite your home page every week or so. You could jazz up your About page to include new awards you’ve won or add some new testimonials to a dedicated page. Can you do these things yourself or do you have to pay your webmaster to make such changes? Would you even know what to change on your static pages?
Now, how about a blog?
1. Autonomous content changes
You can make your own changes on a regular basis simply by having a blog on your website. You can keep it regularly updated with fresh content and that alone will give your visitors excellent reasons to return for another look. Updating your own blog doesn’t cost a cent and you’re in control of how, when and how often the content changes.
2. Boost your social media presence
Whenever you add a new blog post, you can tweet a link to it or add the link to Facebook. That way, you gain exposure in new audiences, especially if your followers retweet or share the link to their followers. When you use social media in this way, it boosts your credibility and makes people want to know more about your offering. You also get to drive more traffic to your website via your blog.
3. Make your information available to everyone
Not everyone wants to sign up for your newsletter. And not everyone wants to engage your services or buy your product until they’ve had a chance to sample what you’re about. A blog is a way for visitors to learn more about you and your business without having to go out on a limb. You can build trust with unseen, unheard visitors without being ‘in their face’ as they might otherwise perceive it.
4. Provide something for free
Your blog can contain advice, information, humour, product details, recipes, statistics, news commentary and media releases. It can address and answer frequently asked questions and provide updates on topical items. It can make your website ‘the’ place to go for interesting and valuable information that a visitor can’t find anywhere else.
5. Link to products or other content
Use your blog to mention products that you sell and link to the appropriate product page. This is an indirect way of suggesting an item because what you are doing is the online equivalent of mentioning it in conversation and facilitating the sales process if the visitor wants to take advantage of it.
6. Create brand advocates/addicts
If your blog is written with as much enthusiasm as you have for your business in general, then your visitors will likely turn into brand advocates, or even brand addicts. Do you visit a blog religiously to find out what the writer is up to now? Do you find the content on someone else’s business blog so compelling and useful that you drop in daily with your morning coffee so you can catch up on small business goodness? This could be your readers. What do you have to offer?
7. Search engine optimisation
A blog is a fantastic way of attracting attention from the very people who are looking for what you have to offer! Get your blog ranking highly on the search engines by making use of keywords. A little keyword research will tell you what people are searching for, and then you’ll use those keywords and key phrases to boost the content to make it more attractive to Google.
How to set up a blog
- You can set up your own free blog using a WordPress template.
- You can engage the services of a blog designer who will create your blog to look just like your website.
- Or, you can have your web designer integrate a blog into the design of your existing website. If you need recommendations for these professionals, I can put you in touch with someone suitable. Just ask me.
If you need help to get your blog content started, let me know. One of the services I provide is writing blog posts for clients. You may want me to write the first three or four and then chat with you about how you can take it from there.
For blog content that keeps visitors coming back, contact me.
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