Five reasons your small business needs blogs

There’s a reason – or five – why the majority of businesses, big and small, are putting resources into publishing blogs. Don’t miss the boat – or you may just find yourself sinking. 

1. Street Cred

When you publish regular, top-quality blogs, you demonstrate that you’re an authority in your field.   

Help ‘your target readers solve their problems, [and] they will see you as a credible and trustworthy source of information. You will become their go-to resource.’–Anya Skrba

If you paint houses, for example, write a blog on whether Weatherguard, Armaguard or Fast Hide is the best paint to use on your exterior surfaces. Give your readers (i.e. potential customers) the inside scoop, complete with relevant and free advice, such as how to store the extra paint and which colours weather best.

2. Kudos for customer relations

When Elaine the VA and mom-of-two reads your blog, she’ll appreciate that your small business cares about giving valuable free advice. By answering her questions with expertise only someone like you could know, your business’s generous (and therefore likeable and trustworthy) nature is implied.  

90% of consumers find custom content useful, 78% believe that companies behind content are interested in building good relationships.

TMG Custom Media

The long and short of it: People love getting something for free. Better yet, they love getting something for free that’s not common knowledge and that is actually valuable. Best yet? When this free, valuable thing fits the exact problem they have. 

They may not be ready to commit right now, but you’ll be top-of-mind when they are!  

3. Optimised search results

Here’s great news: When you publish blogs that discuss industry-specific topics, you automatically use organic SEO. (Read our blog on what the hell SEO even is and why it’s so important). 

Why does that matter? The keywords your potential user types into the search bar (‘how to paint my outside walls’) are the same ones as in your blog. In other words, they’re looking for help with the exact thing you do! 

They reach your site et voilà: a new customer relationship is formed!

Once you write 21-54 blog posts, blog traffic generation increases by up to 30%.

Traffic Generation Cafe

4. Selections for social media

You can bet your potential user is on social media, whether that’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. 

The beauty of a blog is that you can share it on all of these platforms and speak directly to your customer – where they already are. 

Select pieces out of your blog – nuggets of value – and share them on the different platforms at different stages (credit to Tiffany Markman for teaching me about ‘nuggeting’) .

5. Last, but not least: that human touch

The human(s) behind your business can (should!) come through in all the above.  

After all, ‘People want to do business with other people’ (thanks, Iconic Digital).

PS If you got value from this, don’t forget to share, share, share!

PPS Get other handy stats on blogs and how they help businesses here.