In the last few years, blogging has been slowly losing its lustre and momentum as a go-to channel, often being overshadowed by social, email, and more visually heavy channels.
Many conversations around marketing now focus on how to go viral, stand out on social media, leverage AI tools and integrations, and blogging is rarely even mentioned.
Which is a shame.
Blogging for your business is a fantastic way to capture new audiences, increase organic traffic, and enhance your online presence.
Once you get into the swing of it, it can actually be really fun, too.
As an advocate of blogging, especially for businesses, I often bring it up when discussing marketing with business owners. This is often then met with, “Do we even need a blog?”.
The short answer, I believe, is yes, your business does need a blog.
But it’s a tad more nuanced than this. So, in this post, I’ll be diving into why your business needs a blog, how it can benefit your brand, and the ins and outs of blogging so you can be confident your resources are well spent.
Benefits of Blogging for Your Business
You’ve likely heard of the benefits of blogging before.
Generally speaking, the often highlighted benefits of a business blog – which I’ve already fallen victim to mentioning – relate to the increase in organic traffic. There are, however, far more benefits to blogging that your business can capitalise on.
Improves SEO and Organic Visibility
When blogging for SEO and boosting organic site growth, there is little more impactful than a regularly updated blog. It’s the most reliable channel that enables you to naturally create content targeting a range of keywords related to your business.
Doing so as main pages would quickly develop a site that is challenging to navigate and in no way user-friendly. Confining this content to the blog, however, creates a streamlined area on your site that captures user attention, answers prevalent questions from your audience, and gives a cheeky nod to Google that you’re active and authoritative.
Your business blog, assuming the content is high-quality, allows you to create valuable content that others can link back to. These links, also known as backlinks – or backlink acquisition, for those that like SEO terms – help boost your traffic and authority even further.
When looking at long-term, organic results, there really aren’t many channels I could recommend as strongly as blogging.
Builds Trust and Authority
I’ve touched on this already, but trust and authority building are core components of what a blog aims to do.
Yes, your blog can bring in new traffic, but the quality of content and the perception you create from it determine the next steps that visitor takes. A consistent, updated quality blog is a strong signal to users that you:
- Know what you’re talking about – a reliable expert in your field, if you will.
- Are placing resources into channels that better your users and audience’s knowledge
- Can be trusted to deliver on services (assuming your blog touches on your services)
Authority building goes even further, as regular content is a great signal for Google. Strong internal linking between posts, service pages, and external sources can be even stronger indicators of relevance.
Over time, Search Engines can come to view your site as authoritative in your niche or industry.
Supporting Other Channels Through Repurposing
You may have heard the term “repurposing”.
Taking something, reworking it slightly, and using it elsewhere. Honestly, I wish this concept were a prerequisite to being allowed to start a business, as it would save everyone so much time.
When it comes to repurposing, you can’t beat blog content, and I am willing to die on that hill.
A quality 1500-word blog can be cut, trimmed, reworded, slapped on an image, spun into a quote, and so much more. I would often pair blogging with social media creation for this reason, as I could easily pull 10-15 quality social media post ideas and captions from a written blog.
If you’re a medium-sized business, this could help streamline your social media and email content creation. It would allow you to add more posts to your schedule or fill in gaps with filler content while you work on bigger pieces. You can even create entire campaigns based on recent blog content.
For smaller businesses, this concept can be revolutionary in saving time and increasing productivity.
It’s not uncommon for social content creation to take an hour or two, perhaps even longer. Spin that idea around and instead focus on a blog post, and you can have a great piece of content for your site, which helps SEO and visibility, and pull the same amount of regular content you would have created otherwise.
It’s a win-win.
Signs Your Business Would Benefit From a Blog
There are other benefits, too, such as increased engagement, incentivising return visits through new content, and building a stronger internal linking network.
That said, there are specific cases where businesses can benefit in more specific ways.
Competitive Niche Businesses
There’s no easy way to say this, so I’m just going to go for it…
If you’re in a competitive niche, having a blog is essential.
It’s as simple as that. You’ll find that competitive niches almost always have equally competitive keywords to rank for, making it more challenging for your business to get seen in search results for terms other than your brand name.
Having a great and original idea is amazing, but you may never be seen without a strong content marketing strategy to support it. Blogging in a competitive niche typically requires a detailed, purpose-driven strategy that capitalises on identifying “openings” in rankings to improve the chances of ranking.
Once you have a few small wins under your belt, then the strategy expands to compete for more keywords.
You’re Launching New Products/Services Regularly
Clothing brands, product-based businesses, and others that regularly update their line-up greatly benefit from an active blog. It enables you to create evergreen content around your inventory that can bring users in for years to come.
Additionally, there isn’t much opening for you to compete for specific keywords through service pages alone. Once they’re built and optimised, that’s kind of it, aside from content changes.
Blog posts, on the other hand, provide a means to consistently target specific keywords and offer organic, relevant internal links back to your products for easy user navigation.
Widgets and plugins for your blog can enable users to add an embedded item to their cart directly from the blog, allowing you to convert visitors through great content without them even seeing your sales page.
You Need to Educate or Guide Your Audience.
Here’s an interesting question – what do you do when you have a product or service that’s a little complex?
Typically, we see long sales or service pages filled with important information that users often skip.
A blog post, on the other hand, is a different story altogether.
Users understand that a blog is intended for longer-form content. They’re more likely to engage with quality content on the blog, even if it’s longer. This can be the perfect way to detail important points about your service or product in a more engaging, non-salesy way.
Referring back to my previous points, doing so this way also allows you to target additional keywords and rank for related topics surrounding your business.
You Want to Grow Without Relying on Paid Ads
The deciding factor between whether your business appears before your competitors on search results is almost always a combination of local relevance, SEO and the strength of your content marketing strategy.
Blogging undoubtedly aids in the SEO component, but many marketing agencies will employ some combination of search ads to compensate for this. Search ads – which are paid advertising – help you bypass the need for organic SEO (to a degree).
The trouble here is that you aren’t building long-term SEO by doing so, and you’re paying for it. Meaning that the second you stop ads, you lose your positioning and are back to square one.
It’s for this reason that you’ll always find me recommending a strong organic SEO strategy before considering paid. If paid works for you, brilliant. However, if you’re seeking a cost-effective way to grow in the long term, investing in an organic content strategy, beginning with a high-quality blog, is often the most sensible move.
Common Concerns About Starting a Blog
During my time working with businesses on their blogs or answering questions about them, a few common concerns arise.
“I don’t have the time or resources to start a blog.”
Blogging may require a considerable amount of time, depending on your goals. If you’re creating content yourself, I would suggest starting small, two blogs a month, if you can stick to that consistently. Writing a 1000-word post can take anywhere from an hour to three hours if you’re a beginner, less if you incorporate AI into the process.
While this post isn’t specifically about the creation process, it’s important to recognise that as you create posts, you’ll slowly become more efficient at doing so, to the point where writing a post becomes easier and quicker.
Hiring, on the other hand, should be done when your business is in a strong position, allowing you to focus on the future and long-term results.
“There’s nothing to write about”
This is one of my favourites because, on the surface, this always seems to be the case. Once you dive deeper into your business, however, you’ll find that there can be an overwhelming amount of blog content ideas to work with.
The best starting point I can give is to consider the two points:
- What does a new user/customer absolutely need to know about your product/service?
- What objections, pain points, or questions does your audience have about your services?
You’ll quickly find that you have a backlog of things you can talk about.
For a direct example, consider this very post. I help businesses create long-term, successful blogs, so what content could I create? For me, the question of “Do I need a blog?” is consistent enough for it to tackle a core audience question and remain evergreen.
“Will the blog even generate traffic?”
The hard truth – to which I would be remiss in my duty not to state – is that if you don’t know what you’re doing with a blog, you may not see results at all.
SEO is a core, intrinsic part of developing a blog that drives results.
While a blog can be useful for content repurposing, serving as assets for customers, and even being used as redirects in other channels, for traffic specifically, you need to understand keyword research, competitor analysis, and how to formulate a blog post that challenges what is already out there.
That said, the correct strategy and consistency will yield results. The degree of these results will depend on your industry and goals.
What to Do Before You Start a Business Blog
Let’s say I’ve piqued your interest, and you’re considering starting a blog as a good idea.
First off, amazing; please send me the link when you do.
Secondly, consider a few things before you start. While you can find your feet mid-creation, having a rough guide with the information below will help further streamline your process and increase your awareness during creation.
Define Your Objectives
Knowing what you want from your blog is a core step in forging its layout, structure, and call to action. Like any business objective, think about what “success” would look like for your business blog, then focus on that.
Know Your Audience
Buyer personas are impactful for understanding how to sell, but they can also be useful for creating blog content. Knowing how your audience thinks, how they interact with content, and the language they use can help you craft posts that speak directly to them more effectively.
Understanding your audience can also give you a competitive edge in keyword research, as you’ll already know what they’re likely to search for, the questions they’re likely to ask, and the content they prefer to engage with.
Choose Your Frequency Carefully.
I mentioned aiming for two posts a month if you’re just starting out. As a solopreneur, that can be a good guideline if you’re at the starting line and have other responsibilities.
The truth is that more is typically better, as long as you focus on quality rather than just quantity.
Consider your current resources and the time you have available, then create a schedule you can follow. I always recommend doing one less than you think you can so you can build up consistency more easily.
Building a Blog Strategy for Growth
I’m a firm believer that starting a blog for your business is one of the most strategically sound decisions you can make.
The great thing about a blog is that, even if your first few posts aren’t great, you can always revisit them in the future, give them a fresh coat of paint, and search engines will appreciate the update.
I hope this post helped shed a new light on blogging for your business.
If you need help crafting a blog strategy to grow your business and building a content library, get in touch; I’d love to learn more about what you do and how I can help.
FAQ: Does Your Business Need a Blog?
How does blogging help with SEO?
Blogging helps by providing an area for you to create new, keyword-rich content to help search engines better understand your website. With this comes the ability to interlink, attract backlinks, and target more competitive keywords over time, which supports higher ranking potential.
Can small businesses benefit from blogging?
Yes, and I would argue that blogging for small businesses is an invaluable way to organically scale your business. Strategic posts can enhance local visibility, educate customers, and compete with larger brands through the consistent delivery of valuable content.
Blogging can be the first step small businesses take in creating evergreen content, which can boost visibility on core sales or product pages.
How often should a business blog be updated?
As often as you’re able to consistently. Once a week or biweekly is a great starting point, but the reality is that regular updates help build authority and keep your site and content fresh for search engines.
A big effort in one week, followed by crickets and tumbleweed the next four, isn’t recommended. Spread things out and find the right schedule that works for you.
If, however, you’re hiring someone, then twice a week at high quality is a great target to aim for.
What should I write about on my business blog?
As far as blogging tips go, focus on topics your audience cares about, such as common questions they ask, the benefits of your services, how-to guides if relevant, and keyword-driven posts that solve problems while referring back to what you offer.
After doing this a few times, you’ll find that blog content ideas start flowing, and you’ll soon have to create a calendar of ideas.
