By: Raul Harmon

Many businesses still don’t understand the power of blogging. Blogging allows you to increase your online exposure in the overcrowded search engine results pages. 

When implemented strategically, blogging will also help you maximize your website traffic and conversions, as well as build strong relationships with your target audiences.

Here is how exactly your business’ website may benefit from having a blog.

Boosting Organic Traffic

For small and mid-sized businesses that are working with limited budgets, increasing organic website traffic is immensely important. And, this is where blogging plays a fundamental role. Namely, whenever you create a new blog post, you’re adding an indexable page to your website. If you optimize it for the right keywords organically, this is an opportunity for your website to show up in the SERPS for relevant searches.

However, search engines are not the only source of organic traffic. Look at social networks, for example. When your readers see that your posts are bringing value to them, they will gladly share them on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. Every organic share is a chance for you to increase your online exposure and attract new visitors to your website.

There is a multitude of additional ways to promote your blog posts to grow your organic traffic. Some of them are contributing to reputable sites in your niche, sending customized newsletters that inform a user about your new blog post, posting a link to your blog post on Q&A sites, taking advantage of content promotion platforms like Medium or GrowthHacker, etc.

Still, remember that not every article on your blog can drive massive traffic over time. Monitor your analytics to identify the most popular blog posts so you can optimize them and revamp them over time to maximize their reach.

Maximizing Conversions

Attracting a visitor to your website is only half the job done. Next, you need to turn them into leads and leads into conversions. And, this is where blogging may help. 

Namely, the key to acing your blogging strategy is to get to know your audiences. Who are they? What demographic group do they belong to? What do you know about their background? What are their hobbies and interests? Do they have any fears or face any problems? These are just some of the numerous questions you need to answer.

This helps you understand that not all customer groups are the same. They vary, based on users’ goals and their position in your sales funnel. Your goal is to ease them down the sales funnel, towards making a purchase.

For example, the top-of-funnel content should resonate with customers that are just realizing their problem. Create content that addresses their main challenges, such as articles, checklists, ebooks, case studies, and video tutorials.

In the middle stage of the funnel, a customer establishes buying criteria and your content should help them determine the solutions to their problems. This is where whitepapers, brochures, webinars, and data sheets may help. 

Finally, they’re evaluating vendor offers and compare services. In this stage, your content should position your brand as a reliable choice. These could be free trials, demos, customer case studies, and testimonials.

The idea is to map out customer journeys and create blog content that resonates with them. To maximize your conversions, you also need to align your blogging efforts with other UX elements, such as your website responsiveness, speed, layout, and so on.

Earning High-Quality Backlinks

Backlinks remain one of the most significant ranking factors. However, the way you gain them has changed a lot.

In the past, tactics like guest blogging, broken link building, leaving links on Q&A sites, or link reclamation were the nerve center of your link building strategy. Today, however, the SEO industry switches from link building to link earning.

The difference is logical – link building requires investing lots of effort to build links (think analyzing blogs, blogger outreach, writing guest articles, etc.). Link earning, just like its mere name says, is all about earning links organically by delivering value to your audiences. Namely, research says that companies with a blog earn 97% more backlinks.

Namely, your goal is to create a content development strategy that will position you as an authoritative resource and get you noticed by bloggers, influencers, and other reputable faces in your industry. You should create fresh and insightful content that will inspire them to share it and link back to it from their blog or social channels. Apart from earning a top-notch link from a credible website, you will also increase your online visibility, build trust with visitors, and gain loads of new organic traffic.

Delivering Value and Building Trust with Online Customers

Online users love reading blogs. They let them stay on top of a certain topic, learn something new, figure out how to do something, or solve a specific problem. 

Therefore, your goal is to create high-quality, helpful, and engaging content that will meet your readers’ specific problems and build trust with them. When they see that your blog posts are making their lives easier, they will come back to them over and over again.

Most importantly, blogging helps you present yourself as trustworthy and knowledgeable. Seeing that you know what you’re talking about, users will be more likely to purchase from you. For them, this is also an invitation to connect with you and speak with you directly when they face a specific problem.

Over to You

Blogging boosts your business’ online presence in multiple ways. It makes you more visible in the SERPs, motivating users to choose you over your competitors. Then, it engages a user and inspires them to convert.

Blogging also helps you increase your online authority and earn lots of outbound links from reputable resources in your niche. Most importantly, it builds relationships with users and encourages their loyalty. You just need to test different blogging strategies until you find the one that works for your audiences.

Author Bio: My name is Raul Harmon, editor in chief at Technivorz blog. I have a lot to say about innovations in all aspects of digital technology and online marketing. You can reach out to me on Twitter.