The Value of Blogging for Your Company

Before Facebook, before Twitter – before Google, even – the Internet connected people through blogs. Although the term “blog” didn’t arrive until 1997, countless individuals and companies shared their thoughts and news with the world through the use of various online posting systems, such as Usenet or BBS.

Today, there are millions of blogs covering an infinite variety of topics. From major news outlets to solo writers, blogs are an essential source of information, education, and discussion for the Internet’s billions of users. With that in mind, it’s important to consider everything that a blog can do for your business.

Your Business Needs to be Blogging

Many businesses maintain a blog solely for the purpose of SEO. Indeed, blogs are a fantastic way to ensure that your website hits the mark in terms of keyword density and page relevance.  However, while SEO is a valid (and necessary) reason to have a blog for your business, the true value of a blog goes far beyond keyword density and landing page relevance.

A blog shows your customers and prospects that your business is alive, well, and humming along. It shows that you’re actively paying attention to the trends and changes in your industry.

Blogs can also play a critical role in lead generation. One of the first things that lead people to contact a business is a need for information, or answers to a question. The business that provides these answers upfront through something like a blog is much more likely to receive that customer’s business in the future. For example, an auto shop may post short articles about how to do basic repairs, or to give potential customers advice on how to prepare their car for a particular season. This builds a relationship with the customer, and shows that the shop’s owners are both knowledgeable and dedicated to providing value to their patrons.

What Blogging Platform is Right for You?

There are many different blogging platforms that can be used for your business’ blog.

WordPress is the bread-and-butter platform of the blogging world. With an easy setup process and thousands of different themes, WordPress makes it easy for anyone to create and write a blog about their business. In many cases, WordPress can be easily integrated with your current site, ensuring brand compatibility and a seamless transition between your business’ primary web page and your blog. Additionally, there are dozens of different plugins for WordPress that can help you optimize your blog’s content for SEO, building audience data, and conversion tracking.

Although not as common as WordPress, some companies run their corporate blog using Tumblr. Tumblr is an especially popular blogging platform for fashion houses like Calvin Klein. One of Tumblr’s unique features is its ability to “reblog” posted content; similar to a retweet, reblogging allows users to share the posts of another blog within their own blog’s news feed. Additionally, Tumblr offers an incredibly active user base that can make it easy to spread your content across the web.

The Medium blogging platform has also become popular in recent years. Medium is particularly notable for the number of tech startups that maintain blogs using the service.

Once you’ve selected a platform, it’s a relatively simple matter to start a blog for your business. From there, you can start to generate content that will showcase what is unique about your business to the world.

Blogging Questions? We’re Your Wingman.

Envision Creative is a team of marketers, copywriters, designers, and developers that are dedicated to helping clients grow and succeed. If you have questions about starting a blog for your company, or if you’re looking to take your marketing to the next level, we are here to help.