You might think no one reads blogs anymore, but surprisingly, blogs remain to be a powerful way to promote your small business online, especially when mingled with social media. Without a blog, you might miss out on opportunities to extend your reach and increase your revenue.
Blogging is a form of content marketing, which is a plan that concentrates on creating interesting and engaging content to make your business find its way to your target audience. You may post videos, photos, or Instagram stories other than blogs.
Many small businesses skip on creating blogs because it takes commitment, technical know-how, complicated strategies to attract an audience, and consistency to maintain a huge following. But a business blog doesn’t have to be troublesome. Its benefits outweigh all the effort to a great extent, so there’s really no reason for you to stick to social media and nothing else.
Opportunities Created by a Business Blog
1. Targeting Potential Customers
Business blogs aren’t hard-sell content. Instead, it is a collection of posts that subtly promotes your products and services, such as discussing their benefits, the problems they solve, or how they make life more convenient or secure. For example, if you’re selling aromatherapy products, your blogs can focus on mental health issues and how self-care helps mitigate them. You’re basically pitching your products in all your blogs without directly telling your audience to buy them.
A such, business blogs draw customers in. Your posts will make them understand your products more and enlighten them on your business’s motivation. They will realize that your aromatherapy products aren’t just ostentatious home displays but rather self-care essentials that heal their minds and bodies.
2. Increasing Your Website Traffic
Your blog can be a part of your website or a separate one altogether. But either way, regularly updating your blog with new content increases your web traffic because its readers are given a chance to be redirected to your online catalog. For example, if they read your blog about the detrimental effects of overworking, they’d find a sub-heading discussing how aromatherapy helps overworked employees relax. From there, they may click the link on the specific aromatherapy product you talked about, which will take them to your e-commerce site, encouraging them to make an order.
The traffic on your website and blog will blow up even more if you employ SEO services. Search Engine Optimization makes your website rank high on search engine results pages (SERPs) each time a user searches for a keyword relevant to your business. For instance, if they type “essential oils for stress relief” on their search bar, the results pages will show up your website or blog on top of all the other sites that will appear.
3. Providing a Fun Read for Prospective Customers
Since blogs are need-based, it provides content that answers specific questions, connecting readers to a solution. But you may also create a want-based blog, which would stimulate demand for your products instead of conjure solutions to problems they already have. Simply put, you’ll be creating a problem.
It is definitely a sneaky little tactic, but one that works well when done right. Using the aromatherapy example once more, your want-based blogs should evoke a realization from the reader, like the fact that they haven’t been making time for self-care, or they haven’t been maximizing their relaxation activities.
It will be a bit tricky to evoke such a result, though. To make it work, you have to make your blog highly engaging and fun to read. It should captivate audiences who are just seeking a leisurely read. By the time they finish reading, you should’ve formed a connection with them.
4. Advertising Your Products Low-key
Food businesses are good in this type of blog. If they have a new dish on their menu or a dish that isn’t new but sells rather well, they may post a knock-off recipe of that dish on their blog. A photo of the actual restaurant dish should be posted along with the blog, as it will indirectly tell people that it is now available on their menu.
For your aromatherapy business, you can blog about essential oil combos that people can make to receive several benefits at once. For instance, the combination of lavender oil, ylang-ylang, and wild orange can create a soothing citrus scent. The same effect also comes from a mixture of bergamot, cypress, and wild orange. That way, you’re creating a new interest while also subtly advertising your essential oils.
There are more opportunities a business blog can open for you, so don’t skip another day without starting your site yet. Several free blogging platforms are available, so you don’t have to pay for a domain yet while it’s still not covered by your startup budget.
