When you’re busy working on your business, finding the time to write blogs is pretty hard. And even when you do have time, you find yourself staring at a blank screen not knowing what to write about. But it’s worth the effort, as blog writing can really grow your business.

Despite your best intentions, writing regular blogs just doesn’t happen.

Then you think about all the other great things happening on your website. It looks fantastic – your designer did a smack bang job. Your sales copy is awesome thanks to a talented copywriter you found. Your portfolio is up to date, and people can read glowing testimonials about you from previous clients. Your offers are clear and navigation around your site is easy.

So why the hell should you have to write blogs??

If you have more work than you can possibly handle and you don’t want any more, you can exit the building now. If not, read on!

Blogging gives you more opportunities to be found online

A blog post is essentially another page of your website. It all gets indexed by search engines, so the short answer is – the more blogs you have on your website, the more chances you have of website traffic finding you.

As a bonus, it’s also great for your SEO because search engines love recent, up-to-date and helpful content.

The key is to write something that people want to know about. That’s what’s going to bring them to your site to read what you have to say. Think about questions you get asked by your customers, and use those as a basis for topic ideas.

Blogging improves your social media marketing

Sharing your own content is one of the basics of social media marketing. If you only have 10-15 pages on your website and most are geared towards selling, your audience will soon get tired of seeing these.

Being able to share some blogs you’ve written keeps your audience interested and engaged, and is a way of driving traffic back to your website (so those sales pages have a better chance of being seen!).

Your social media audience then also has something new they can share, and your blogs get shown to more and more people. Some of these might be potential new customers – high five!

Blogging lets customers get to know you

Not everyone is going to land on your website, read a sales page and buy something immediately. Often people will want to get to know you a bit before they buy, particularly for big ticket items or services.

They want to suss you out and make an informed decision about purchasing from you.

Blogs allow them to do this, and allow you to nurture the relationship too. They might read some of your blogs, sign up to your newsletters, and then eventually become a client a few months down the track.

Without blogs to nudge them gently along, you would have lost them on their first visit to your website.

Blogging opens up opportunities

Blogging exposes you to opportunities you may never have thought of.

Enabling comments at the bottom of your blogs creates another form of communication, and people can tell you what they think of your blog (don’t worry, it will almost always be positive feedback ? ). If you’ve linked to another website in your blog, they may come back and thank you for it.

Blogs allow you to network online at a deeper level. You might gain prominent followers who ask you to write a guest blog on their website – increasing your exposure and widening your audience even more.

Backlinks, comments, shares and views on your blogs all mean there are more eyes on you and give you the opportunity to grow your business like never before.

Writing your blogs

Now we’ve convinced you that writing blogs is definitely worth your time and effort, it’s time to think about your content. This is a whole other topic, but here are some pointers to get you started:

› Work out who your target audience is and who you are specifically writing for. E.g. for us, it’s other small business owners who need a prominent online presence to help them in their business.

› Create a list of topics to write about. What does your audience want to know about? What kind of questions do you get asked a lot? Write down anything you think will help them.

› Decide on the format each blog will be presented in – a how to guide, a list post, a video blog (vlog), an infographic, an opinion piece etc. Each piece of content should either inform, educate or entertain your audience.

› Work out a schedule and stick to it! When will each blog be posted? Remember, always choose quality over quantity.

If you’re not confident writing your own blogs, or truly find yourself too busy to write blogs (because of all the new business your blogging has brought you!), another option is to outsource your blog writing. This can be a huge stress relief for many business owners.

What are you waiting for?!

Blogging can improve your SEO, put you in front of more potential customers and can open the doors for many new opportunities. So get writing!