You’ve heard all about blogs to the point that you may want to shout, “Shut up about blogs!” But the masses ain’t lying, hon!  Blogs are a proven tool to help grow your business, they are great for SEO (search engine optimization), and they offer a means to connect with your clients in a non-traditional way.

But have you actually taken the leap to create your own blog or are you a non-believer who thinks blogging is still just a fad?  Well, let’s debunk that idea right now because blogging is here to stay – unlike old faves MySpace, Prodigy, and Netscape.  It’s time to get your a** in the game as your competition is leaving you in the dust if you’re not strategically blogging to build that ‘know-like-trust’ factor.

Fear not. It’s not too late. We all need to start somewhere, but the time is now to become a modern day Mary Bloggins!

Over the next few months, we will be publishing a series of posts called “blogs on blogs.” We’ll explore why blogs are essential to your marketing plan, what key ingredients you ought to include in your posts, how to find and follow blogs that are related to your ventures, and awesome ways to kick-start your creative juices to create compelling posts.

If you still aren’t convinced let’s throw some numbers around, ‘cause they don’t lie! There are some mind-blowing numbers to back up our pontificating on why a blog is a do-or-die part of your marketing plan.

1 – Traffic Drivers

It’s no joke that business blogging leads to 55% more website visitors! Search engines reward for relevant, rich content and do all they can to weed out the junk and spam.  So it is to your benefit to bow at the altar of the Google gods.  Think about what one additional ideal client can mean to you in terms of revenue, no less an increase of double your traffic. Depending on your business, this could be a multi-thousand dollar swing!  Doesn’t this make it more than worth the effort?

2 – Quality & Quantity – It Works!

Not only is the quality of your content important, but the frequency of your blog posts statistically increase traffic. According to TrafficGenerationCafe, once you write 21-54 quality blog posts, blog traffic generation increases by up to 30%.  Web authority Hubspot cites businesses that blog more than 20 times a month get five times (yes, five times!) more traffic than those who blog four times or less!  On top of that, 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a customer from their blog.

3 – SEO

So, we’ve established the fact that blogging drives visits, but how do you think they are actually clicking to you?  For the most part, the answer is from search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.   For those who haven’t read our fab blogs on SEO basics (hint, hint, here’s the link), SEO is setting up your business, blog or event to be crawled for data that will be noticed and ranked high by the search engines and directories. The more relevant content you post, the higher up in the search rankings you will be.  Hubspot’s State of Inbound 2017 Report shows companies that blog have 97% more inbound links, and on average, companies that blog receive 434% more indexed pages.

4 – Blogs Build Trust

Look at these numbers and we won’t have to make much of a case:

• 60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading custom content on its site. (Source: Content Plus)
• 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs. (Source: BlogHer)
• 61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog.
  (Source: BlogHer)

Become an authority and build a rapport with potential clients while keeping the current ones engaged. Your influence DOES matter!

5 – Proven Lead Builder

More than half the battle in business is to get noticed. You can lead a horse to water but then you gotta get them to drink it.  B2B marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads than those who do not. In fact, small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small businesses that do not blog.  Pretty astounding, right?

6 – Turn on the Charm – Blog to Tell Your Story

Blogs can be a casual, laid back way to banter with your clientele.  It’s okay to be a little irreverent and let your personality shine through.  It makes you likable and they will think of you as a pal and confidant (shout out to Blanche, Dorothy, Rose, and Sofia and cue the Golden Girls theme).

7 – Social Media Leverage

Blogging and posting on social sites create an easily sharable forum to spread the word. With the fact that 80.3% of social media users read posts from people known personally, you can leverage your followers as lead generators. Think about the mobile sales force potential as 69.5% post status updates while on their mobile device.

Need help getting started? We’re hosting a two-day blog writing retreat in September 2017 for eight individuals to research and plan a whole years’ worth of blog posts and then write their first month’s posts — all while having FUN. BAM! Interested? Get yourself on the wait list (no obligation).