Does your company need a blog?

The step to a professional website is essential for any business. But what if you want more than just an online business card? A blog can help you achieve your marketing goals.

Entrepreneurs often think that it’s not possible for them to start a blog, or that it’s not worth the investment (in terms of money, time, energy). That’s too bad. A blog offers many advantages and opportunities.

Read on to find out why YOU need a blog, what to write about, what to avoid and more.

Top 10 reasons why your (local) business needs a blog

A blog is always part of a larger digital marketing strategy to become visible to your target group: content marketing. This way you can reach more potential customers and you can grow your business in a relatively easy way. Even when you are not at work and even when you are sleeping or traveling.

Content marketing is a strategy where the company publishes content on different platforms that appeals to their target audience and with the intention of generating more brand awareness, more trust and ultimately more sales. It is one of the most important factors to rank high in search engines (SEO marketing).

Anyway, having a company blog is so important that there are at least 10 advantages that make it more than worth the investment (read more about what that “investment” entails below).

1. Your customers (and your competitors) are online

General statistics:

• 93% of online experiences start with a search engine.
• 81% of people do online research before making a major purchase.
• 72% of online marketers describe content marketing as their most effective SEO strategy.
• 14.6% of leads from search engines (potential customers) actually become customers – significantly higher than cold prospecting.

Statistics for local businesses:

• 78% of location-based searches on smartphones result in an offline sale.
• 18% of these searches result in a sale within 1 day.

These are all statistics that show how important it is that your company (your website) is found for relevant keywords. And the best way to do this is through content marketing, for which having a blog is essential.

It’s very simple. There are always search results, which means that not only your customers or clients, but also your competitors are present online. So the question is: do you want to outrank your competitors?

2. Opportunity for multi-channel marketing

It’s not that easy to keep posting interesting content on social media. Many companies have difficulties coming up with interesting content every week.

A blog can help you a lot with this. You have valuable content that you can easily post with an attractive photo throughout your social media and that you can even deliver to existing and potential customers via email, for example as a monthly mailing.

Tip: Start from the principle that only you as an entrepreneur are interested in how your business is doing and what news you can bring. Therefore, this should only be a small percentage of your posts. A blog can help to share valuable content that really interests your target audience and ensures more interaction. At the same time, of course, the intention is to ensure conversion (results). So you include “Calls To Action” throughout your content.

3. Google likes regular updates

As discussed earlier, it’s very important to be found when people enter certain (relevant) search terms into search engines, especially Google.

There are over 200 different factors that Google takes into account to determine the position of each website in search results. And rest assured, content marketing is in the top of the most important factors.

Google likes to see a lot of activity on a website. This shows that the company is engaged and that they are “making an effort” to be seen. And this is rewarded with higher rankings and so more visitors and more customers.

4. Show your expertise

Just like at OMNIA Web Agency we write blog posts about web design and digital marketing to share our knowledge about this with our target group, you can do the same for your company.

Whatever your niche, you can write valuable content about it to position yourself as an expert. This can be done by, for example, answering frequently asked questions. In our  Digital Marketing Campaign we are happy to help you through extensive research to identify the most profitable keywords and find out what your customers are doing.

5. Increase confidence

Linked to the previous benefit, professional blog posts also help you build more trust with your target audience. You give him valuable information, answers to questions, knowledge, etc. completely free of charge and without them being obliged to do anything.

Why limit yourself to potential customers? When you also provide this information to existing customers, you can increase their  loyalty to your company/brand and make sure they always think of you if they ever need something again or when they know someone else who needs your products and/or services.

6. Digital real estate

When you post something valuable on social media, you can without a doubt get results from it. It’s not without reason that this is one of the main digital marketing strategies that we use for our customers.

A major drawback, however, is that this post quickly gets lost. After a few weeks, let alone months, (almost) nobody will see this post anymore… Your time, energy and money are no longer giving you results. But you guessed it – there is a solution.

When you first post this content on your blog, and only then “share” it on your social media accounts, your results will increase dramatically. Both in the short and long term. The more content there is on your website, the more authority you will gain in the eyes of Google and your visitors. Each article influences your previous articles. And each article brings you one step closer to dominating the search results.

After years, you will have built your own digital real estate, which will bring you monthly visitors and a lot of new customers.

7. Customer retention

By regularly posting valuable content to your company blog, you create a way to not lose interaction with existing customers and increase engagement.

8. Facebook Retargeting

Facebook offers the possibility to advertise specifically to people who have recently visited your website.

If you show the correct ads to this target audience, the chances of excellent results are high you’ll be getting more sales for a lower price.

So this is another way you can leverage this one investment (publishing valuable content on your blog) in other places online to drive even more results and growth.

9. Encourage the visitor to take action

As you can see in these 10 benefits, a business blog has a lot of features.

An important one is to let the visitor get to know your products and/or services in a very natural way.

Throughout the article you can refer to what your company does and how you can provide a solution for what the reader is looking for. You do this through well-thought-out CTAs (Call To Action; words or phrases that encourage taking the desired action).

10. Your ROI (Return On Investment) is (almost) guaranteed

Because you can use this one investment in so many different ways, it becomes very easy to achieve a good Return On Investment. In other words, you are almost certain that if you invest, for example, 1 USD, you will get at least 2 USD back. However, it goes much further than just immediate financial results.

A blogging strategy can also aim to get a certain number of new followers on social media, to ensure that news channels will refer to your content, to create more brand awareness,…

In short, your blog is part of a larger, powerful whole with which you can significantly increase your online visibility and to be found by the right people.

Knowing that you can start with OMNIA Web Agency from 150 USD per month, it becomes clear that this is an opportunity that you should not ignore. We are happy to advise you further on this during a free Strategy Session.

Frequently asked questions

This part of the article is an FAQ where I’m going to answer some specific questions related to starting a blog for your (local) business. In addition, it is also a summary of reasons/objections that business owners often have for not taking the step towards leveraging the digital world and having a blog.

“I have a small business and also find a lot of customers offline.”

Small businesses are just as likely to be found as large businesses. Moreover, there are surely (local) competitors who are already leveraging on the opportunities of the digital world. If you want to grow, be more secure and/or be stronger than your competitors, having a blog for your professional website is a must for your company.

“I don’t have the time, inclination or money for it.”

That is very understandable. We have clients who want to have a certain say in the content they publish and who also like to write themselves. But they need help using this content properly. Others don’t want to be involved in this at all, and outsource everything related to their digital marketing to us.

It all depends on what matters to you. Do you have a higher budget, but little time? Then you can outsource everything to us, with a minimal investment of time on your part.

Or do you have a lower budget, but are you willing to invest some more time yourself? We always put together a tailor-made plan.

How can OMNIA Web Agency help you?

Our team has years of experience in various digital marketing disciplines. We are also happy to help you with writing valuable content. You can read all about our SEO Marketing services on this page.

If you prefer to get started with the right advice immediately, schedule a FREE and non-binding Strategy Session.