Blogging has certainly become something of an undeniable trend for businesses across the web. Scores of online shops and services from across all streams of industry have made a point of cultivating their own blog writing endeavors, chiming in on everything from industry tips, policy news or the latest products available.

If you maintain your own businesses, and keep any semblance of an online presence, it is likely that you have arrived at a point where you’re asking yourself: What are the benefits of running a blog?  Hence, we are going to give you a rundown of the top reasons why blogging for business has become an essential tool for getting the most out of your online presence.

1. Maintaining a Blog Helps Maximize SEO

In recent years, Search Engine Optimization has emerged as one of the primary tools used to keep companies ahead of their competition. Having your website appear early and frequently within the Google search cue is one of the most effective methods of streaming traffic in your direction. When you run a Google search, most of the top listed links end up being blog posts and that fact alone should demonstrate the importance of keeping a blog.

When maintaining a blog for SEO purposes, it is important to keep in mind that both the quantity AND the quality of your content play an enormous factor in ensuring maximum success.

Creating the highest quality blog material will help to ensure a consistent and devoted readership that remains eager to revisit your blog time and time again. Additionally, creating top quality blog posts ensures a greater level of reader interaction.

This is another major factor in search optimization as Google can use algorithms to detect a user’s participation/interaction with your website by analyzing the length of time that readers stay on a given page. Pages which engage their users/readers for longer periods of time by providing them with great content are subsequently ranked higher in search engine cues.

When blogging for business and SEO purposes, the amount of content you produce for your blog is equally important because of the instantaneous nature of the internet, which generates a huge influx of content on a daily, even hourly basis. Don’t think that you’re the only person producing content about your particular industry, because you’re not. There are millions of blogs out there, so you need to make sure your content doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

Updating daily is ideal if possible, and, if not, you should AT LEAST be updating your blog twice a week. If you do not update regularly, you may lose touch with your audience as they disregard your info as “too dated”. Just think about how many times you’ve done that yourself.

Producing a large amount of content when maintaining a blog is also important because Google tends to give higher rankings to those sites which produce the freshest content, as it considers newer content POTENTIALLY more relevant than older content.

For example, if you are competing with another webpage for the keyphrase “print production in Vancouver” and you have one blog post optimized for that keyword that’s a few weeks old while your competitor has three blog posts all of which went live within the last week, you may be falling behind that competitor in the Google search cue.

2. Blogging as an Effective Branding and Marketing Tool

Another huge benefit of blogging for business is the branding opportunities that come with it. By creating LOTS of engaging and interesting content, you can use your blog to influence how your customers/clients view your company.

Maintaining a blog gives you the opportunity to position yourself and your company as industry experts. To most effectively poise yourself as leaders and experts within your field of business, it is important to demonstrate your knowledge of industry trends and relevant news, and to cultivate a unique voice for yourself as a significant personality with helpful and worthwhile insights that your customers/readers can rely on.

A blog is the perfect platform to do that, as it gives you a voice with which to reach out to your customers. Cultivating the presence of a go-to source for advice and information lead’s to an increase in customer loyalty and works as an effective word-of-mouth marketing tool while cementing your image as a key player within your industry’s digital subculture.

Blogging for business also allows you to discuss and review certain products or services that your company offers. If your business specializes in print production, for example, and offers a variety of different printing services (such as digital, offset, and large format printing), you can use your blog to discuss each one of those services and highlight what they are best suited for.

By taking a more subdued, conversational tone you can espouse the legitimate features and benefits of your company’s provisions without sounding excessively pushy or preachy. An informative and insightful, pitch perfect blog post can serve as an ultra effective introduction to your website’s offers while simultaneously conveying a thoughtful and personal demeanor.

This provides your customers with detailed information that is relevant to them, and hence positions you as an honest, helpful, and well-informed personality within the industry, and encourages them to keep you in mind when they approach a new project which may require the services/products you offer.

3. Maintaining a Blog Helps You Interact with Your Clientele.

This ties in very closely with the branding benefits we discussed above. A well-run blog, particularly used in tandem with social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter, allows for you to interact with readers on a more personal basis all-the-while gaining direct insights into the needs and attitudes of your customers.

By providing your insights on a public forum and allowing for reader responses by way of comments, asking questions or even taking reader polls, your are building relationships based on mutual trust as well as running effective client based market research.

Moreover, maintaining a blog helps you vastly increase your web reach by having readers re-circulate your website’s content through social media shares and comments, which in turn introduces your brand to swathes of previously untapped networks of people.

How To: A Guide to Maintaining a Successful Blog

Now that we have discussed some of the benefits of running a blog, lets move on to some key steps that will help get you started on your own successful blog set up.

1. You Need a Blogging Platform

We use WordPress to run all of our blogs at myZone Media , but ultimately your platform is all about what works most effectively for you and your staff.  There are plenty out there to choose from and your selection should take into consideration your personal needs, as well as your company workflow.

We like WordPress because it is easy to use, easy to integrate with the rest of your website, and features a wide variety of really useful plugins such as SEOPressor, as well as a bunch of Social Media plugins that encourage your readers to share and interact with your content.

If you are interested in using a WordPress blog as part of your business, feel free to contact us.

2. You Need Clear Processes

When you set up your blog it is important to crystalize your vision for what you attempt to achieve with it. Make sure that you have crystal clear processes in place that explain:

• The goal of running your blog
• The kind of content you want to produce
• The length and frequency of your blog posts
• The technical logistics of how to actually update your blog

The best way to do this is through effective documentation. An excellent article on the topic can be found here.

3. You Need Great Writers:

Your blog writing staff is your first line of attack on the blogosphere. It might seem obvious, but talented writers are an essential element of maintaining a successful blog. Remember, providing your readers with interesting and engaging content is your first priority, so you’ll need people who know how to write good content.

If you are looking to invest in expanding/creating a dedicated team of content writers to run your blog for you, you should consider outsourcing. Also feel free to contact us for more information on the possibility of outsourcing your content efforts.

4. You Should Invest in an SEO Plugin

Investing in a good SEO Plugin will help you get the most out of your blogging efforts. We use SEOPressor and would recommend it to anyone looking for an easy way to make sure their blog posts are optimized for search engines.

We choose to work wit SEOPressor because it:

• Allows you to optimize each blog post for up to three keywords.
• Gives you real-time feedback on immediate changes you can make to each blog post in order to optimize it for search.
• Is really straight forward and easy to use.
• Supports LSI keyword analysis.

Final Thoughts on Blogging For Business

In lieu of the many benefits that blogging has provided for millions of sites around the globe, there is no question that it is among the most efficient and cost-effective methods that your business can employ to in order to achieve maximum web reach and increase customer connections.

We hope that this brief guide has been informative, thought provoking and, most of all, has helped send you on your way to making business blogging part of your arsenal. Remember, feel free to contact us for any tips on maintaining a successful blog.