In the year 2021, internet users worldwide stood at 4.9 billion, therefore almost two thirds of the global population is currently connected to the world wide web (www).
This a better reason for businesses to include blogging in their marketing strategy.
Blogging
A blog is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (writing), photography, and other media.
It started as an opportunity for individuals to write diary-style entries, but it has since been incorporated into websites for many businesses.
Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order, so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page.
Blogging for Networking, Exposure and for Business
To promote and establish their expertise people started to blog to extend their online reach. Thus increasing their networking opportunities.
Blogging gives them the chance to endorse their expertise and services to broader audiences, potentially leading to business and career opportunities.
Some blogs are created to support a business. Whether or not the blog actually promotes the products or services offered isn’t really the point. What matters is how the blog is tied to the market or industry it exists in, which helps raise brand awareness and extend the brand’s reach over the web. Business blog is a fantastic tool to jump-start social media sharing and word-of-mouth marketing.
Blogging creates
- Growth in online traffic.
- Nurture and convert customers.
- Keep current customers engaged.
- Differentiate you from other similar businesses.
- Grow demand and interest in your products or services.
- They provide benefits long after publishing.
- The more blogs you create, the more of the above benefits you’ll receive.
Reasons Why People Blog
With the birth of blogs, traditional writing has taken a back seat. Ink is replaced by the keyboard and readers are targeted globally. Blogging gets you the reactions from worldwide. It provides a place to say it and be heard.
Share Knowledge – as one absorbs more information the need to document and share it increases.
Interest in Writing- the most common reason of blog. The need to write and the need for online space for writing.
Networking– a great way of meeting new people, globally or locally. Blogging helps to spread ideas and connections beyond geographical boundaries.
Digital Nomad lifestyle– Blogging is something which gives you this opportunity, as you can work from anywhere at your pace.
Popularity– When people see any successful person, they try to follow that path.
Making money– If you do want to make money blogging, you should have a well-planned road map for your blog, and be able to target a profitable niche.
Advertising and Branding– Since the enormous part of the population is internet friendly, a lot of companies see it as a profitable exercise to blog and advertise their company.
Through the blogs, they can also get reviews on their products and hence test the waters.
Connect with like-minded people– Blogging helps to bring in together the people who think alike.
Create awareness – Most blogs are issue-based, meaning the blogger is trying to provide information to sway people’s thinking in a certain direction.
Self-Promotion/build personal brand– in writing blogs one can share the knowledge as will showcase skills in front of potential employees.
Find new jobs– This is one of the newer reasons why people create a blog. If you’re a photographer. You can start a blog on your website with all of your pictures to try and draw in people from search engines. This is actually a very effective way of finding jobs.
Help others– A lot of blogs are written to help people going through a certain phase or circumstances. Such blogs work therapeutically for many people.
It also makes them feel that they are not the only one going through such a phase, but there are so many others who are going through the same situation.
Stays in touch- Personal blogs are a great medium to stay in touch with the family and friends, whom you cannot see every day.
To let them know what you feel about them. Make them feel special.
Satisfy creative side– blogs are the best option for unleashing your creative ideas.
Create a record– by writing online open journals one can create a record for future, for personal use like kids and family so that they can refer to it in the future.
Gain Knowledge– a lot of forward-thinking individuals, actually blog to gain new knowledge.
Seven Real Ways a Blog Can Help Businesses
1. Increase Traffic to Site
Posting frequently and consistently content that drives educational and entertainment value will increase website’s traffic.
More people on site can only mean more potential client inquiries.
2. Attract New Customers
Businesses with consistent and frequent blogging will attract the most attention.
3. Expose Your Business to the Readers Seeking Fun
Make content interesting and engaging enough that people will want to read them for fun.
4. Show & Tell What Your Business Can Do
It’s essential to have an easy way to show potential clients what kinds of results they can expect.
5. Give Your Business Results Long After the Initial Post
This is one of the most undiscussed benefits of blogs – they continue to attract new leads and customers well into the future – sometimes years.
While it’s still essential to create new posts, older posts can remain relevant to readers for a long time.
6. Build Your Network Within Your Niche
When most businesses think of blogging, they focus on the customers.
Every niche has a handful of trustworthy and valuable blogs – the hundreds of digital marketing blogs.
7. Build a Flow of Trust
When a business establishes trust, its reputation spreads more quickly.
Frequent and consistent blogging is the simplest way for your brand to build this trust.
Content Management System
In writing blogs, a good CMS is a must, CMS is short for content management system, this is a platform where you place your website’s content and media file.
It allows users to build and manage a website without having to code it from scratch. CMS make managing all the content easier.
CMSs also provide a user-friendly interface, so you can create, manage, modify, and publish content without using JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. CMS platforms offer various plugins, templates and extensions to users, so they can customize the design and functionality of their web pages (without coding).
Criteria for choosing the best blogging platform
-Market presence. Some CMSs have a clear dominance in the market.
-Price. Every CMS has a different pricing strategy.
-Ease of use. Ideally, everyone in the team should be able to easily use the CMS — even without development knowledge or skill.
-Customization. To stay on brand, personalize visitor experience, improve marketing and conversion rates, an ideal CMS should offer lots of customization options and flexibility.
-Support. Some CMSs don’t have central support options, while others come with 24/7 support.
-SEO. It’s important that your CMS follows SEO best practices.
-security. Some CMS tools do not provide for (or protect) a site’s security.