I actually avoided blogging for my businesses for a long time and when I did start doing it, I outsourced the writing because I didn’t want to do it myself. I didn’t much care for English class and writing in school and was always more interested in other things.
However, the benefits of blogging can be applied to just about any business and can even be a business in itself. In this post, I’m going to talk about why you should blog.
It’s Not That Bad (Even if you don’t like writing)
The scary thing about blogging is that it is a continuous never ending process and is not passive. However, the reality of the matter is that you could quit any time you wanted.
In order to overcome the fear of the never ending, commit to doing it for 6 months to a year. And then from there, decide if you want to continue. But blogging success doesn’t come overnight, so you need to keep at it. Most bloggers blogged for at least a year before gaining traction, although there are ways to accelerate the process greatly, like guest blogging, paid advertising, and creating more content.
It Doesn’t Take That Much Time
What’s interesting about blogging is that it doesn’t actually require that much time. I did an experiment a few weeks ago where I sat down and wrote posts for 3 hours. I ended up writing 7 posts.
So if you were blogging daily, it would only require 3 hours per week. This is something you could do while having a full time job. Some bloggers write longer posts and that can take longer, but you don’t even have to blog that often.
In fact, some of the most successful bloggers only blog once a month. But when they do, it’s awesome content.
You Can Schedule Posts in Advanced
One of the best things is that you can schedule posts in advanced in WordPress. That means if you were blogging weekly for example, you could write all your blog posts for the month in one sitting and schedule them in advanced.
That’s what I did with my dance video blog (www.dance-video.org), and I usually have posts scheduled a couple months in advanced. If I see something that I want to post sooner, I can always adjust the schedule.
It Allows You To Connect with Others that Share the Same Interests
Connecting with others that share the same interest is not only fun for you, but also helps your business. This keeps you connected to other potential prospects and partners. As your blog grows, so will your opportunities.
Search Engines Love Blog Content
Blogs create unique content every day that people actually read. This is why search engines love blogs. If you know anything about getting search engine traffic, you know that the more unique content you create, the more traffic you will get from Google and other search engines.
Blogging for Business Tips
People love to read about topics they are interested in. Find out what topics your target audience is interested in and create content to target that. Sometimes, you’ll have to go broader than the product or service that you are actually selling.
For example, if you are selling shipping boxes, then you probably wouldn’t want to blog about boxes all year. But instead if you primary audience is interested in. If it is moving companies, then perhaps the topic should be tips for running a moving company or business tips in general.
Expert Status
Blogging gives you credibility and status in your field of expertise, which can lead to more business, especially if you build your audience and following. Some bloggers even get media attention from their work, and they don’t even blog that often.
The More You Do It, The Better the Results Will Be
The more you blog, the more traffic you will get from search engines, word or mouth referrals, social media sharing, and more. Keep at it and eventually, you will see results. The key to success in this medium are simple – create high value content that people want to read, promote that content, and be consistent.
About Brian Liang