I’ve had a post sitting in draft for a long time about this topic. But it was a brief email exchange with a client that gave me the fire to finish it! This client has a website that supports blogging (yay WordPress) but she was not ready to take the blogging leap.
Somewhat out of the blue, she asked me about setting up a blog on a blogging service. My immediate response was “No!” …
Whaaattt??
I said no because your website should be the hub of your online marketing efforts. AND your blog can and should be part of your website. Here’s why:
Your blog will boost traffic to your site
When you create new posts, you give search engines more content to crawl and index. And if you’re blogging for the right audience and using the “right” keywords, you will show in search results more frequently and that can build your traffic.
Your blog will help you build links to your site
Here’s the thing: when you create great content, people will link to your content. Your message will spread around the web – and naturally. You’ll show up on other websites and people will have another way to find you and your services.
Your blog is good for SEO
I’ve alluded to it in #1Reason and #2Reason. Blogging boosts traffic (see the stats at the end of this post) and blogging builds links to your site. More traffic and more links improve your search results naturally. Links and fresh content tells Google that your site is relevant to users. User experience is Google’s goal.
You control your blog – it’s your real estate on the web
You own your blog. That means that you control look, style, user guidelines. YOU decide what changes, when it changes and how. You tailor its functionality. Blogging on Blogger, Blogspot or even WordPress.com is like a rental. You only control and can change so much of it.
Your blog is your permission to sell
When people read your content, you have an opportunity to make an offer to your readers that you otherwise wouldn’t have. You’ve piqued readers’ curiosity or you’ve helped them to solve a problem. Now you can offer them more great solutions to their challenges. (Hint: Make sure you have a call-to-action in your sidebar or at the end of a post).
[clickToTweet tweet=”Through your blog content, you’ve helped readers to solve a problem. Now you can offer them one of your solutions. ” quote=”You’ve piqued readers’ curiosity or you’ve helped them to solve a problem. Now you can offer/pitch one of your solutions. “]
Will these blog stats convince you?
Here are some great stats from a HubSpot Report that will add some piquante sauce to my argument. According to Hubspot
- companies with blogs have 55% more traffic than those that do not
- company websites with blogs report 88% more leads for b2c
- company websites with blogs report 67% more leads for b2b than websites without a blog
I am convinced that your blog should be a part of your website and the centre of your content marketing efforts.
Are you? Leave me a comment and let me know.
Cross-posted at LearnWP.
Excellent post Dawn. We tell people all this all the time. What people fail to understand is if you’re using a free blogging service, you are the product, not the customer. Keeping control of your content is important.
Hope you don’t mind but I’ve shared this post on Twitter, Facebook and on the Company of Women discussion group on LinkedIn.
Thanks, Julia, I couldn’t have said it better: “you are the product, not the customer.” And of course, I am very happy that you have shared everywhere. 🙂