There is a lot of hype online around blogging, content creation and content marketing to improve your profile as an expert, advertise your business, and, in the much longer term, increase your sales. In this post, I’m going to discuss the benefits of having a blog page on your website.
Use your Blog to Appeal to Readers
Your blog is the space to be conversational with your readers. Write to them as though you were talking to them about a topic. Write posts that are of interest to your readers, which increases their enjoyment of your content. You can see your blog page as the space to create content that is valuable to your readers – either by providing advice, information or guidance.
Use your blog content to position yourself as relatable to your audience. Readers relate better to people who they see as “just like them”. This takes so much pressure off you to be Instagram-level perfect. People love to improve their lives by learning from others. So, if you make mistakes and took some valuable lessons from them, blog about it. This can also foster a connection with your readers so that they begin to see you more as a friend, and thus trust your opinions.
Use your Blog to Develop your Profile
With every post you write and publish, you contribute to your website’s archive, you contribute to your industry, and you contribute to the Internet. I think that because posting on social media is so common, everyone does it, and we are now automatically content creators with every status update and photograph we share, we forget the magic inherent in posting your writing and photos online.
Unlike photographs and status updates that belong to the social platforms you share them on, your blog and its content belongs to you. That content lives online and slowly contributes to the growing library of content that’s associated with your name and your business’ name.
The best part about blogging is that you can choose your own topics. So then, it makes sense to write posts about topics on which you command a decent amount of knowledge and understand quite well. You can use your blog page to display your variety of knowledge. That helps to build your profile as an expert or thought leader.
Use your Blog to Drive Traffic to Your Website
Your blog is updated regularly with new posts, and thus it becomes the reason people continue to visit your website. You need to continue to provide valuable and interesting content for your readers, which is much more challenging than it sounds.
To help you create a steady supply of great content, I can’t recommend an editorial calendar highly enough. This helps to keep you organised and allows you to get an overview all your content at various stages of creation. It will also curb the feeling of overwhelm that tends to surface when contemplating regular content creation for a business.
Once you’ve got awesome content that’s regularly published, you need to get people reading it. You can drive traffic to your blog by sharing links to your posts on social media. Share a little teaser in your caption (when sharing on Instagram), status update (when sharing on Facebook) or Tweet, and then include a link that takes readers directly to your post. Hopefully your website attracts your readers to stay and take a look around the rest of your site after reading that one post. That’s how a chance encounter on social media can turn a reader into a fan.
Conclusion
Creating and regularly contributing to a blog is a long-term, but highly rewarding, investment.
This was a blog post written in 2016 when I and my business were in a very different place, physically and mentally. This was written from the perspective of someone who was a few months into running her own business in a different country from where I now live.
I have the experience of running a business, as well as 4 years of working at a marketing agency behind me, and thus my perspective has changed somewhat. I am sharing my older blog posts (from a previous iteration of my website) as a way to have a record of my writing online again.
Melissa De Klerk
Website Designer and Developer, tea lover
I am the owner and founder of Melissa Helen Co.
I have been a web designer and developer since 2015 and have worked with Wordpress since 2008. Since I started my business in 2016, my interests have revolved around business strategy and how that influences their websites.
I design and build websites for small to medium-sized businesses, have many years of branding experience, and have worked in marketing agencies.
You can send me a message me through my contact page, and find me on social media by clicking the buttons below.
