Are Blogs Good For Business And Sales? Data Says Yes

Running a marketing company means I get a lot of questions from business owners. But one of the most common is are blogs good for business?

What they’re asking is should they blog and is it actually a worthwhile activity that will bring them more customers? My answer is always, “Yes. Absolutely!”

Publishing content can literally do anything and everything asked of it. Call it Superman.

For example, do you need it to reach new prospects and convert them into clients? Done, it specializes in that.

Could it be used to get previous customers to come back to buy from you again? Of course.

Or maybe you need it to first educate your audience on how your product or service is the solution to their pain point, then they come back and buy from you later. Easy enough, the company blog can do that too.

These aren’t my opinions. This insight comes from experience where content marketing has helped my customers and I land profitable customers.

If you’re not convinced, I’ll have to bring in the cold hard facts:

Businesses with blogs get 126% more lead growth than their competitors who don’t blog, and acquire 60% more customers
Content marketing rakes in 600% more conversions than traditional marketing methods
Content marketing brings in more than 3 times the leads as outbound marketing, while costing 62% less

So my question for you is, why isn’t your business focused on blogging? Any business in any niche will benefit from the versatile marketing channel that is content marketing.

If you don’t have a blog, or you do have one but just don’t give it much attention, this guide is for you.

Keep going to understand how good blogs are for business and for bringing in new leads.

20 Ways Blogging Helps Grow Your Business

No matter if you’ve already convinced on the power of this marketing tool or not, I want to hammer home the long list of blogging benefits for businesses.

Here are some ways a blog contributes to your brand’s overall goals:

Increases search engine traffic from sites like Google
Builds trust with your audience that you’re competent and helpful
Drives email list conversions
Adds authority and credibility to your brand
Increases the odds of brand loyalty and customers coming back
Gives readers a chance to share your articles with their social network
Sells your products or services 24/7 on your business website (see lead generation using SEO)
Keeps your business relevant in a competitive marketplace
Signals clearly that your company is still in business
Provides your company a voice to share news and PR
Influences the local news to highlight your business
Gives you an outlet to share your organization’s culture
Serves as a recruiting platform to attract new talent
Offers audience insight by studying the demographics of your traffic
Saves the need to always pay for ads once your traffic starts to pick up
Educates your team about new operational or marketing methods in your industry
Documents the history of your company
Creates a platform to engage with your audience with blog comments
Inspires your social media content
Helps your business network with other companies through guest blogging

I could have kept going, but those are the main reasons to take publishing blog posts seriously. And it’s no question that each one of those benefits a business into the future.

Content marketing is often the glue that holds everything else in a marketing plan together. For example, this author uses SEO to drive traffic to his site to promote his book series.

And imagine you own a corporate cleaning company. Your main offering is cleaning office cubicles, vacuuming, taking out the trash, and washing the bathroom.

Your sales cycle, before blogging, naturally takes three months long as your prospects need to get every question under the sun answered.

However, you read an article like this and decide to start publishing content around corporate cleaning.

After publishing 10 new posts, you’re pleasantly surprised that your sales cycles has shortened down from three months to one. How did this happen?

Because your blog posts addressed what your company specializes in, how you operate, the benefits of hiring you, and the credibility of your team. Essentially, your posts become a supercharged Frequently Asked Questions page that boosts conversions.

This subconsciously sold your prospects that your cleaning company is the perfect fit for the job. And since the sales cycles are shorter thanks to inbound marketing, your sales team is freed up to sell more contracts.

Now business is booming, all thanks to blogging.

Publish How Many Posts A Week?

In a perfect world, I’d tell you to post 10 blog posts per day. Since each article is a boost in marketing, branding, or sales, your company would be flooded with inbound leads.

But I understand that’s unreasonable for 99% of companies. So my realistic recommendation is to publish one to two blog posts per week, at the minimum—following this guide on how to write articles for SEO.

This kind of activity will move the needle to give you the benefits you’re looking for from content marketing.

Remember, every blog post compounds on another to bring your company website more traffic, leads, and sales. That’s why the hustle pays off. Be encouraged that the only obstacle trying to stop you is hard work.

Also, keep in mind that more articles means more opportunities to link internally to your other posts to give them a boost, or receive external links from other sites for extra exposure.

Plus, if it helps, know that you won’t be alone in this pursuit. My team and I will be doing the same to grow our marketing agency Robben Media.

How Long Does It Take To Blog?

Looking at a high-low spectrum, a typical blog post should take no longer than 6 hours and no shorter than 1 hour.

Most often you’re looking at around three to four hours to put out a quality piece of content.

This doesn’t mean you as the business owner need to blog yourself. And it certainly doesn’t make sense to if writing isn’t your strong suit.

With a sizable marketing budget, do yourself a favor by hiring a marketing agency to publish the content. This ensures the writing gets done since that’s their focus, not yours.

Once you find some reliable writers who you trust, you can establish a content machine where every day your blog is growing with new content.

Another idea is to get scrappy by incentivizing your current employees to blog. Offer them the chance to win fun perks like a cash bonus, fancy dinner, or end-of-year vacation so they stay motivated. Adding additional employee benefits will only increase your ability to retain key players.

Lastly, for a small business owner without a budget but who has decent writing skills, then you can still have time at your disposal. Wake up earlier, go to bed later, write during lunch, or pass on a night out to sit in front of your computer and type up a post.

The blog can become the 80/20 rule for your business, where new content gets 20% of your marketing effort and contributes 80% of the results.

But just cause it takes a few hours to get this done, don’t think the process can’t be streamlined.

Use A Blogging Template For Speed

If I’ve learned anything while growing my digital marketing startup, it’s that systems are always more efficient than random operations.

For instance, a well thought out advertising system that takes people from Facebook, to a custom landing page on your site, where they’re given an incentive to enter their email address, is a solid system that’s proven to convert.

However, randomly running a Facebook ad to your website’s homepage that isn’t designed for conversions will be an expensive train wreck.

In our case, to get back on topic, a blogging template is the system your team needs to outline their posts efficiently. Without it, everyone runs the risk of missing the mark.

So here’s a sample blogging template that will help you get started creating yours.

Main topic:
Keyword:
Total words:
Post title:
Introduction theme:
First paragraph topic:
Second paragraph topic:
Third paragraph topic:
Conclusion:
Call to action:

If you wanted an more in depth outline, you could add sections underneath each paragraph that describe the main points to address. But this simple outline gets the job done for most cases.

What I do is fill out that template and then send it to one of my writers. This way I ensure my customers’ content stays on message. Filling out an outline like this also saves back and forth time. A frustration of many writers is guessing where their boss wants the article to go, but with an outline it’s crystal clear.

And if I’m writing the post myself, then I use the same template to organize my thoughts, stay on task, and ensure I’ve added proper SEO keywords to the article.

Systems equal speed. So use that blogging system to increase your team’s writing output.

Don’t Make These Blogging Mistakes

With the right mindset around blogging and a concise template to get it done, what’s stopping you?

Nothing if you don’t go off course. And everything if you make some of these common mistakes.

The most dangerous obstacle in growing a blog is being inconsistent.

You’ll get fired up and be fine the first week or two. But what happens when near the end of a quarter when you’re putting out fires and trying to land a big contract?

In busy times is when the blog gets tossed to the wayside, or just given 50% of the attention it deserves. Except I argue that if you’re inconsistent, then you’ll have more fires and less sales than if you fight through the busy times to continue blogging.

Because, while it’s an uphill battle, building out a content machine eventually becomes the automated marketing and sales your business craves during stressful seasons.

Another common blunder is simply not putting enough value into your writing.

If your attitude is to create content just to get it done, the audience will notice. People want quality in the form of education, entertainment, or both.

So if your blog doesn’t provide value to its readers, trust me when I say they can and will go somewhere else.

Also, don’t keyword stuff your articles. This used to work decades ago, but now the Google search algorithm is way too smart for this spammy method. With the development of BERT and natural language processing, quality content that adds value to readers continues to become more and more important.

If you’re curious, check out more business blogging mistakes to internalize what not to do if your goal is to turn your company blog into a real asset.

Business Blog Conclusion

A company blog is a powerful weapon to increase revenue for any company. But what you’ll find is most businesses overlook this marketing and sales tool.

So if your business truly focuses on building out your blog content for a year straight, you’ll breakout from the rest of your industry.

Over time, with a consistent effort of publishing new pieces, Google will reward your blog by sending more relevant traffic to your website. That organic traffic can be worth thousands of dollars in earned media alone.

Thanks to the compounding effect of SEO, putting in the same effort in month 13 as you did in month 1 will generate five times the traffic. (That means five times the selling opportunities as well.)

So incentivize your employees to write, hire someone (or an SEO agency) whose only job is to publish articles, or block out some time to do it yourself.

In other words, do whatever it takes to ensure this project is successful.

If you stick with blogging, you’ll see firsthand the increase in traffic and sales. Then it’s time to double down on these efforts.

What struggles or successes have you had with blogging?