7 Reasons Why Businesses Should Blog

If I asked where your business spends most of its social media time and efforts, I bet you would say on Facebook. Would you be surprised to hear it’s not the best place for your time and money? Metrics show over and over that no social media tactic can match the long term payoff of blogging. If you don’t have a blog, you need one. If you do, you should be doing more with it, and here’s why.

1. SEO Benefits – If your blog is integrated into your web site (and it should be) then every blog post has the potential to help your search optimization because you keyword optimize your posts and that content will be picked up by the search engines. If your blog is not attached to your site, then there is an opportunity to have inbound links to your site. But note that inbound linking from blogs is less important than it used to be. Facebook doesn’t contribute to your search rankings like this.
2. Blogging Is Long Term – Updates on Facebook, Twitter, etc, are here today and gone tomorrow. Blog articles are forever and can continue to be found in search results for months or even years.
3. A Content Hub – Blogging establishes you as an expert and can be the center of thought leadership for your business and industry. Other social entities really only help you distribute or promote content. Tip: After you write your blog post, use the other social outlets to promote it and get people back to your blog.
4. Added Value – Fans on sites like Facebook will only follow you if they think you have something to offer. Your blog can give more value via helpful tips, advice and how-to’s. In addition it can link them to other blog posts of interest.
5. Wider Audience – Blogging can be seen via RSS, email, site visitors and all social networks you post to. On Facebook and other social sites, you are only reaching the people who have chosen to follow you.
6. More Clicks – Compelling links on your blog are more likely to be clicked than on social sites, where viewers are being inundated with posts from others. On your blog, it’s a relevant topic linking out to another relevant topic so there is more interest and likelihood to click and follow.
7. Control – This is perhaps the most important aspect of blogging. When you post on your blog, you have complete control. Your visitors are seeing what you want them to see. Facebook decides who sees your updates and you have no control over that.

No social tactic will have the measurable ROI that blogging can have and your social media campaign should be adjusted accordingly. Make sure that if you aren’t blogging for yourself, your Search Marketing Team is doing this for you each month.