How to Grow Your Small Business with Blogging in 2022
A Guide for Small Businesses on Why Blogging Matters.
Introduction
If you already have a website for your small business how do you ensure you provide Google with regularly updated content?
How do you make an effort to simplify your customer’s decision-making process with relevant insights into your industry, product, or service?
You could create landing pages for keywords to help with SEO.
You may have a great social media presence to build your brand.
But what about an elegantly simple platform that accomplishes both at the same time and complements your other forms of marketing?
Consider, the humble blog.
Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash
The Advantages of Blogging for Your Small Business
Why have a blog?
Every day people are asking the internet (mostly Google) questions. Content provides the answers to these questions.
This means your content should respond to the burning desires and problems of your target audience.
If you are a small business with a great offer there are people looking for you. When competing for attention, regularly publishing content gives you the edge over competitors who don’t.
In every niche, there is a demand for useful, educational, and entertaining blog content. A 2022 Orbit Media Survey found that 80% of bloggers report achieving results from their efforts and see blogging as an important part of their content marketing strategy.
Here are the top 5 reasons why your small business should have a blog
1 Improve SEO
Google recommends providing relevant, high-quality content as the best way to get better SEO results because that’s what serves the needs of your reader.
The search engine giants want people to find what they need and be satisfied with it. That’s what keeps them Googling, after all.
Well-researched, informative articles help grow your audience and boost SEO because websites that regularly publish fresh content are rewarded with better rankings.
And, the more blogs you post, the more pages you have for search engines to crawl and the more keywords you can potentially rank for.
Photo by Carlos Muza on Unsplash
2 Increase your authority
Want to build trust and authority? Consistently putting out superlative content helps position you as the business with the know-how.
When people visit your website for the first time they want to find out more about you. The standard About Page should give them a good idea, but your blog is a chance to go deeper.
Taking the time to build up a library of useful advice, informative posts, and entertaining articles makes people regard you as a leader.
You’re showing how much you know your stuff and that you have plenty to add to the conversation.
Your blog, if done right, will Inform visitors, add value to their life, and even brighten their day.
High-quality content gets more follows. More follows means a community builds up around you, further cementing your authority.
3 Drive traffic to your website
Fresh blog content optimized for relevant keywords can drive more traffic to your website through ranking better in SERPs and from other sites linking to your content.
Organic reach may take more effort upfront, but it gives more credible results than paid advertising and lasts long term. Think about when you search for something on the internet - do you click on the ad results? Or do you scroll to the first organic result?
Creating content for your inbound marketing is also cheaper than paid advertising, although there is an investment.
Create quality, well-researched articles for evergreen content on your website that drives traffic for months, even years to come.
Photo by Ryoji Iwata on Unsplash
4 Build brand awareness
Every piece of content - including your blog - is another chance to tell your story and show your personality.
The more engaging content you have for people to consume, the easier it is for your target market to find you, get to know you and consider you as the right option.
The audience for your blog is people at the top of your sales funnel. These are relevant prospects who are aware of your brand but not ready to make a buying decision yet.
In all probability, most of the people who consume your content will never make a purchase, but that’s not to say it’s not worth creating content.
For the right visitor, your content could lead to a conversion which is why it’s worth having a clear call to action on each page.
5 Learn more about your niche
Besides reading, one of the best ways to learn more about a topic is to write about it.
You are the authority on your small business, but once you start writing your blog you’ll discover how much more there is to discover.
The act of brainstorming, researching and writing your blog throws up more ideas.
You’ll be amazed at how much you learn as you teach your audience. You’ll also be able to refine your ideas and get feedback on what works.
Before long, you might find writing your small business blog a pleasure you look forward to.
Anja Poehlmann runs a family and personal brand photography business and has a regular blog. She writes about things she thinks her ideal client for brand photos would find helpful.
“When I do have any engagement, it’s very positive. For me blogging is just more fun than social media posts so I put more effort into it. I also share that content in my weekly newsletters. I feel like brand building happens on all those channels and they probably benefit from each other.”
How to Start a Blog Today
If you have a website, why not start posting blog content? Start small. Write about what you know. Research, refine, and expand as you go.
If you need a bit of guidance, here are 9 steps you can follow.
1 Brainstorm
Sometimes the most challenging part about starting a blog is getting the ideas in the first place. If you understand your audience and know the problems they face it makes it easier to come up with relevant topics that address these issues.
Most small businesses use social media. If you’ve been posting regularly for a while, you should already have a back catalogue of content. Use this as inspiration for topics.
Identify which posts gained the most engagement. Take these posts and expand them. Your blog is a great opportunity to go into more depth.
When people like something, they usually want more of the same. Try a different angle or reveal a new trend.
With customers, think about what questions regularly crop up. Your blog is the place to fully answer any questions which help your customers and positions you as the authority on the topic.
Easy win you can do today:
Open an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet and start a list of possible topics. Type out a list of all the frequently asked questions, common feedback/reviews, and posts with the highest engagement. This will provide plenty of inspiration for planning your posts.
2 Do Keyword research
SEO sounds super technical, but for your purpose as a small business owner writing a blog, it’s not hard to follow basic best practices.
Essentially, a keyword is a question that someone types into Google.
You already have a list of ideas - look at that list and start to think about what someone might type into Google to find out about that content.
My keyword list (a work in progress!)
Of course, you want to identify relevant keywords that people in your ideal audience are searching for. With your knowledge of your market, you should already have a good understanding of the questions in your audience’s mind.
If you want to learn more, check out this Moz article on the basics of keyword research.
Easy win you can do today:
Check out Mangools KWfinder and set up a free trial so you can play around with keyword research to identify keywords you can rank for.
3 Plan content
If you’re going to blog, you need to know what you want to write about and commit to a schedule. Blogging only works as a marketing strategy if you are consistent.
Now, you may not have lots of time and blogging can be time-consuming, especially at first. But you will have better success if you set some goals and stick to them.
Take the ideas you brainstormed and the keywords you researched and come up with a list of 6-8 working titles, each with a target keyword.
Next, decide when you’re going to publish your blog.
If you can only commit to once a month, and stick to it, that’s better than saying you’ll do one a week than getting frustrated when you miss your target.
Easy win you can do today:
Pop the realistic publishing deadlines in your calendar and consider it done (in a Tony Robbins style manifesting way).
4 Research your topic
Check out what other people are saying on your chosen topic. This will help you get some ideas for your blog post.
Use authoritative sites for your industry. Citing original research is always more credible than a secondary source, but blog posts in your niche can provide valuable inspiration.
Easy win you can do today:
Check out the content ranking for your chosen long-tail keyword and think about how you can do better.
5 Start writing
This is the part that is easier said than done. If you’re running a small business, when do you really have time to blog? It might seem impossible.
The best way to get any writing done is just to write. I know we plan our keywords, and strategise around the perfect topic, but sometimes you just have to go for it.
On average, it takes about 4 hours to write a 1200-word blog post. If you can carve out 30 minutes each day, that should mean you have your blog post finished within two working weeks.
Easy win you can do today:
Sit down, put your phone on ‘do not disturb,’ set a timer for 30 mins, and see what you can come up with in that time.
6 Edit
Once I’ve written most of what I want to say, I like to set aside my writing for a day (or two). This gives my subconscious time to mill things over and I’m ready to edit.
This tactic is what I’m going to recommend you do. A bit of time between writing and editing is always advisable. You come back with a fresh pair of eyes for those spelling mistakes and a fresh brain for connecting ideas.
Once you’re happy with your revised and edited draft, Grammarly is your friend. Use the Hemmingway Editor to check for clarity Don’t feel as if you have to stick rigidly to every recommendation made, but these tools are useful.
Easy win you can do today:
If you’ve got this far, you’re on a blogging roll! Pour your favourite cuppa before editing.
Photo by TeaCora Rooibos on Unsplash
7 Add Images
It’s best practice to add images every 100 -200 words to make scrolling easier on the eye.
Images improve user experience (UX) which improves the chances of your blog being read.
Use charts, infographics and screenshots that illustrate your points. Original images of you or your brand tell a more authentic story than stock images but if you don’t have many then stock photos are better than none.
Easy win you can do today:
Get a freebie stock image at Unsplash (As I have done multiple times in this post).
8 Optimise for SEO
Let’s keep it simple: For a small business, this means using the keyword in the H1 tag and throughout the body copy so it seems natural.
You will also want to write the meta description - a short informative, relevant summary which tells the reader what the page is about. This is the short description that appears in search results. If you don’t write your own, Google will automatically generate a snippet.
Example of a feature snippet. You’ve all seen these before, but just so we’re clear.
9 Publish
Once your diligently proofread, beautifully formatted post is good to go it’s time to make it live on your site.
Then you can inform your followers on social media. This step is crucial in getting the word out.
Easy win you can do today:
Link to your blog on your social media sites. Instagram doesn’t actually let you link to websites in posts, but if you have your website blog page link in your bio let people know to click this.
Conclusion
If you want to improve your SEO and build your brand, the blog is a time-tested internet workhorse.
Trends change and platforms evolve, but articles that include useful, educational, engaging information will always be popular.
If your small business already has a website, why not make it even better with a blog?