One of the questions I am often asked about blogging is, “Why should I start a blog?” This post will attempt to answer that from a business perspective.
1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Blogging is great for SEO, and it’s often the main reason that many businesses will start a blog. It can help with a number of factors that determine your ranking in search engines.
- Fresh content can improve your ranking, and writing a blog post once or twice a week (or 21 times in 21 days!) can make it easy to keep your content fresh.
- Links and internal links can also help with SEO. Adding a blog gives you the opportunity for both. You can link to other articles in your blog and link to sources for anything you quote. Your blog might also become a great source for inbound links from other websites, which can also help your SEO.
- There’s a lot more, but I’ll save them for another post!
Pro Tip: If you are using WordPress, install the Yoast SEO plugin, and you can get tips for improving the SEO of your individual blog posts.
2. Establish Yourself as an Expert
When I was just getting started as a web developer, I wrote a lot of tutorials about Flash (remember Flash??). Before I could write a single tutorial, I had to actually learn how to do the tasks. The more I wrote about Flash, the more I had to learn about it. Eventually, I became known in the community as an expert in Flash.
The same is true for your niche. Before you can write about a specific topic, you need to have some knowledge of that topic. The more you write about it, the more you will learn, and you will eventually become an expert on the topic.
3. Improve Your Writing Ability
You need to actually write to improve your writing ability. Starting a regular blog is a great way to get in the habit of writing on a regular basis. That is part of why I started a blogging challenge; I wanted to force myself to work out my writing “muscles,” and improve my writing skills. I’m also using tools like Hemingway, to make sure my writing is actually improving.
4. Generate Income
You can actually make money with your blog. Not only can you use your blog as a means to drive traffic to your website, where you can then sell your products or services, but you can also earn income in other ways:
- Sign up for an ad network, like Google AdSense, and add advertising to your website. You’ll earn money from those ads.
- Add affiliate links to your website, to earn a commission when your readers purchase from other websites.
- Once you establish yourself as an expert, you might be asked to write sponsored posts about a particular product or service.
Don’t expect to make big bucks right out of the gate, but as your blog grows, you can use it as a stream of income.
Start a Blog Today!
If you are ready to start a blog, join our Get Your Business Online Facebook group. We can point you in the right direction. If you prefer one-to-one training, or need more help, contact us.
Ready to start a blogging challenge? Sign up for our 14-Day Blogging Challenge! We start on the 1st of every month, but suggest signing up a week or two before that, so you can be ready to go when the challenge starts.