Blogging

I have a website. Now what? Get to blogging.

Content is the key to a great website. Content is what connects your business to the reader sparking an interest in your product or service. It answers the who, what, when, where, and why. You may be thinking I knew that, but how do I get someone to actually want to visit my website and read about us?

There are several ways. If you’re an eCommerce site you’re probably relying heavily on product photography to engage your customer. Updating your product photography and asking customers to come back to see new items is a great start and will put you on the path of engaging your customer. But, what if you’re website is not an eCommerce site and you’re relying on what your customer reads about you?

Well, you could hire a copywriter who would interview you and write about your business in the “voice” you choose, or you could write the copy yourself. After all who knows your business better than you. You could also ask your team to write about their expertise and experience. And from there, you will have established, pertinent, and hopefully engaging website content that explains who you are and what you do for your customer.

Great right?! Yes and no.

Yes, because you have now informed your customer of your every product, service, and policy. You have given your customer a taste of who you are, how you do business, and you have established yourself as a reputable, trustworthy company. With any luck, you have engaged your customer to the point of them requesting your service or buying your product. And, all of these elements are crucial to growing your business and exceeding your goals. I would highly recommend all of them. But no. There’s more.

There’s another factor we have to discuss. Repeat engagement. The reason I say no to “only initial content” is that once your customer or pre-customer has read everything they have read everything. Let me say that again. Once your customer has read everything, they have read everything. In other words, how are you going to engage them to come back again and again? Blogging is my answer.

I often recommend blogging to my clients because it is a great way to engage your customer over and over again.

It’s a way to answer their questions before they ask them. It’s also a way to allow them to get to know you, your voice, and your company’s culture. Blogging has the potential to establish you and your business as an expert in your field. Writing articles on topics relevant to your product or service is relatively easy for you and very informative for your customer. Say you’re buying a sofa and you want to check measurements to make sure this new sofa will fit in your space. Then, every sofa you research seems to be too large for your space. Aggravating! But then, you come across a blog about finding the perfect sofa to fit in a small space AND this company sells sofas. Helpful? Yaasss! Just what you needed.

If this was your customer, they would possibly say that not only did they buy their sofa from you, but you were super helpful with the entire process, i.e. answering their question before they called and asked you. And, when they go to buy their next piece of furniture your furniture store will be the place they call. Why? Because not only did you meet their need by providing a sofa that fits in their space, you also helped them to make an informed decision on a larger purchase. And, drum roll…you made it easy!

Blogging provides an avenue to speak to your customer on relevant topics that are of interest to them. Think of the daily questions you get asked about your product or service. The answers to these questions are your content generators.

There are other benefits to blogging as well. Blogging establishes you as an expert on your topic. And, as an expert you will naturally float to the top of searches increasing your search engine optimization, also called SEO. You can use your blog content to engage your social media following on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Blogs are a great resource for email campaigns bringing your product or service top of mind while pushing your customer information that is of interest to them.

Gauging interest in certain topics will bring up ideas for other related topics. People love information and there’s probably someone on your team that likes to write about this information. You can also hire a copywriter. You know, in case you’re super slammed and don’t have the time to put the words on paper, not good with words, don’t like to put words on paper, and/or don’t have that person. No problem at all. Start the blog! And you will have created a channel full of pertinent content making a sea of endless possibilities.