Blogging is extremely valuable to a company’s success, even if it’s a start-up. Most new companies have very scarce marketing budgets. This is largely due to the fact that many choose to direct resources towards quality control, ensuring their products and services are ready for the market.
Business blogs are very easy to manage. And, to top it off, blogging is relatively affordable, and in some cases free, form of small business marketing. As long as you’re knowledgeable and passionate about your industry niche, you can have a successful business blog. That’s what makes blogging such an efficient marketing tool for start-ups.
What is the most important resource needed for your company to be successful? You need customers. But, with so many competitors in your field, how will people learn just how amazing your solutions are? Most startups would probably answer, “our company website.” Yet, if no one knows your website exists, you’ll never make those online sales you’ve been expecting.
So, how do you get the word out about your website and your solutions? A business blog gives your start-up the opportunity to engage your target audience. Using your blog to educate your potential customers on the ins-and-outs of your industry, niche, field, products and services lures them into your blog. The more you educate, the more they’ll visit your blog and read and your informative posts. In time, they’ll begin to trust your industry knowledge and experience. Soon, they’ll view you as an expert in your industry… an expert whom they trust to recommend products and services that will make their lives easier.
10 Reasons All Start-Ups Need to Blog
So, exactly how can blogging help your start-up company succeed? Why do experts insist that you need to start blogging immediately? Well, here are the top 10 reasons why your start-up business needs to be blogging as part of your online marketing strategy:
1. Spread the Word
As noted above, blogging is an extremely affordable way to spread the word about your products and services. Blogging can be a bit time consuming. However, that’s only because it’s vitally important that you blog about valuable topics. Your informative posts will help to lure people in, to visit your blog. Then, you have their full-attention to inform them of how your solutions can help solve problems they’re having. This is the type of information your blog visitors are more likely to share with their social media networks.
2. Thought Leadership
Show your audience that you’re aware of issues and developments related to your niche. How can you accomplish this? Educate your audience about market news, and add your industry leader voice to online discussions. This is a great way to establish a loyal audience, who will return to your blog regularly for more content.
3. Engage Target Audience Even Before Start-Up Date
Many start-up companies make the mistake of using their blog to announce that they’ll be open for business soon. This is okay, as long as this is not the only content on your business blog. It may takes months for you to actually start business operations. In the meantime, your audience has forgotten all about you and your start-up date.
Instead, provide your audience with content that will entice them to keep coming back for more substance. Even before you launch, you should be keeping your target audience engaged. Remaining silent until your start-up date simply will not due.
4. Helps You Discover Who and Where Your Target Market Is
When start-up companies develop new products and innovative services, most have an idea of who their target market is. However, when it comes down to content marketing, this may change a bit. Blogging helps businesses understand exactly who’s interested in their solutions, industry and market.
Blogging also helps you discover exactly where your market is located online. In other words, a photography studio may find that most of their target audience enjoys actual images. Therefore, they’re probably more active on Pinterest and Instagram. This is done by analyzing your blog traffic, incoming and outgoing.
5. Higher Rankings on Google and Other Search Engines
Google rewards blogs that regularly publish high-quality, relevant content. Why? Because the goal is to provide searchers with links to sites that can actually answer their questions or provide solutions to their problems.
Research shows that 44% of all online consumers start their shopping experiences with search engines. Therefore, the more valuable content published on your blog, the better your chances of gaining traffic from search engines.
6. Create Valuable Backlinks
Backlinks can be valuable to any business blog. But, high-quality backlinks can be very effective for helping start-ups increase search engine rankings. Higher rankings mean showing up on the first pages of search results. This increases your chances of consumer click-thrus, which increases traffic to your blog. What are high-quality backlinks? These are links to and from authoritative websites and high ranking blogs related to your industry.
7. Industry Leadership
Many start-up companies don’t create blogs because they can’t decide what they should be blogging about. However, the answer to that is always right in front of you. The best topics to blog about are always those which the writer is passionate about. In the case of your start-up company, that would be your solutions, industry and anything related to it, such as your niche, or market. Keeping your target audience informed and educated about your industry creates a level of trust with them. They show their appreciation by engaging on your blog, and eventually, buying your solutions.
8. Improve Online Communication Skills
Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to blogging. The more you publish quality content, they better you’ll get at it. These new communication skills will trickle over into other inbound marketing efforts. Your e-newsletters, emails, sales letters, social media posts and other online marketing material will continue to evolve along with your great writing skills.
9. Earn Market Trust
As a start-up company, you’re pretty much the new kid on the blog. One of your biggest online marketing challenges will be to gain the trust of your target market. This will require building your brand’s online reputation. The best approach for accomplishing this is providing your target market with helpful content related to your niche. By educating your audience, you help to create a connection with them. This tells them that you care more about helping the solve their problems than simply getting them to buy your solutions. Consumers appreciate this non-salesy approach and trust companies who follow this policy on their blogs.
10. Reference Point for Others
Even as a start-up company, if you write about important topics you market actually cares about, your blog will succeed. In time, your blog will become a point of reference for others looking for news and other information about your industry. Soon, your blog’s search engine rankings will increase to levels that will set your site up as an authoritative blog. These blogs always rank high in search results. They also become very popular places for other industry leaders to interact with each other. This, in turn, also helps to provide more valuable content for your readers.
This article was written by Chad Goulde, a blogging expert for The Blog Builders. Want to reach more potential customers online? Learn more effective methods for communicating with your target market from TheBlogBuilders.com.
