Should You Be Blogging In Your Small Business?

by Tim Campbell-Smith

Should you have a blog for your small business? Sure! If it supports your goals. 

Reasons to Blog

   People ask often if they should blog for their business. After all, a blog has the potential of becoming another thing you have to do. How will you maintain it? What will be written? These are fair and valid questions. When resources (time, energy and money) are tight, blogging is easy enough to go on the chopping block, and fall by the wayside to other activities.

   As with any other digital marketing task for small businesses, I always ask:what can this bring us? Is it what we want? So here, let's answer: what are the core functions of a blog? A blog will

  1. Help establish you as a thought leader - after all, your blog will be detailed enough to show you know what you're talking about in your industry.

  2. Improve SEO​ (Search Engine Optimization) - think of this as referrals from Google, the world's largest search engine where people make an average of 3-4 searches a day, and most needs for services involve a Google search (source). Note this part will take a while to work in your favour, but when it does it will powerfully and consistently. We won't get too deep into these mechanics, but there's a lot of ways blogging for your business helps SEO.

  3. Provide value to users. People want to be supported, to have questions answered (before they're asked) and problems solved (before they become problems). A blog is a way of being that supportive friend without being pushy. At its core, this is building the know/like/trust factor in business.

  4. Help develop new messages and delivery options. When you're thinking about your business from your consumer's stand point, new ideas and opportunities will come about. Maybe you write in such a way you realize people hire you for one reason, and you want to write about that. Or you write a blog post addressing an industry concern that spurs a new service. 

  5. Start new conversations. If you attach a call to action, connect form or comment section, you open a new opportunity for dialogue with new visitors. Excellent!

So take a moment to reflect: do you want increased Google traffic? Do you want to be a go-to leader in your industry? Do you feel stuck in the avenues you've pursued? 

Repurposing Blog Content

Now entrepreneurs, we are busy and everything we do has to have bang for our buck - which is why I love repurposing blog content onto social media. There's many different ways to repurpose blog content for social media marketing, including 

  • copying/pasting the blog onto LinkedIn as an article,

  • breaking down​ bullet points into tweets or series of tweets for Twitter,

  • breaking down bullet points into carrousel images on Facebook or Instagram,

  • turning blogs into shareable infographics, online or in print,

  • using the blog as a springboard or script for a podcast,

  • using the blog as a springboard or script for a live video broadcast

  • using the blog as a springboard or script for a YouTube video (or anywhere, really, where videos are),

  • pinning images in your blog post onto Pinterest,

  • distilling the blog to a thesis and supporting paragraph and sharing that on LinkedIn or Facebook, and

  • breaking down the blog or points into an Instagram post.

The best part: there is no harm in doing all of the above things. Just make sure you don't post the same content/same day/same time.

A Couple Blog Tips to Make Your Small Business Blog Shine

   I applaud the effort of just sitting down and starting a blog, either on its own or for a business. It's very in line with my own belief and that of Facebook which is "move fast and break things", so go for it! Now, if you want your blog to pop and work for you, a couple tips:

  • think about the keywords you want to be found for, and make sure they're littered throughout the blog post (but not too much - this is called keyword stuffing and Google is getting better at picking up on this)

  • be as thorough as possible - you'll impress people by giving it all away (and there's nothing to worry about - the magic is in working with you), and it avoids the bait and switch of "I got you to my blog, now here's 16 offers for my course" (gross)

  • include bullet points, as Google loves these and currently ranks them well,

  • have a clear question you're answering or problem you're solving with your blog post, and address it so people can clearly move to action from it,

  • have a call to action or way to connect somewhere on the blog (usually done on the bottom),

  • link to pages both on your website and off your website that are relevant,

  • to keep your blog timely and avoid the appearance you don't maintain a blog, avoid putting dates on your blogs,

  • have a schedule of how often you want to blog (I think once or twice a month is plenty in business, but it's your call) and stick to it, and

  • include visuals when possible.

A quick and easy summary - should you blog in your small business?

Blog if

  • Google search traffic in the medium to long term,

  • to be recognized by your peers as a leader,

  • new ways of communicating with new prospects

AND

  • you can commit to 1-2 blogs a month,

  • know at least some keywords people would search you for,

  • have clear questions to answers or problems to solve.

Don't blog if

  • you're happy with the traffic and opportunities you have,

  • you're already getting found well enough on Google, and/or

  • you can't fully commit to writing quality content on a scheduled basis.

Back to Tips & Tricks