Part I: The Blog Boost Cycle- how blogs grow your business

by Jenna Kalinsky

If you’re not blogging (Time! Who has time!), consider this: your website’s initial raison d’être may have been to post your opening hours and provide a platform from which to sell your stuff, but now, websites have to satisfy a long list of interactive requirements to not only seem relevant to their clients and customers but to be considered relevant by the almighty Google, who has the power to exalt those sites it feels are useful and squash those it doesn’t like bugs.

As consumers of Internet content, we tend to agree with Google if unconsciously: the more a business extends itself to its customers and clients in personal ways on the Internet, the more we feel invested in that business and what it offers. Consider it for a minute: a static website with nothing going on for years vs. a website that has lots of updated content and new blogs posted regularly — which do you feel cares more?

The chief way to connect and establish a rapport with your clients and customers is through content: and inside of that, as you’re not going to be updating your core website content as often, is through blogging.

A blog may be little, but it can turn a perfectly fine business into a bejazzled business.

(And really, who doesn’t want that?)

If you need more convincing, have a look at the following graphic and explanation below detailing the three interconnected ways in which blogs boost your business:

 

#1: Let’s Begin with “Create Intimacy.”

Creating intimacy through your blog happens in two ways:

1. The What: Your blog must contain relevant information about which your audience cares/wants to know
2. The Delivery: Your blog has to be written in a voice that is warm, inviting, authoritative and/or embodies the chief characteristics of your business’ personality (which, unless you’re selling unsavoury things, should be the three adjectives mentioned above).

These two elements in a blog create an intimacy between you and your client, who will then feel a genuine rapport with and personal investment in your business.

#2: Increased and Repeat Traffic and Longer Site Visits

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Naturally, once you’ve created intimacy with your customers and clients, they will feel invested in what you’re doing and will check your site regularly to see what you’re up to and what new insights you have. This leads to Increased and Repeat Traffic and Longer Site Visits.

That’s a lot of words, so let’s break it down:

a) by posting good content, and lots of it, you will have Repeat Visits (people who know you return to see what new thing you’re talking about)

b) because it’s good content that’s interestingly presented, these visitors are actually sticking around long enough to read it, which accounts for Longer Site Visits.

Ok, but what about that first bit, the “Increased Visits.” How are new people going to know you’re putting up all this amazing content?

[This part gets a little technical, so put down your phone for a minute].

When you post a lot of good content on your site, those repeat visitors who stick around for longer site visits indicate to Google, the arbiter of all things “relevant,” that you’re indeed relevant. Google measures sites based on over 200 algorithms of “usefulness,” but at the top of that list are sites that are well trafficked and have low “click-through” rates (meaning people hang out for a length of time and don’t just click in then click out right away).

This means the more content you’re putting up, the more your loyal fans are visiting your site, which tells Google you’re a good site, and as such gets you ranking higher on the search list. When a new client or customer Googles something you’ve written about, now that you’re deemed “useful,” that user will see your website over your competitors. That new person will now navigate to your site, see that you’re posting great stuff, and wham, you have another loyal follower.

It’s the circle of website life, baby!

#3: Which Leads Us to “Sharing Content”

When people “share” things on social media, those shares are a reflection of that person’s tastes and perspectives. Your friend Joanne, for example, is a smart person with good taste. She wants to reiterate that and continue to bolster that image (wouldn’t you?), and as such, finds the cool, relevant content in her newsfeed or in the trusted websites she visits, and shares that content, thusly aligning herself with those sites.

People like to share good things to be kind and also to maintain their reputations, so by providing good content, your business gets a good reputation by virtue of your alliance with your clients and customers, just as they get by aligning themselves with you.

Good Content Is the Party We All Want to Attend

In the end, like the Three Tenors, these three tenants of good blogging create a perfect harmony to get and maintain clients, keep them happy, and do the good work of boosting your business. Take the time and care to do it right- and the millions of people who see your work will be clamouring for more.

(Wait. &%#. Did she say millions?) (She did. She said millions).

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Not to worry- in Part II: Blogging Basics: 6 Steps to Done, you’ll learn exactly how to go about getting your blogs written.

When you’re ready to get serious about your blogging, learn how to do them well and make them work for your small business or writing career, sign up for The Blogshop: a 6-lesson get ‘er done self-guided course that will change the trajectory of your blogging practice– forever.