As a business owner, you might be scratching your head when you see your competitors starting blogs on their websites. First of all, who has the time? And, depending on the industry, you might even wonder what they could possibly write about. Why might a construction company, for example, spend time writing bi-weekly posts - shouldn’t they spend their time remodeling kitchens instead?
Blogging is a growth hacking technique that any business can use to increase traffic, convert leads, and close customers. Even if your business is strictly local, you can access hundreds, if not thousands, more customers online than you ever could through traditional marketing methods (unless you have the budget to buy a SuperBowl ad). To get these potential customers to notice you online, you have to make it onto the first Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for your business’ keywords. After that, it's essential to write about blog topics that your readers and target buyer persona will find engaging.
How do you do that? By increasing your site visits and page views and using simple growth hacking techniques.
You need more page views to make it onto the SERPs, where you’ll then get even more page views – get it? While it may seem like the old first-job quandary “You need more experience,” “How can I get experience if no one will hire me?” – this is hackable. Your way in is through your blog.
Business sites with a blog get 55 percent more visits than sites without.
Before you start dreaming up posts loosely related to your industry, let’s talk about placement and purpose.
- Placement: In order for search engines to count your blog’s visits in your main website’s metrics, you need to make the blog part of your website – not some off-shoot elsewhere.
- Purpose: The purpose of your blog is not so much to advertise, as it is to increase page views.
Blogging & Conversions: Manage Your Expectations
The hardest part about blogging for your business is not coming up with content or finding the right keywords. No, the hardest part is patience. You won’t increase sales right away just from blogging. Be consistent with your content and make it easy for your reader to get your blog. For more tips on how to do this, subscribe to our blog and recieve new Growth Hacking tips delivered straight to your inbox.
Your blog is there to boost your rankings on SERPs. It does this by drawing readers in with compelling content sprinkled with appropriate keywords. Once your blog garners enough views, your website ranking will rise to the top of the search engine results for those keywords. Then, you’ll see an influx of relevant, qualified potential clients who are looking for exactly what you have to offer.
This is called “organic” SEO. Yes, there are faster ways to rise to the top of SERPs, but with Google’s expanding menagerie of algorithms (Panda, Penguin…), anything but white hat SEO will likely be penalized, putting your site’s reputation and rankings in serious risk. Worst-case scenario: Your website will be blacklisted from all search engine results pages.
Growth Hacking is simply setting realistic goals, implementing inbound marketing strategy with killer content, measuring, analyzing and repeating what works. Begin the journey today by setting SMART Goals in the free template below.
