Content marketing significantly trumps all other forms of marketing out there. Whether your specialty is B2B or B2C, building a reputable blog should be your top priority when it comes to getting your brand out there.
While many content marketing trends are bound to change, the following aren’t going to change any time soon: Blogging is steadily becoming more effective, you’ll reap many SEO benefits, and the ROI on a blog is much more long-term than other types of marketing.
With that said, if you thought that paying customers don’t read blogs, you have been making a mistake that’s been costing your business tons of money. Learn more about blogging and what makes it so great in the rest of this article.
Proof That Your Customers Really do Read Blogs
The best way to know if something works is to see the success of people who tried it out before you. This is why we’ve put together these impossible to deny blogging stats to help you transition into content marketing.
1. Search Engine Ranking
If your blog is a key part of your website, your chances of receiving a high ranking on search engines increases by 434%.
To keep your ranking high, make sure you are regularly churning out fresh and relevant content on your blog. This won’t only put you in Google’s good graces, which is definitely something you want. But it will also make searchers (potential customers) view your site as an authoritative source that solves their problems and answers their questions.
2. Blogs Impact Purchasing Decisions
In the past, when consumers wanted something, they’d simply visit a store near their homes and buy products based on things like the price and whether they recognized a brand. Although they still got recommendations from friends and family, they weren’t exposed to much information about the products they were buying or the companies they were giving money to.
The internet has provided consumers with more control over their purchases. They’re reading reviews about whether a product is of good quality and even watching how-to videos.
Also, part of this research process is reading blogs. In fact, 47% consume 3-5 pieces of content before they move forward with purchasing.
3. Content Alone Isn’t Enough
Yes, you definitely need a blog if you want to attract more people to your website. But content on its own isn’t enough to keep visitors coming.
Blog posts that have high-quality photos in them receive 94% more views.
4. Useful Content Gets Shared
The purpose of your blog is to drive traffic to your business website and products. But in order to do that, you need to take advantage of social media shares, which is basically free advertising.
To make your content more shareable, make it useful. We’re talking about things like how-to guides and case studies to increase your numbers. You can’t afford to miss out on the fact that 94% of people share articles they think are helpful.
5. More Content Equals More Leads
Remember when we said that Google likes websites whose blogs frequently publish fresh and useful content? Well, customers like it too.
In fact, companies that publish 16 or more posts each month end up with more than 4 times more leads than those that published 4 or less. When you’re running a business, you are probably already wearing multiple hats and doing the work of several people. Especially if yours is still in the beginning stages.
If you don’t have the time to do this much blogging, you should definitely consider outsourcing your content.
6. The ROI is Almost Guaranteed
Whether you are paying a writer to craft content for you or you’re taking the time to write posts yourself, blogs have an unbeatable return on investment for business owners. In fact, 82% of marketers who blog say they see a positive return on investment for their blogging efforts.
7. Increased Unique Site Traffic
In a world where everyone is obsessed with how many followers they have on social media, we’re here to tell you that those numbers don’t contribute to your business or marketing efforts as much as you thought.
Here’s what does, your blog! Growth in unique traffic to websites is 7.8 times higher for content in comparison to followers.
8. Branded Content Vs. Print Ads
If your content is interesting, tells a story, and solves problems for readers, it is much more relatable (read: persuasive) than print ads where a company brags about how great it is.
The reason behind it is that the conversational nature of blogs promotes comments and responses from your audience. In turn, this makes a brand seem more human.
This is why 72% of marketers think that branded content is more effective than magazine ads. And we happen to agree with them.
9. Your Content Doesn’t Always Have to be Brand New
Repurposing content is a way of recycling content you previously published. It helps you reach new audiences and works as a refresher to people who previously read it.
Repurposing also gives you a way of testing out whether particular topics, angles, and ideas work. Almost 60% of marketers do this 2-5 times.
10. It’s Free
Blogging doesn’t cost you anything but your time. You can find free SEO tools and plug-ins to help make your content easier to find in search engines. This tools also help you do some trial and error to understand what works and what doesn’t.
On the other hand, most forms of marketing aren’t nearly as impactful and they will cost you money. Whether you are a start-up or you’ve been in business for a little while, every business owner has room to tighten up their budgets a bit.
Time for a Content Strategy
People who read blogs often turn into paying customers. So, there isn’t a business in this digital age that can afford to ignore this marketing strategy.
If you need help with churning out professional blog posts that build customer trust and brand recognition, contact us. We have some solutions that’ll help you!
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