How Might a Business Use a Blog: 9 Huge Benefits of Business Blogging

Not so long ago, it seemed like blogging was dead. After all, blogging started as a way for people who didn’t have a forum anywhere else to set up a rudimentary website and share their thoughts. Often, these blogs could be set up for free through services like Blogger. These types of blogs still exist but blogging, in general, has grown far beyond the literary rantings of frustrated intellectuals and a target audience of just about anyone who was interested in taking a peek.

This begs the question: how important is blogging, really? Well, chances are that you read a blog regularly, even if you don’t know it. Data shows that 77% of Internet users read blogs. Many cooking recipe sites, financial advice sites, and similar venues are all built on the blogging format. This is true whether the site is run by an individual or a business, in order to provide valuable content to an audience.

Note the business connection: as I’ve said before, blogging isn’t dead. This is even more true for business blogging. If nothing else, blogs are increasingly a type of business, in that authors monetize their blogs and businesses monetize their blog as a form of content marketing. For these reasons and others, blogging isn’t dead.

With that in mind, let’s look at the huge benefits that business blogging has, whether you are still on the sidelines or are questioning how much of a positive impact it can have on your business or your efforts to become an industry leader.

What Is a Business Blog?

Simply put, a business blog is a section on a corporate website that has articles on it. These articles are generally related to the business’ core industry, corporate news, and other relevant content. As a rule, the articles are informal and written to be relatively easy to read–even by non-experts. For that reason, business blogs are a relatively friendly place for interested parties to “hang out.”

Let’s break this down a bit.

Business blogging is a relatively informal forum, even when your target audience is people who are familiar with the complexities of your content. That means that companies won’t put white papers on their blog, because these are typically too in-depth for the blog format. White papers are also great lead magnets in their own right. With that said, a blog article might “advertise” the white paper by giving a teaser of sorts about the contents while providing valuable content in short form.

Most often, business blogs have industry-related articles. For instance, a construction company might talk about what kind of cement to use for which applications. A fashion company might write about how to find the perfect pair of pants for your body type. These articles can help potential customers select the right product or explain the use of a new release, effectively turning those potential customers into actual customers.

Business blogging will sometimes broadcast corporate news, but it’s usually less formal than a press release. Why? The blog post is only intended to “live” on the business’ website, rather than being broadcast to print media or online news sites. A news blog post will seek to make a more personal connection with readers in ways that news organizations don’t. It’s a “first-person” rather than a “second-person” approach; in turn, this significantly changes how the story is written and how you go about cultivating your online presence.

Finally, business blogging creates a place for people to discuss industry-related topics. For instance, the comment section can allow for staff and other readers to answer questions that people have. Blogs can provide an article that can be linked to on other forums or provide a place for inbound links. We’ll talk about how these different business blog attributes are beneficial below.

What are the Benefits of Business Blogging?

Why is business blogging so important? Blogging requires resources, such as writers and illustrators. To obtain the content and encourage organic traffic, companies must buy relevant content or create it in-house. We can argue that there is plenty of industry-specific information out there, even without business blogs.

This contention simply isn’t true, however; most blogs about technical topics are run by a business on some level. A quick Google search about your favorite business-related topic can attest to this: numerous companies have an online presence tackling common questions or topics in their industry.

Look at the marketing industry, for instance. My blog can be considered a personal blog because I’m advertising my services by providing this content. Other major marketing blogs are run by competing marketers or by companies that sell marketing tools. You’ll see that this is especially true in the B2B sector, where organic traffic is best come by through relevant content creation.

Of course, there’s a lot more to unpack about the benefits of business blogging than just putting information out there. After all, in many cases, there are other ways to learn about technical topics, such as third-party websites and books. In truth, business blogging has several different benefits that we need to talk about.

The Benefits of Business Blogging

1. Builds Website Traffic Outside of Product and Service Pages Using SEO

Here’s the thing: if you have an eCommerce site, there’s little question that the main reason people will go to your website is to buy products. And for services, people want to know what you have to offer. Any well-crafted corporate website will have thorough descriptions of their products and services, and how to purchase them, leading organic traffic to those product or service pages. This can involve a shopping section of the site, a payment portal, a “where to buy” page, or contact information. Each page should be optimized for search engines using relevant keywords.

If people aren’t interested in your branded products and services, though, they might not go straight to your website. Instead, they may bump into your website by finding your product type online. The second route usually happens because they are curious or looking for specific solutions to their problems. For instance, searching for “traditional Japanese snacks” might turn up a soy-free teriyaki sauce manufacturer, a brand of mochi, and a new edamame brand that most westerners haven’t heard of. In this example, the brand discovery happens as a result of related, unbranded searches and optimized pages from business owners.

Business blogging is very helpful with secondhand discovery. In our example above, there’s a good chance that the food companies built “traditional Japanese snacks” or a related keyword into a blog article. The keyword here isn’t natural for the product pages themselves; they’ll use the terms “soy-free,” “mochi,” or “edamame,” instead. By talking about the traditional nature of these snacks, they can optimize for additional keywords through blog content.

Here’s another way that our theoretical Japanese food company can use business blogging and SEO to reel in readers: recipes. Most of these traditional snacks or ingredients can be integrated into other recipes. They might also serve as the perfect accompaniment to something else, thereby completing the meal. Think yakitori sticks with teriyaki sauce and edamame, perhaps with classic boiled rice. If the company gives “use cases” for their food line, then they can include keywords related to the recipes that wouldn’t be relevant otherwise (outside ingredients, for instance). Over time, this drives traffic and is a powerful tool for discovery.

2. Fuels Your Content Marketing and Thought Leadership Marketing

High-quality content is valuable, because blogs are able to successfully establish thought leadership. By sharing unique insights and industry trends ahead of the curve, a business owner can demonstrate their ability to stay relevant and provide aid to their existing and potential customer base. 

Creating original, high-quality content is essential; it is not enough to simply address the target audience’s pain points and interests. Instead, you must focus on providing relevant industry insights and delivering valuable information to your audience. You can further improve the value of your blog by including inbound links to point to relevant products or additional information. 

Business blogging is different from personal blogging, as we’ve discussed, but building a solid content strategy means regularly developing informative content that delivers valuable insights to your audience, whether those insights involve industry trends, ideas to innovate in a given industry, or even just how to successfully utilize a product or service. 

While your goal may not initially have been to become the go-to source for news and information in your niche, it is important to understand that loyal customers often start out as people seeking education and finding value in the information you provide via your business blog. 

3. Fosters Customer Engagement and Relationship Building

I touched briefly on the way that valuable insights can drive engagement, but let’s take a closer look. How exactly can a business blog foster customer engagement and build relationships? The comment sections, feedback sections, and even sharing abilities should not be underestimated. A successful business blog is not only one that sees thousands or millions of views, but is instead one that regularly experiences engagement, whether that comes in the form of shares across social media accounts or lively comment discussions. 

Watching shares and comment discussion is not quite enough, however; responding to customer comments and incorporating feedback into your business strategies are two of the best ways to take in and effectively encourage further engagement and relationship building. 

Relationship building is an important part of implementing effective digital marketing strategies, as consumers like to feel as though they are a part of something, or are supporting something worthwhile. Relationship building makes the difference between someone stumbling across your site and quickly navigating away, and someone stumbling across your site and continuing to explore internal links and develop trust in what you have to offer. 

4. Aids in Lead Generation and Increases Conversion

Of course, business blogging does more than just drive traffic and improve content marketing. Your business blog can also help with lead generation and customer acquisition through lead magnets visible with blog posts.

How does this work, exactly?

There’s more than one way to accomplish this, but an easy method is to give a small summary of the lead magnet in a blog post. For instance, I might talk about “blogging basics” and market a lead magnet with a title like “your complete guide to blogging.” In return for the complete guide, I can ask for your contact information. Alternatively, I might write a teaser and encourage people to get the complete guide. In other words, I give out less information than the previous blog post version, to increase my reach to potential clients.

Business blogging also increases your conversion rate. When people are confident that your product is the right one to solve their problem, they are more likely to buy. Blog posts are one of the best ways to illustrate why your product is necessary and valuable! You can leverage this technique in many different ways, depending on the product and service you offer. For instance, a “use case” post can help people see the potential of what you are offering and is a perfect example of a successful blog post.

Further Reading: 67 Best Blog Post Ideas to Get More Traffic and Leads

5. Provides Repurpose-able Content for Email Marketing and Social Media

Another way that business blogging can benefit your bottom line is its potential role in content marketing. Strictly speaking, your business blog is itself content marketing, because you’re providing information with the intent to attract customers. Even a corporate announcement blog post can serve a content marketing purpose because a company’s customers want to know if a new product has been released. A change in company leadership might generate interest in your products and services, as well. Blogs increase online visibility for potential customers, and increase your visibility in search engine rankings. 

Content-related reasons to use blogging go beyond creating content for search engines. One of the best methods of content distribution is through social media. In turn, amplifying your business blog content through social media helps reap the benefits of content marketing. For example, you might Tweet a link to your latest blog post. A lot of companies do that, and it helps increase traffic to the new post. You can use Facebook, Instagram, and even LinkedIn to draw attention to your posts using links, pictures, or both.

You can also repurpose blog content for email marketing. There are a few ways to do this, including sending out a newsletter with previews of all the weekly blog posts and industry news. By distributing a “digest,” you entice people to visit your website and read the entire blog post there. Hopefully, you’ll see some readers consume additional content while there–or better yet, inquire about products and services.

6. Attracts Backlinks, Which Further Expose Your Content to Other Websites and Increased SEO

One of the best ways to get more traffic is through backlinks. A backlink is the web version of a “citation” in academic papers or written articles. For instance, I might create a backlink in my blog post to an article about internet marketing. Business blogging encourages other website owners to create backlinks, which in turn drives traffic.

However, there’s more to backlinks than simply increasing traffic. Part of your search engine rankings is a metric called “domain authority.” Domain authority is an expression of the extent to which your site is considered an authority on a certain topic. When a search engine sees you have high domain authority, they’ll automatically rank your page higher than a competitor with content that seems just as relevant. This is why, for example, you’ll see an article by Business Insider or a blog article posted on LinkedIn when you look up a huge variety of business topics, rather than a smaller platform for businesses or a personal blog.

The other major benefit of backlinks is that they invite other people’s audiences to your site. People who are reading an article will frequently want to read the source material. To do this, they’ll click through those backlinks. Once someone comes to your site through the backlink, there’s a chance to convert them into customers–or further increase your SEO when they read more articles, and increase your average time on site.

In other words, business blogging improves your SEO in several valuable ways, including building relationships with customers.

Further Reading: 10 Top Tips to Increase Your Blog Post SEO

7. Provides Objective and Resourceful Value to Customers and Helps Prospects Find You

As marketers, we love to crow about how awesome a product is. But the truth is, in many cases the product is only awesome for the right customer. Even commodities brands have some level of a buyer persona: the consumer who needs to stretch their dollar won’t buy the most expensive brand of bar soap. Within certain parameters, however, it’s easy to sell your products to the right people through business blogging.

Let’s take cars as an example. A single person is unlikely to buy a minivan, while a busy parent likely wants something roomy to tote children and gear. If they live on the side of a mountain, then all-wheel drive might be a great feature. Someone who drives more than the average parent might focus on gas mileage as a bonus. If the car company talks about large vehicle options, they can help parents decide if they want the minivan or a full-size SUV. By the time they go to the dealer, they’ll know what they want. No matter which model they choose, you win the sale.

Business blogging essentially does this for you. In our minivan example, let’s say a parent searches for “SUV good gas mileage.” Chances are that they’ll find the typical auto-review sites. If they stumble on a site that compares fuel-efficient offerings that include an SUV, a parent is likely to read it. Meanwhile, they might discover that the so-called perfect model isn’t the best fit–all because of the content you created. Good business blogging can lead to solid business growth. 

Further Reading: 11 Expert Blogging Tips to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

8. Builds Trust with the Public

Business blogging builds trust with consumers. It’s one thing to say that your products are awesome, and another to express why that’s the case. Giving an honest assessment of which of your products might be the best for certain people, even if it isn’t the most profitable for you, is a great way to help current customers and bring in new clients. Selling a given product to everyone has its place, such as during a launch. Not all products can be marketed that way, however, and it isn’t always appropriate to do so.

Blogging lets you build trust by showing that you are an expert in your field. Look at construction companies in B2B and skincare in B2C. For construction companies, it’s important that customers know that they make quality products that meet modern standards. In skincare, customers want to know that an ingredient is science-based, rather than the latest fad. Both companies can build trust by helping people see the value of their products through marketing efforts in business blogging.

9. Helps with Recruitment and Talent Acquisition

Blogs are also great ways to help your audience gain a deep understanding of your company culture and how your company works. By regularly blogging about the behind-the-scenes and day-to-day workings of your business, you can attract potential employees and demonstrate why your company is ahead of its time, or set apart from its competitors. 

Blogs are a great avenue to share team achievements and behind-the-scenes insights. A blog can be used to illustrate all of the hard work that went into winning a local award, or can be used to announce the innovative idea and follow-through that a particular employee demonstrated. By using your blog to highlight these things, you are creating original content, advertising your company as a great place to work, and encouraging readers to learn more about who you are and what you do. 

Although blogs are primarily used to deliver helpful content and succeed in organic searches, they can also be used to deliver fresh, high-quality content for prospective recruits. All too often, stepping into a new position feels like a gamble. A blog can help soothe that concern for newcomers and aid in talent acquisition.

Further Reading: Tools and Tips to Analyze your Competitors Blogs

Now You Know the Many Ways a Business Can Use a Blog

Blogging has come a long way. What was once a niche pastime that mostly shared common interests has now become a powerful tool for sales and marketing and even employer branding. If your brand doesn’t have a blog yet, ask yourself why. By avoiding this powerful medium, your site has far fewer ways to attract potential customer eyeballs, increase public goodwill, and reap all of the other benefits that a blog can bring to your business.

Further Reading: 13 Most Profitable Blog Niche Ideas For 2024

Hero Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash