Blogging has long been touted by marketers as a powerful business marketing tool. Personally, my bias generally takes me to the Search Engine Optimization benefits of blogging . . .
- Blog articles provide linkable content for developing backlinks.
- Search engines like large websites. As each published blog article is considered a webpage, your website performs better in search as you publish more articles.
- Each blog article gives you the opportunity to highlight, and show up in search for, a different set of keywords.
. . . but there are many other benefits, including positioning yourself or company as an industry thought leader, customer relations, building trust with clients and prospective clients, establishing an open communication channel with your community, potential cost savings when compared with traditional marketing, and increased traffic and leads.
"Did you say Traffic and Leads?"
Ahhh . . . the magic words for small business owners everywhere. When I speak with small business owners, they typically want to know what impact (blogging) will have on the bottom line - their website traffic and lead generation?
HubSpot recently released research data that will help answer this question for business owners. The study was based on the analysis of over 7000 businesses that are active in blogging and social media.
* The numbers on the vertical axis on the following graphs, represent indexed numbers rather than absolute numbers. The index numbers standardize the results across the 7,000 businesses and make them easier to compare.Impact of the Amount of Website Content on Traffic
This is one of the SEO benefits of blogging that I always go back to. Every blog page you create is another webpage that can be indexed by the search engines - search engines like content - the more the better. In addition, more content will mean more keywords that your site could rank for.
You can see that traffic increases as the website grows, but really begins to accelerate at about 400-500 pages. Although this is true of B2B businesses, it is even more pronounced in B2C companies.
The Impact of Website Content on Leads
As would be expected, more website content results in more leads.
Interestingly, although B2B companies receive a smaller boost in traffic from the increased content production, after about 400 pages, they typically generate more leads from the content.
How Often Should You Blog?
This a commonly asked question, and not surprisingly,the simple answer is that the more often you post, the more traffic your website will get.
Both B2B and B2C companies see a substantial increase in traffic once blog production moves to an average of 15 articles per month.
Total Number Published Blog Posts
Traffic increases become more significant after 50-100 blog posts. Keep this in mind when you first begin a company blog. Be patient and consistent. Give it time to grow.
Impact of Total Published Blog Posts on Different Sized Companies
The data reveals that blogging increases traffic at small, mid-sized, and large companies, but it is has its greatest impact on small businesses.
Impact of Total Published Blog Posts on Leads
Again, leads will begin to increase more quickly after 50-100 posts, so be patient.
Smaller companies will see a greater benefit, but companies of all sizes can gain leads through blogging.
Other Amazing Stats!
- Websites with 51-100 pages generate 48% more traffic than websites with 1-50 pages.
- B2B and B2C companies with 101-200 webpages generate 2.5X more leads than those with 50 or fewer pages.
- Companies that increase their blogging from 3-5x per month, to 6-8x per month almost double their leads.
- B2B Companies that blog only 1-2x per month, generate 70% more leads than those that don't blog at all.
- The average company will see 45% growth in traffic when increasing blog articles from 11-20 to 21-50.
- B2C companies see an average increase in traffic of 59% in moving from a total of 100 articles to 200.
- Companies with over 200 blog articles have 5x the leads of those with 10 or fewer.
Thank for reading. As always, your comments and questions are welcomed and appreciated!
Related Work:
Better Blogging: Strategies for Advisors