There can't be many business website owners not aware of social media and it's increasing importance to building online presence, visitor traffic and Google ranking. Fresh content encourages visitor comment, bookmarking, sharing and repeat visits - key to successful blogging!
Speaking to your niche! Connecting with your customer is the essence of online marketing and the importance of the business blog in this vital process of building brand identity awareness cannot be underestimated. Where an uploaded YouTube video is likely to be more entertaining than informative (unless an instruction video), and pausing needed to take notes from talking head webinars, the written word is still a core messaging medium.
Every eCommerce business, from SME to mid-sized company and upwards, is expected to provide a human face behind the company operation by engaging with their visitors and developing a sense of community clustered around their products/services and sector activities.
Most SMEs will simply either not have time or the inhouse experience and skilled resources to get the tone right for writing content for a frequent blog - and optimised around their keyword phrases! A reputable website design and marketing agency are likely to have a social media infrastructure capable of providing high quality, traffic driving content for email marketing newsletters, blogs, articles, Twitter, etc.
Even though a blog will vary from business to business, the ROI should always be measured by the longterm organic link building, visitor traffic and Google ranking, crucial to keeping a website competitive in search results.
Key benefits of company blogging vital to being 'web visible' and staying on the 'conversion radar':
Customer engagement - feedback, comment and conversation generates buzz, gets you noticed by sharing/retweeting, cultivates prequalified leads, draws interest from your industry sector as well as potential customers.
Gaining authority - a very visible way to show knowledge, credibility, insight and professional / personal integrity.
Optimising opportunity - essential SEO keywords, including the highly specific - although low traffic - long tail search terms. Often a blog can target niche keyword phrases aimed at drawing highly qualified prospects as well as the high traffic, competitive generic terms.
Link baiting - it is because blog articles are - or should be - interesting, informative, and not bland corporate copy or sales-focused that they receive more clicked links, helping to improve page rankings.
Human face - the revealed sense of personality behind the brand creates trust and loyalty. Website visitors expect to obtain a sense of insight into a company, it's people, culture, and view of customer relationships. Blogs are an opportunity to be more informal, to come out from behind the Press Release - the all-important human face behind the brand, which ultimately creates trust and loyalty.
Search engine friendly - frequent, fresh, optimised written content attracts more attention from Google, leading to more indexed authority and improving SERPS ranking.