The benefit of having a Blog? It can drive new visitors to your website and who doesn’t want more visitors to their website?

Belinda Lyle,  from B well connected explains.

One of the first things I do when I work with a new client is look at their website.

Your website is usually the first place someone will go to if they want to find out more about your business.  However, often the website is years old, content is out of date, the site is still not mobile friendly and is totally neglected for want of a better word.

The vast majority of people are also not looking at their Google analytics and have no idea who is looking at their website, what they are looking at, how long they are spending on each page etc.

At B Well Connected, we review website content and give it an update.  If necessary, we also work with a website designer / developer to re-fresh the ‘look and feel’ of your current website or start designing from scratch.

It is one thing to “have your website done” – it looks great and everyone is saying, “Wow! Who did your website? ”  However, your website is only as good as the useful content it contains.  Your prospective client will quickly leave your website, even if it looks fantastic, if it doesn’t have the information they are after.

A website is not a ‘set and forget’ and having a Blog is a great way to keep your website refreshed and up to date.

Why have a blog on your website? 

So many websites still don’t have a blog and this is a missed opportunity.

Your website is your ‘mother ship’ and traffic from all sources can be driven to your website where people will learn more about your business.

A blog allows you to:

• Create content that’s helpful for your ideal client
• Show you are an expert in your field
• Go into greater detail than you normally would on your website pages
• Express your opinion
• Show up in search engines and to drive traffic to your website giving you the opportunity to convert these visitors into customers
• Create ‘ever green’ content – content that will not go out of date any time soon. Your blog will continue to be viewed well after the initial engagement as you continue to get traffic and customer leads from that blog post

If prospective clients find answers to their common questions and pain points via your blog posts they’re much more likely to purchase from you down the track.  Trusting what you have to say because you’ve helped them in the past, it’s you they will think of when ready to finally make a purchase.

How often should I write a blog?

How often you write a blog depends on your business and your capacity.

I find larger clients blog weekly but most are on a monthly schedule.

You may find you create an additional blog in between if you have other exciting news to share.

Even if it’s quarterly, the key is consistency.  Once you start blogging, try and keep it up.

Planning your blog

I like to have a blogging schedule so you know well in advance what you are writing about and have it fit your marketing strategy and objectives for the next three months.

What will I write about?

What you write about needs to match your marketing strategy and your target audience.

When writing, you must always have your your ideal customer in mind.

What would my ideal customer be interested in hearing about?

Who will do the writing?

Researching a topic and putting pen to paper and then uploading your blog to your website can be time consuming.

Quite often for my clients, I will either write the blog and have them edit it or they write the blog and I edit it. It’s then uploaded to WordPress with suitable images.

If you have team members who are keen to write – let them go for it!  You will soon find out who’s just keen on the idea and who skillfully puts pen to paper!

You can then have your team member present the blog (like this one- you know who has written it) or it can written by the ‘team itself’.

Whatever you do, ensure your writing is professional and in line with your business expectations.

Re-purposing content

Once you have gone to the effort of writing your blog post, you need to re-purpose your blog.  You can take snippets and pop them onto your social media, create a newsletter article or make a video.

Click here for 5 Ways to re-purpose your content.

A blog allows you to create content that’s helpful for your audience and show you are an expert in your field. Just as importantly, blogging helps keep your website refreshed and up to date, and Google likes that.