According to a 2023 survey by SEMrush, 9 out of 10 marketers use blogging to achieve their content goals. But is business blogging still one of the most effective ways to connect with audiences? Some companies will tell you that blogging didn't work for them, and others will say it contributes significantly to the growth and success of their brand. This article explores the many well-evidenced benefits of blogging for business, why your blog might not be yielding results, and a framework for success.

Topics covered:

• The aim of business blogging

• The benefits of business blogging

• Common reasons for poor blog performance

• A framework for a high-performing blog.

The aim of business blogging

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that involves creating and sharing relevant content on a company's blog. This strategy aims to attract more visitors to your website, engage them with valuable information, and eventually convert them into loyal customers. It's an integral part of inbound marketing, which focuses on attracting customers through valuable content rather than pushing products or services onto them.

6 benefits of business blogging

Here, we explore the main benefits of business blogging, supported by facts and figures that demonstrate the effectiveness of this type of marketing.

1. Boosts search engine optimisation (SEO)

One of the most compelling benefits of business blogging is its impact on SEO. Search engines like Google love fresh SEO-optimised content that provides helpful responses to search queries. Regularly updating your blog with authoritative articles gives search engines new content to index for search terms relevant to your products and services, increasing your visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Blogging also helps with link-building – a crucial factor in SEO. When an authoritative website links back to your blog article, it acts as an endorsement, signalling to Google that your site is trustworthy and an industry expert. Additionally, backlinks boost your domain authority, enhancing your overall visibility in search engine results.

And don't forget that blog posts with highly relevant internal links increase the relevancy of the linked pages on your website. This means that while a specific blog post may not rank on page one in SERPs, it may contribute to other blog or product/service pages ranking highly.

Blogging Effectiveness – SEO

2. Establishes your business as a thought leader

By providing valuable, expert information in your blog posts, you can establish your company as a thought leader in your industry. Over time, posting insightful, informative blogs will make you the 'go-to' resource in your industry niche, leading to more inquiries and higher conversion rates. Surveys also reveal that high-quality and insightful thought leadership content can greatly influence decision-makers.

Blogging Effectiveness – Thought Leadership

3. Helps convert website visitors into leads

Blog posts that generate traffic, provide high-quality information and have a compelling call to action (CTA) are powerful lead-generation tools.

Blog Lead Generation

If you're not familiar with blog lead generation, the process looks like this:

1. A visitor arrives at your blog article from Google or social media.

2. The visitor sees a CTA for a free offer (lead magnet) that is valuable to them.

3. The visitor clicks the CTA, leading to a landing page with a form.

4. The visitor fills out the form, submits their information, and receives the free offer.

Commonly used lead magnets include free ebooks, white papers, cheat sheets, webinars, trials and demo downloads.

Blogging Effectiveness – Lead Generation

4. Grows email newsletter sign-ups

95% of your first-time website visitors will only return if you actively encourage them to do so. The best way to do this is to:

1. Regularly publish helpful blog posts that address buyer pain points.

2. Add an email newsletter sign-up banner to the bottom of every blog post, inviting the reader to receive a monthly roundup of your latest posts.  

Email marketing is highly effective when done authentically and with respect. So, when someone signs up for blog updates, don't bombard them with sales emails.

Blogging Effectiveness – Email Marketing

5. You can repurpose blogs into other marketing assets

Smart marketers are strategic about their blogging efforts and use their best-converting articles to create additional marketing assets at very little cost. Digital marketers call this process' repurposing content', i.e. taking something that exists already and repackaging it into something new.  

How to Repurpose Blog Posts

Read 18 Ways To Repurpose Blog Content (And Why You Should) for a detailed overview of how to repurpose blog content.

6. Brings long-term results

When a business consistently produces quality, search engine-optimised blog content, its posts should climb the search engine results pages. Not every post will make it to page one, but the brand will develop a strong presence in organic SERPs. Provided the blog is well-managed and keeps search engine algorithms happy, that presence should be relatively easy to maintain. So, the blog posts you published months ago will continue bringing traffic to your site and converting leads into buyers. In fact, your more mature content will likely drive the most traffic and leads.

10 common reasons for poor blog performance

Businesses often contact us about our blog management services because they need to improve their blog's performance. They are usually disheartened, frustrated and a little sceptical that blogging is worth the effort. We listen to those concerns and frustrations and examine the brand's existing blog to identify areas for improvement. Our findings generally reveal that one or more of the issues described below are at play.

1. Lack of clear purpose and strategy

• Undefined goals: Without clear objectives, it can be challenging to direct your blogging efforts effectively and measure success.

• Inconsistent brand voice: Erratic messaging or a lack of alignment with the overall brand can confuse readers and dilute brand identity.

2. No strategy for achieving goals

It is difficult to effectively target your blog content without conducting sufficient research (keywords, topics, and competition) and creating a comprehensive content plan.

3. Insufficient resources

• Understaffing: Not having enough personnel to maintain the blog can lead to inconsistent posting and poor content quality.

• Lack of investment: Not investing in the necessary tools, such as good blogging platforms, SEO tools, and content creation resources, can hinder the blog's effectiveness.

4. Lack of focus

• Diverse topics: Covering a range of topics that is too broad can confuse readers about the blog's primary focus.

• Not writing for clearly defined audiences: If your content isn't written for specific buyer personas, it can be difficult to build a dedicated audience.

5. Poor quality content

• Irrelevant content: Your content must address your target audience's needs and interests to engage them.

• Low-quality writing: Spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and unprofessional writing can detract from credibility.

• Lack of originality: Rehashed or duplicate content can bore readers and negatively affect search engine rankings.

6. Poor user experience

• Unattractive design: A cluttered or outdated blog design can deter readers, as can solid walls of text without any imagery.

• Poor navigation: Difficult-to-navigate blogs with unclear conversion pathways can frustrate users and lead to higher bounce rates.

• Slow load times: Blogs that take too long to load can drive visitors away.

7. Inconsistent posting schedule

• Irregular updates: Infrequent posting can cause readers to lose interest and reduce return visits.

• Overposting: Posting too often can overwhelm readers and lead to unsubscribes or disinterest.

8. Inadequate promotion

• Poor SEO practices: The blog is unlikely to attract organic traffic without proper search engine optimisation.

• Lack of social media integration: Not promoting blog content on social media channels can limit reach and engagement.

• Ignoring email marketing: Blog articles make highly engaging content for email newsletters. Failure to employ such campaigns limits your blog's exposure and the opportunity to build loyal, engaged audiences.

9. Ignoring analytics and feedback

• Not tracking and acting on performance data: Without monitoring analytics, it's hard to understand what's working and what isn't, and if you don't update and improve older content, you will never get an optimal return for your blogging activities.

• Ignoring feedback: Failing to listen to reader feedback can result in missed opportunities for improvement, and failing to respond to reader feedback can negatively impact your brand's reputation.

10. Failing to adapt

• Not keeping up with trends: Ignoring changes in the industry, audience preferences, or blogging trends can make the blog outdated.

• Stagnant content strategy: Not evolving the content strategy based on performance data and market shifts can lead to diminishing returns.

Addressing these issues involves a combination of strategic planning, quality content creation, effective promotion, and continuous improvement based on feedback and performance data.

A framework for a high-performing blog

A successful business blog relies on a combination of top management commitment, strategy and planning, delivery processes and review mechanisms.

Business Blogging Framework

STAGE 1: Commitment

Business blogs only succeed with meaningful investment and commitment from core decision-makers within the company. There should be a two-way dialogue between your marketing team and top-level management. Your marketing lead needs to be kept abreast of the company's goals, priorities, challenges and marketing budget, and your leadership team must understand the value that your blog can bring and the resources needed for success. Leadership should also be kept informed of performance achievements and any issues, along with plans to address them.

STAGE 2: Strategy and planning

Establish your budget

Before setting your blogging goals, be clear about your budget.

1. Work out how much money you can realistically allocate to your blog month-on-month.

2. If you plan to outsource your blog management, be mindful that some agencies will tie you into a monthly fee for a 3-12 month period while others, like Full Heigh Copy, offer month-on-month services without a tie-in.

3. Consider whether you need the option of increasing, decreasing, pausing or cancelling your commitment.

Set SMART goals

A blog can help to achieve many business goals, including:

• Increasing brand awareness

• Generating leads

• Driving website traffic

• Establishing authority in your industry

• Engaging with your audience.

To be successful, your goals must be:

• Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound (SMART).

• Based on data.

• Considered in relation to broader factors that will affect your chances of success, such as the strength of your competition and your available budget relative to your competition.

SMART Blogging Goals

Many business blogs fail because the company chases short-term goals that aren't realistic in terms of the financial resources available, the strength of the competition or the time required to see results. Remember, SEO is a long-term game.

Examples of short-term goals that can set a brand up to fail:

• Increase organic traffic by 100% in 3 months.

• Rank for a broad and highly competitive keyword in 6 months.

• Dominate the SERPs for all product or service search terms in 12 months.

Here are some examples of achievable SMART goals, which have been established based on the company's data, infrastructure and available resources.

SMART Blog Goal-Setting

Know your target audiences

• Define your target audience and then segment that audience or audiences.

• Create buyer personas for each audience to identify their pain points, questions, purchase objections, likes and dislikes.

• Establish how to address your audience (tone of voice) – should you be light-hearted and conversational or more formal? Are you talking to an audience with a deep understanding of your industry and the language used within it, or do you need to simplify complex concepts?

Assess your website

Perform a website audit to establish the answers to the following questions:

• Is your website fully optimised for SEO?

• Is your site's design and layout modern, clean and in line with your brand? Do design elements distract from your content?

• Is your written content on-brand, on-message, clear and concise?

• Is your navigation experience logical and smooth?

• Is every page optimised for conversion?

Develop a content strategy

A content strategy aligns your blog with your company's goals and products or services, ensuring your content is purposeful and consistent.

A robust blog content strategy revolves around three key elements:

1. Your audience, their problems and their objections to different solutions to those problems.

2. Your products or services and the solutions that they provide to those problems.

3. Your content and its role in linking your audience's problems to your solutions without objection.

Your content strategy should cover the following steps:

1. Identify your core content topics.

2. Define your blog categories (overarching topics).

3. Conduct keyword and topic research.

4. Develop a content backlog.

5. Set your publishing frequency.

6. Plan your editorial calendar.

Some businesses develop their content strategy in-house, while others outsource the work to a marketing agency. 

Allocate resources

Your team: Will you develop the capabilities in-house or outsource your blog management to an agency? If you choose an in-house team, how will you maintain production when employees are off sick or on leave?

Your tools: For in-house teams, which tools will you use to help you conduct research, produce content, monitor performance and manage the process? Remember to factor in the cost of these tools when you budget for your blog.

Coordinate campaigns

Work with your email newsletter and social media teams to coordinate sharing your blog content via these channels.

STAGE 3: Delivery processes

Develop a production process

If you manage your blog in-house, use project management software to ensure that your writing, editing, and publishing teams know what to do and when to do it. Also, keep track of progress and any bottlenecks.

Monitor and report on progress

Hold a quarterly review meeting to report on analytics and performance to date. Identify any production or performance issues. Formulate a SMART action plan to address any identified issues.

STAGE 4: Annual review

Set an annual review date to take stock of the year's blogging efforts and establish the following:

• Was the last year's performance as expected? What is the status of any outstanding issues from the quarterly meeting?

• What are your SMART goals for the next 12 months?

• What budget will you allocate for the next 12 months?

• Have your target audiences changed? Are your existing target audience insights and buyer personas detailed/accurate enough?

• Are there website user experience issues to rectify?

• What is your deadline for developing a new content strategy?

• Do you need to review how you resource blog management process?

• Do you need to review the tools that you use?

• Is the production process working as efficiently as possible?

• Are you monitoring and reporting on the right metrics?

Remember that blogging is not a sprint. It's a long-term strategy that yields long-term results.

It takes time for blog posts to get indexed and start bringing traffic to your site. For new websites or sites that haven't been maintained, gaining traction can take 4-12 months or more. The more effort you put into promoting your blog on social networks, building links, adhering to SEO best practices and continually improving your content, the sooner you will see results.

Conclusion

In conclusion, business blogging is a low-cost and effective marketing strategy for brands of all sizes. It can help improve SEO, establish your brand as an industry leader, engage with customers, and support social media initiatives.

However, it's essential to approach business blogging strategically and with commitment. Understand your audience's needs and interests and create valuable content that addresses them. Be consistent in posting new content and engaging with your readers.

Business blogging might require time and effort, but its potential benefits make it worth the investment. The power of blogging for business lies in persistence and quality content creation.