With the dominance of social media as a marketing tool, you may be wondering whether blogs are still worth the effort for your business.

Most experts think the answer is still a definite yes. Blogs, also known as content (as opposed to paid advertising), fulfill the old marketing dictum of “give to get.” That is, if you want people to buy from you, you first need to give them something of value.

Quality content helps build rapport with your target audience, increases SEO rankings and traffic, boosts sales, builds brand loyalty, and fosters trust.

Still Popular

Consider these statistics from HubSpot, Demand Metric, Responsive Inbound Marketing, and others:

  • 80 percent of Internet users interact with both social media and blogs.
  • 60 percent of all Internet users read blogs more than once per week.
  • Companies with blogs produce an average of 67 percent more leads monthly than companies that don’t blog.
  • Businesses that blog get 55 percent more website visitors than businesses that don’t.
  • Marketers who prioritized blogging received 13 times more ROI than companies that did not in 2019.
  • 68 percent of marketers find blogging more effective than they did two years ago.

Cost-effective ROI

While it’s true that video has surpassed blogging in searches, blogs nevertheless remain an effective marketing tool.

For example, Ross Simmonds, a B2B marketing expert and founder of the content marketing agency Foundation, tells HubSpot that blogging has helped his clients triple their traffic and accelerate their sales close rates.

“At Foundation, blogging with intent has helped us generate millions of dollars in the pipeline for both us and our clients,” Simmonds says.

“It’s also armed us with the ability to elevate our brand’s position in the market.”

In addition, there are other advantages of continuing to make blogs a part of your marketing strategy.

  • Blogs drive high-quality, targeted traffic to your website, and increase sales.
  • They help build trust in your business by establishing you as an expert in your field.
  • They are more cost-effective than paid advertising.
  • The content from your blog can be repurposed for social media and other outlets like email, webinars, and YouTube.
  • They have great “staying power.” That is, it’s very common for older blogs to get more traffic than new ones, as they rank better in search engines because they’ve been shared more over time, have attracted more links, and attract a lot of organic search traffic.
  • They’re available in searches far longer than social media content.
  • In addition, blogs help improve SEO rankings by providing fresh website content.

Finally, “Blogs are still one of the best channels we have to create narratives around our product,” says HubSpot Product Marketing Manager Alex Girard.

“They offer us the opportunity to address trends we see in the market, how those trends impact the reader, and how our product might be able to help them meet that trend successfully,” he adds.

Doing it the Right Way

Just because blogs are still a popular marketing device doesn’t mean you can post text-only blogs and expect that—even with top-notch content—people will want to read them. That’s because these days, the Internet and social media are all about multimedia content, so you have to up your game to incorporate such elements into your blogs.

In addition, it’s important to optimize your blogs so they can be found.

Search engine optimization is the primary way to attract visitors to your blogs. Search engines employ nearly 200 factors to rank web pages in their search results.

Some of these factors include:

  • Fresh content, including a blog containing information that is useful to those who come to your website seeking answers to their problems, questions, or needs.
  • Technical excellence, which includes title tags, URL structure, headings, long-tail keywords, and internal links.
  • A user-friendly experience, including such multimedia features as images, videos, and diagrams.

If you need advice and guidance on the most effective ways to market your business, turn to 101 Management, Inc. One of the services we offer is content management. If you don’t have the time or the interest to create and curate your own, we’re available to generate and promote terrific, SEO-friendly content for you!

And as a certified Google Partner, our experts stay up to date on all the latest trends in marketing and SEO tactics.