Blog and Everything You Need to Know: Why You Should Start a Blog Now

Blog is one of the most common forms of online communication. Even when you’re having no idea what a blog is, you might have encountered it at least once. With billions of constant users worldwide, there is no better time to include blogs into your marketing strategy. On the overall look, a blog helps draw traffic to your website, boost conversion thus keeping your audience updated instantly. In fact, with the right concentration, a blog is a long-term investment that you’ll ever have.

Right in this article, we’ll give you the full supply of blogging. From all of its basics to reasons to start blogging, and how to start building a blog, it’s all right here. Keep scrolling, we’ll help you catch up! 

What is a blog? 

Well, we’ll have to go back a little bit in time. The first blog post on the internet was in 1994, which was only a personal webpage at that time. Later in 1997, the term “weblog” began to grow in popularity. And in 1999, the term was shortened into “blog” as we’ve all known today. 

In those early ages, a blog was only an online journal where someone shares their opinion and ideas. Most blogs at that time were personally made, and no business would think that it could blow up and make a strong impact as it is nowadays.  

However, at the moment, a blog is a regularly updated website that can be used for personal or business purposes. Almost every business can blog about what they’re doing, provide more knowledge on the subject and attract users. And if a blog is going great enough, you can even think about making money off of it, or turning clicks into real conversion (for business blog). 

10 Reasons why every business should start a blog now

Once you’ve understood blogging, it’s time to dig a little bit deeper. Here are the 10 strongest reasons why you should start with a blog right at this time. We hope that this could be the inspiration for your blog ideas for 2021.

● Boost your SEO score

A blog post, even when it only exists without any ads boost, can still create some impact on your SEO score. Currently, almost every business is using blogs to support its ranking on search engines. Of course, ads push is a great choice for instant results, but if you’re looking for a long-term solution, then SEO is the real deal. 

Just take our blog as an example. Most of our content online is all about web design and content, and we’re building keywords around the subject. As we keep posting more relative, and effective content involving these keywords, Google will recognize our website as a legitimate source. Over time, our traffic would increase due to the amount of users reading and engaging with our content. From that, we’ll begin to climb up on Google ranking until 1 day we’re available on the first page when you search any particular keyword related to web design. 

And my dear friends, that’s how blog posts would help you with SEO in the long term. 

● Drive traffic to your website

Who doesn’t want to have more clicks and visitors coming to your website? But how do users find your site? First, they could type directly your brand name (but let’s be honest, that’s the dream). They knew who you are, what you do, and they might have been your customer already. But sadly, they won’t give you more traffic. 

Next, you could pay ads for the search engines to place your websites higher in search rankings. But let’s be real, this is extremely expensive. And one day when you’re out of budget, then what would happen?  

The real solution you should opt for is to optimize your blog post to align with SEO standards. The more regular you publish blog posts, you’ll have more opportunities to show up in the organic search of potential customers. Based on that, you’ll have better traffic as long as you focus on creating a blog regularly. It doesn’t have to be an everyday update, but 2-3 times per week is just right!

● Convert traffic to leads

After we’ve successfully driven traffic to our website, it’s time for the next step. Keep in mind that every new blog is a new chance for you to create a real impact, so make the most of it. By adding the right call to action to your content, users will be willing to give you what you want from them. That purpose can be really specific as receiving email subscription, phone number or any kind of information that benefits our business database. The journey your users will go through will be somewhat like the following: 

Users come to one site, then they see a tempting call to action with great merits. Once they click on it, the link will lead them to a landing page, where you collect their information through an online form. After that, they can receive what they want, and you’ll receive the info you need. That’s the simplest way to transform your website clicks into real sale results. 

● Endless sharable content for other platforms

Every Blogspot is made to create and deliver content. Once you’ve had a new article on your blog, it’s ready to be shared on many other platforms. You can take advantage of this feature to deliver your content even further, on Facebook, Linked In, Pinterest, or anywhere. The more exposure you have, the better traffic and conversion you’ll receive. 

Thus, it’s not just all about sharing. You can also repurpose those angles and use them as brand new content on social media. This not only helps you strengthen the connection between the brand and users but also boosts your visibility online. 

● Develop a new sales funnel 

If you’re still wondering about the purpose of your Blogspot, then let us break it down for you. It should and must be your virtual salesperson that is available 24/7 all over the year. It is there to serve your selling and branding purpose all the time. If it couldn’t draw an impact on your sales report every month, then it’s time to check up on it. 

Sometimes it’s not all about sales, but creating conversion is a must. From several contacts to email sign-up, you have to collect them all. These will be your new sales funnel. Thus, with just a little boost on ads, your blog will travel further than just among a small group of users. The more people you reach, the steadier the stream of conversion you’ll have. 

● Connect to your customers 

To be completely honest, your first and foremost purpose in creating a blog is to connect to your audiences. You’ll be able to create a community of users who are eager to learn more about the product, services, or simply one aspect of it. As long as you keep focusing on giving them more useful content and posts, they’ll be around and keep expanding. In exchange, once the relationship is strong enough, your customers, users, and regular visitors can give you more idea of what you should improve on-site. They’ll be a great source of information for you to explore. But first thing first, make a high-quality post. 

● Build email database 

Once you’ve had your hands on all the information of potential customers, you can begin building your email database. From then, it’s much simpler for you to work with email marketing strategy. When people find your blog post useful and relevant to what they’re looking for, they’ll most likely want to hear more from you. By then, your weekly (or monthly) newsletter would be a great source of communication to keep them up to date about your business and news. Don’t forget to add more internal links to maximize the chances users stay longer on your site. 

● Getting more feedback 

Testimonials are a strong element to build a solid blog or website. Not only that feedback give your potential customers information that they need but will let you know what they want you to improve. And is there any better place than a blog to do so? We guess not! A blog is where you can create two-way communication with users. Allow them to comment and express what they feel, all their queries and everything. Then all you need to do is handle them with care and right manners, turning those public responses into private support. That’s why we’ve always told you blogging and bloggers are really powerful. It’s not easy to create a two-sided communication, but once you can pull that off, you’re building a great foundation for trust and legitimacy for your brand. 

● Keep your audience update 

A website can give your visitors a lot of information, but that’s not up-to-date info. A blog session is much more flexible and gives you more room to connect with your customers. It’s the place where you can share more than just shoving news into their face. When you’re making a blog, think about what people want to hear. Share about the experience with your product, show them all the latest updates you have with your brand. Or you can show your brand’s idea on current trends of the industry. Those are great ways to express your brand personality and get one step closer to users’ minds. 

● Long-term results are everything! 

When it comes to blogs, don’t expect instant results. There is not gonna be a day you upload 1 post and everything will go up. You’ll have to do the job for weeks or months, and you’ll have to trust the process. Think of blogging the way you make friends. You’ll have to care about them, understand their needs, and constantly communicate with them. The connection must be real and well taken care of. This also happens with SEO results. It won’t happen overnight, but in the long run, you’ll benefit from the right investment a lot! 

Blog ideas for 2021: how to start

We’ve gone through all the greatest reasons to own a business blog. But just like any other blogger, we’ll have to learn how to start blogging.

1. Determine target audience

Before you could jump into writing anything, you’ll have to know who you’re talking to. Who do you want to tell this story to? Who will want to read your posts? What are their characteristics, and what can trigger them the most? Understanding this well will have you write better content later. 

2. Selecting your content angles

When first creating a blog, you would want to churn out all the highest quality content daily. But the reality is much different. Creating content is hard. So before you get lost in hundreds of subjects to choose from, spend some time with the team to figure out what will be the pillars of your content. Then after choosing content pillars, you can move on and list down in angles and arrange them accordingly. 

3. Research & review 

Never start writing without doing good research first. And never publish your content without reviewing it at least twice. Search will give you all the right information and materials for your ideas. While review will help you get rid of typos or unclear messages.

4. Always have a content calendar

No matter you’re the person creating the content or you have someone else to do it, don’t write without a content calendar. This will help you arrange your work, schedule time for careful research and another planning process. Thus, it’ll save you time since everything is already planned, just wait for execution.

5. Have a clear post structure

Blog posts tend to be quite long, from 1000 words and above. So without a clear structure, you can easily get lost in a lot of ideas and words. To avoid that, list down all the topics you want to mention in your post and arrange them. Don’t overflow with content, people will be so bored they don’t want to come back. 

6. Learn about SEO

Keywords are not just bunches of words to shove into your blog post. And SEO consists of much more details than you think. Learn about the right SEO standard & structure, then try to apply it to your post, you’ll see the difference.