Blogging is gravely underrated—it’s become all too important to ignore. Here, in the inbound marketing realm, we see a lot of companies still putting blog creation on the back burner. They may know there is some value in it, but sadly, many do not realize it is important enough to make a priority. Allow us to explain. Because if you're really looking to give your marketing efforts a boost and help more prospective customers find you—no matter the size of your business or in what industry it resides—blogging may just be your missing puzzle piece.

Why Should I Bother With A Blog?

Between the team here, just off the top of ours heads, we can think of two huge reasons:

1) SEO: Search engines send out “spiders” to “crawl” all the site content out there, thus they can index the content in your blog. They are looking for keywords and they love fresh content, so frequency and consistency are critical. If you keep your blog updated regularly you should see your rankings starting to improve in just a few short weeks. Google prefers to give people the newer over the older when it comes to returning results, so if you haven’t created a new product in a while or there has been no big news to report on lately, a blog might be the only thing separating you from the competition (you want to show up above them)!

2) TRUST: Who doesn’t like free stuff? Well in this case, we are talking about free information. People come to search engines looking for info which is why your company's internet presence becomes important (and the key is that it only has to seem free when really you might be making a trade, like getting their contact info if your content is “gated”). You want to appear as a helpful, go-to authority in your subject area, the handiest of resources around, a place people can turn to that they can trust. Blogs are like living beings—they will continue to grow your credibility if you regularly give them love and attention. Indeed, nurturing your business's blog will prove valuable after not much time at all, in our experience. Try setting aside some time out of your day or appoint someone to write the following blog post ideas. 

Tried and True Blog Post Ideas:

• Market research: Thought leaders and industry trends
• What is great about your field, what you feel it contributes
• Your story: How did your company come to be, why was it started
• Teach something: Do a demo with a video or screen shots for a how-to
• Product or service spotlight (just be careful not to sound too “salesy”)
• Feature another blog: Reflect on or respond to (and don’t be afraid to disagree with) another piece of writing you found particularly interesting
• Go behind-the-scenes: Reveal industry secrets, do an employee spotlight
• Events: Talk about a conference you attended or charity work you do
• Blunders: Tell others “don’t do what we did” (this can be both fun and helpful)
• Interviews: A higher-up in the company (like a CEO) or a celebrity in the industry (if you can get your hands on one!)
• Do a write-up that shares a customer or client success story
• Be creative with news and current events (theme one or more of your blogs according to a holiday or major sporting event)
• Be the ultimate resource: Provide guides, links, tips and suggestions all in one convenient place
• Dip into the future: Discuss what the outlook is for the company—plans, big moves, etc. - or your industry
• Do a comparison: Careful because you don’t want to be seen as putting anyone down, but discuss top products or services from non-competitors, include pros and cons so people can make their own judgements
• Make an infographic: If you can describe something without using words, all the better! People love visuals and they can break down new information, or even information that you already tried to convey, but in more easily digestible pieces

Once you get just a few blogs posted with great keywords relevant to your business (and we encourage you to use our blog post ideas above, as these are most likely to become popular among your fan base), you will start to see your brand rising up in the ranks in Google and other search engines. This is crucial—you need to get your name in front of as many people as possible in order to actually grow! Don’t give people the benefit of the doubt—most have short attention spans and will not look through more than a page or two of results, so make sure you're not between pages 10-100, but on page 1.