Blog Or Be Forgotten

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You’ve heard the stats about how keeping a blog can bring new visitors to your site, educate your current customers and even increase your customer base, but you may be wondering how often you should post to your blog.

According to the Content Marketing Association (CMA), 82% of consumers enjoy reading content when it is relevant to their lives and 37% of those same consumers frequent content marketing websites once a month or more. With figures like these, it’s probably little surprise that 9 out of 10 companies focus on content when marketing.

The Challenges of Keeping Up with a Blog
If you’ve had an online presence for your business for any length of time, you probably already realize how hard it is to keep up with posting regularly on a blog. The Content Marketing Institute lists one of the biggest challenges to content marketing as being producing engaging content.

36% of businesses report issues with this aspect of keeping an online presence going. In a service industry, where the focus is on making regular calls to repair and install HVAC systems, this can be even more of a challenge for small business owners.

In addition to finding the time to blog regularly, those who own hands-on service businesses may be more mechanically inclined and find writing tedious. Sometimes the work can be assigned to an administrative assistant who is skilled with words, but often these employees are equally busy taking care of customer service, scheduling appointments and keeping schedules running smoothly.

What Regular Posts Can Do for You
However, it is worth at least setting up a regular blog schedule because of the benefits regular posts can bring. Marketing expert and owner of Seven Oaks Consulting Jeanne Grunert holds master’s degrees in direct and Internet marketing and in writing. She works with numerous business clients and specializes in marketing consultations. Ms. Grunert shared, “Posting regularly to your blog helps your business in a number of ways. First, each blog page is indexed by search engines, and provides yet another way for potential customers to find you when they’re searching for information online.”

For local businesses, being listed at the top of search engine results can mean the difference between a potential customer finding you and calling you or going with your competition.

Grunert goes on to explain how posting regularly builds over time. “If you post once a week for a year, that’s 52 additional pages for your website – and 52 additional ways for people to find you online! Multiple that by several years and you can see how just by adding one well-written, search engine optimized post per week, you have really helped promote your business online.”

Social Impact
Another aspect of blogging online that business owners don’t always think of is the ability to share content on social media and interact with customers and their family and friends. Grunert said, “Blogging provides you with information to share with your customers and potential customers via social media. Blogging frequently adds to your online reputation. You can build up your credentials in a chosen area of expertise by adding thoughtful, well-researched and well-written blog posts on a topic. Readers value expert information.”

Google uses an advanced scoring system when deciding how to rank your website in its search engines. When a consumer goes in and searches for HVAC companies in a specific area or other words related to heating and cooling or home improvements, whether or not your site comes up near the top of the list depends upon the content on your site. Some of the things that Google looks at are:

• Freshness factor – How fresh is your content?
• Number of advertisements – Is your site spammy?
• Quality – Do your posts offer value?
• Authorship – What is your social media reach and how well known are you in this niche area?

Since Google changes its algorithms on a regular basis, your best bet is to post high quality content at least once or twice a week. If you focus on doing that, your site should rank better than the majority of similar sites. Yes, there are a lot of other marketing tweaks you can do, but the best place to start is with regular excellent content.

Regular blog posts work to bring in new customers to a business by providing information and showing that you are an expert in your subject area.

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Posted In: Technology