I often encounter resistance – or at least an eye roll – from my clients when I suggest they start a blog on their website. The main reasons they cite for not wanting one are: first, they don’t have time to write content, and second, they don’t have time to keep up with it once they start it. In some cases, they’ve actually had a blog in the past and then given up and removed it from their website.
To overcome the resistance, here are 3 reasons to create a blog as an integrated part of your company website:
- A blog can help improve search engine optimization (SEO) results. If you want to show up early and often in search engine results without investing a dime in paid search ads, a blog can help you accomplish this. Posts that are written with SEO in mind can be very effective at advancing your search engine rankings. Not only do posts contain target keywords (if written properly), but search engines tend to favor fresh new content and every blog post you publish is a new page of content.
- A blog is an easy (and free) way to showcase your expertise. I’m guessing you’d like your company to be perceived as an expert in your industry? If that’s the case, you need a way to convey that expertise to as many people as possible. A blog serves this purpose – it’s available to anyone on the Web, it has global reach and it can be easily shared via email and social media. And unlike other forms of content marketing (e.g. whitepapers, eBooks, byline articles), blog posts can be short, while still conveying your expertise.
- A blog can be an informal way to share company news and insights. In addition to serving as a channel for sharing technology, product or industry expertise, a blog is a great way to provide a view into what’s happening at your company. Just released a cool new product enhancement – communicate the value it delivers. Just signed a great new client – post a short summary of why they chose your company (with or without using the client name). Just held a team charity event – take some pictures and post them. Just attended a trade show – write up some quick takeaways and post a few pictures. All of these are fast, easy ways to populate your blog with new content and give your clients and prospective clients a view into your company.
If you’re a small-to-mid sized company, it’s quite possible that a lot of your expertise is locked up in the minds of your busiest people (often your executives). And if you’re a privately-held growth company, I would assume that all of your employees are extremely busy, regardless of their level. That’s where Time2Market can help. We’re a small, boutique marketing firm, so you get access to highly experienced, smart people – not the talent bait and switch you get with larger marketing agencies. Not only can we write your blog for you and optimize it for search engine results, but we can generate the creative content ideas that are going to get you noticed.
It’s with this advice in mind that I decided to create a blog on Time2Market’s new website for the first time in our 6-year history. But to set expectations up front — it will likely remain light on content. Why? Because my desire is to keep t2m a small, client-centric firm with a commitment to putting 120% (or more) of our time into driving client success. In other words, I’d rather be creating compelling, innovative content for you and not for myself.
So, contact Time2Market today and we’ll help you establish not just a blog, but a multi-faceted content marketing strategy.
