How many times have we heard someone say this? It seems that almost every day I see this written on social media, in Facebook groups and on LinkedIn. I hear it at networking groups, from perspective clients and, occasionally, from other people within the digital marketing industry.
What is the point of blogging? Can we have SEO without blogging? Who really reads blogs anyway?
I’m going to make this really simple. Here is why blogging is so vital for a business owner, and why you need to be doing it.
Let’s imagine you’re a service-based business, such as an electrician, plumber or gardener. If you are one of these businesses, then this is going to be even easier to follow. If you’re not, and you’re in a different industry, then you’ll need to put in some lateral thinking.
Let’s say that for your business (remember, we’re talking electrician, plumber or gardener), you have a website. It’s a simple website, because you haven’t put much stock in websites and online marketing. Your website has fewer than 10 pages.
Some people will, at this point, be thinking ‘of course my website has fewer than 10 pages – why would I possibly need more?’.
Your website has a homepage, a contact us page, an about us page, a team page and a services page. Your services page is the most detailed page, as it says what you do. If you’re an electrician it talks about house rewires, installing alarm systems and fitting outside lights. If you’re a plumber it talks about fixing taps, fitting bathrooms and maintaining boilers. If you’re a gardener it talks about garden maintenance, lawn care and trimming hedges.
You get the idea.
Now, if a potential client knows they need an electrician, they search Google for ‘electrician in Chester’, or wherever they may be. If you’re based in the same location, your website might appear for this search. That depends on how good your SEO has been, whether your Google Business Listing has been set up and a number of other factors.
The same works for a plumber and gardener (and those thousands of other industries I won’t list out).
It’s all quite simple, and you don’t really need blogging.
However, what if your potential client doesn’t know they need an electrician, or a plumber or a gardener? What if they have a problem that you can solve but, due to them never having met you or come across your business before, they don’t know you can solve it. They’ll never search for an ‘electrician in Chester’, so they won’t find you.
For example, let’s imagine you’re a plumber and your potential customer has a problem with their Vaillant boiler. The boiler is showing an error as there is a ‘flashing 2.9 bar’. What do you suppose they will do? Will they think ‘Ah, I need a plumber! I’d best Google for a plumber in my area’?
Or do you think they’ll Google ‘Vaillant boiler flashing 2.9 bar’?
Have you ever Googled something specific like that? I bet you have. Did the website you found have the solution to the problem? I bet it did.
Can you see where I’m going with this?
When your prospective customer has a specific problem, they Google it. If your website does not feature a detailed description of the problem, and the solution, they will never even find your website. They will find the website of the plumber who does feature the answer to that problem. They will find the website of the plumber who blogs.
That is how blogging works. That’s why businesses add blogs to their website. You either do it (well) and get traffic from prospective customers who need your services, or you don’t do it and never receive the level of business you should be getting from your website.
The good news is there are still lots of businesses, lots of your competitors, who think blogging is a waste of time. That’s their mistake – don’t let it be yours!
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