Play the audio above or read below.

I have heard some comments by small business owners stating that they think that blogging is dead. Many of them think that at the very least it is a declining trend for businesses. I beg to differ. I fully believe that more small businesses should be utilizing blogging as an organic marketing tool! There is an ample amount of evidence that shows that the popularity and the success of blogs are both still increasing over time.

Yet, people still say that “blogs are dying.” I have heard this exact rumor over and over since the trend of business blogging first began. The truth is that blogs are too valuable to the digital presence of businesses, big and small, for this to be a reality. At least not in the digital world that we live in today.

Blogging actually isn’t dead, it has only just begun. ​

Despite what business owners may believe, blogging is increasingly trending upward. That’s right! The number of bloggers in the United States increased by 10 million between 2014 in 2020. This is great news for small business owners! The opportunities blogging brings, regardless of the platform you choose to use can be astronomical, if you can turn it into business growth.

This trend isn’t exclusive to small businesses either! This is a method that over 54% of Fortune 500 companies are utilizing as well. Many of them even publicly give credit to their blogs as part of their overall success in both corporate growth and brand awareness. This is evidence that they understand the vital role that blogs can play in increasing a business of any size’s online exposure and overall branding success.

While the consistency of a blog is important, the quality is too! There are some very simple ways to ensure that your blog is easy to read and accessible to potential customers, as well as search engines like Google. Choosing topics that are relevant to your business and your customers is another vital part of achieving success. Doing so will bring potential business opportunities to your website, while also creating a chance for making contact with these customers and helping them through the decision-making process.

The way that we blog will constantly be evolving, ​don’t get stuck on the original term.

There are still people in businesses blogging traditionally. Some businesses attach blogs as an addition to their websites. Some are now repurposing other platforms for their blogging. When people think of blogs, some do reminisce on the old solo standing black text blogs with simple white backgrounds. Others think of when people first started integrating blogs into business websites. The truth is that there are many different forms of blogging today, even within the business world. The key is a healthy digital presence.

For business owners choosing to take on the responsibility of starting their company’s blog themselves, we recommend starting simple. Follow an educational-based strategy with easy-to-construct frameworks and a consistent style guide. Make sure that you express your business’ personality and passion through each of your posts. Find the method and the structure that works for you and is most efficient at getting your message out to your audience. Whatever you choose to do, make sure that you do not get stuck on the traditional definition of a blog. The internet and blogs are constantly evolving to help businesses and people connect in countless ways. Though they may look different as time goes on, these opportunities will inevitably continue to grow for the businesses that choose to utilize them.

Blogging increases SEO performance exponentially over time!

Blogging allows businesses to cultivate organic opportunities for search engines like Google to find them online through utilizing certain SEO techniques. How many opportunities do search engines offer small businesses? Well, there are over 89,409 Google searches per second. That’s over 5 million searches per minute. That tells us that there are significant opportunities each day for companies like your own, to capture the attention of their potential customers. It all comes down to which business owners choose to put their companies out there to be found.

There is proof that cultivating a consistent blog on your website will increase your website’s performance with search engines and overall web traffic. This is because blogging increases your potential exposure through search engines. All search engines, including Google, use algorithms to pull relevant information for users when they engage in a search. Producing quality, relevant content can increase your business’ organic exposure significantly, as you give search engines more information to utilize. Each blog post increases your business’ organic traction among relative searches. If you are producing a higher quantity and quality of posts than your competition, you should be leading among the search results without paying to do so.

Business owners should be aware that the top 3-5 results in a Google search are paid advertisements through Google AdWords. These ads are sometimes, yet not always, easily identified by the word “Ad” next to them. Below these ads are a collection of organic content that Google’s algorithms have pulled as a result of the search, based on how relative it believes they are to the specific search terms used. This is where blog posts and website pages compete against each other for free attention from potential customers. The companies that take this competition seriously, will be the ones to see the most digital success in the end. There are a variety of SEO techniques and digital content strategies that you can use to ensure your business has the most efficient web presence possible.

One of my favorite ways to think of blogging with consistency comes from one of my all-time favorite motivational quotes. One of Ice Hockey’s greatest stars, Wayne Gretzky, once said, “You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.” He’s right! This lesson goes beyond hockey and sports too. As a small business owner, you miss every opportunity to gain exposure for your business when you choose not to take them. Many of those opportunities aren’t as out of reach or off-budget as you may believe. In fact, many are affordable and sometimes even free.

Blogging helps with social media curation. ​

Blogging has utilities outside of improving a business’ Google search results. I believe in many ways a healthy blog and healthy social media presence can have a symbiotic relationship. As a professional content producer (writing, film, photography, copywriting, etc) I have worked with many clients who have struggled in a variety of ways with managing and creating their business’ social media accounts with constant relevant content. Even when that content was right in front of them begging to be repurposed.
​
Most of these struggles, even within niche markets, lead back to the social media algorithms seeming to crave more and more consistent content. This often leads to a situation where the small business owner feels overwhelmed trying to balance their business and feeding the insatiable “content machine.” Many business owners would much rather focus on what they are good at, running their small business. For these individuals, choosing to hire someone within or an outside branding professional is well worth the relief that it brings.
​
Blogging is a type of content that can be shared through a variety of social media platforms. This is one way that many businesses successfully achieve a flow of continual, fresh, and unique content over time. Here are some of the platforms where businesses can see the most success through sharing their blog posts on social media…

  • Facebook: Facebook is one of the social media platforms that have hosted high-quality blog links for years. In fact, this platform was the first to allow business pages to have clickable links that also displayed their chosen blog header as an image. This enables businesses to capture their potential customers’ attention with eye-catching words and visuals simultaneously, leading to higher organic click-through-rates than the platforms that do not host similar features. Administrators are given the chance to pin one chosen blog post to the top of their page at any given time.
  • Twitter: Much like Facebook, Twitter also hosts clickable blog links that feature the blog header or image chosen by the individual posting. Several third-party scheduling programs offer businesses the opportunity to do so when posting to this platform as well. Twitter’s fast pace environment is a great way to get information out to the public about your small business or other industry-relevant topics. Twitter accounts are given the option to pin one blog post that they chose to the top of their feed at any given time.
  • LinkedIn: While LinkedIn is focused on B2B relationships, it does offer the opportunity to gain exposure to both other businesses and potential clients through a variety of ways, including blogging. You can choose to publish your blog posts through LinkedIn, as well as post clickable links directing back to your own website. Both of these blog options offer to host your blog’s header image with the post as well. Users are allowed to pin one to three blog posts to the top of their page at a time.
  • Instagram: While Instagram is not necessarily a platform that is easy to share traditional blog posts, many businesses have still cultivated success in sharing their blog content on it. One of these ways is through paying for boosted blog posts from an associated Meta account. Paying to boost a post through Meta or running a paid advertisement are currently the only two ways to have a clickable link attached to an Instagram post of any kind. Another way to share a blog post on Instagram is through stories and story highlights using inserted links. The only other way is to link your blog to your account using the URL option in your business’ Instagram bio.​​

Social Media platforms have significantly increased the reach of blog content as a whole. The potential for an individual post’s ability to be shared on a variety of platforms has never been more profitable for the companies utilizing them than it is today. Each business and industry perform differently from platform to platform, with some working better than others. However, the businesses that chose to be at least on two or more platforms see exponential growth digitally.

Customers still rely on blogs in some significant ways.

There is no doubt that blogs have digital benefits that they bring to small businesses seeking to improve search engine results and social media performances. Yet, customers can benefit greatly from the information and topics that a blog covers too. Recent studies show that many people would much rather read a blog post than be exposed to sales-based, marketing emails from the same company. Consistent, well-written blog posts increase your business credibility with potential customers, especially if the blog aims to educate and help them. It also exponentially increases your potential customer’s ability to recall your business when they need your products or services.

We live in a society where content can be shared at a rapid rate regardless of where you are. This increases the chances that a business’ content will be shared. The sharing of content online between friends can be as influential on a future purchase than traditional word-of-mouth marketing. This environment is what cultivates virality and the trends that can occasionally lead to this semi-predictable phenomenon. In fact, many people say they prefer informative blog content over “spammy alternatives.”

If you are a small business owner looking to learn more about cultivating your blogging success, check out some of my Instructional Blogging content. If you are looking for an experienced copywriter to help your business grow your brand through a curated blog, feel free to reach out to get started today. To schedule a Free 90-Minute First-Time consult with Syre Klenke, don’t hesitate to reach out and schedule now on Calendly!

Latest posts by Syre Klenke (see all)