Driving Traffic: The Benefits of Blogging

In the digital world, we have witnessed a content boom take place throughout the last decade. In order to reach their audience and keep them coming back for more, many businesses today are making use of vlogs, podcasts, content articles, and countless other forms of original content.

Among the many different emerging tools available, there are four primary ones that help drive traffic to your website: blogging, social media, e-mail newsletters, and search engine optimization (SEO). To begin our new series “Driving Traffic”, which will focus on using original content to improve your marketing strategy, we will be taking a look at how blogging in particular can help benefit your business. Here are the three most important ways blogging will benefit your website.

Blogging brings you new potential customers.

Blogs can help you take your website from a simple information source to a place where visitors come back regularly to find new content and updates.  According to AdPushup, 80% of daily blog traffic consists of brand new visitors. This means that 8 out of 10 people visiting your web site are landing on it for the very first time, and they’re doing so through a blog post. Blog posts have the potential for you to make a very strong first impression on potential new customers, and making a strong enough first impression can lead to these one-time visitors becoming regular customers.

In this digital age, web leads have proven to be nearly ten times more effective than outbound leads; boasting a 14.6% close rate in contrast to offline marketing’s 1.7% close rate. Blogs in particular have proven to be invaluable methods of bringing in leads. 2016 statistics from Hubspot found that companies who blog receive 97% more links to their site than those who don’t, and B2B marketers with blogs receive 67% more leads than those without. In short: a blog is a great resource to help you reach a new audience, and you should make sure your blog will keep them on the page once they’ve found you.

If your business does choose to implement blogs, which it should, you need to make sure you’re regularly creating new quality content. Without consistent original content, your website is no different than a business card, contributing little value to your brand. We’re not saying that you need to put out daily content, but the Content Marketing Institute has found that two-thirds of blogs are putting out new content no less frequently than monthly. It’s up to you to determine whether you have the resources to put out content more frequently, but regularly updating new content will improve your ranking in the search results and motivate visitors to check back often.

Blogging establishes your authority in your industry.

Having an authoritative voice in your industry, to some, might seem like a weak metric for financial success. After all, people buy results, not features.  However, the most successful blogs answer common questions their leads or customers have. Think about how a blog post can be used as a sales tool. For example, if a lead finds an answer to their question through a blog post written by your agency, they’re likely to come into the process trusting what you have to say. Gone are the early days of blogging when blogs were considered “weaker” sources: in 2016, blogs were rated as the fifth-most-trusted source in a survey from Technorati, above online magazines, brand sites, forums, and many social media channels.

The aim of a blog post is to create two things: desire and trust.  Not only does a blog post give you an opportunity to expand your brand, but it helps build trust between you and your leads. Without those two ingredients, you will not see a return on investment. Blogs allow you to create opportunities to establish yourself as an expert in your field, allowing you to share industry-related insights.

Blogging improves search engine traffic.

When a blog post gets distributed, it becomes one more indexed page on your site. In other words, it becomes one more opportunity for your site to show up on search engines through organic searches. Keep in mind that search engines deliver your content to interested users. Consistently publishing quality content means you’re providing content worth linking to and sharing, and 94% of users choose to share posts that they find helpful. Higher numbers of links and shares help search engines recognize the value of your site, which in turn helps improve your ranking.

About Agency Tsunami

At Agency Tsunami, we’ll turn your website into a consistent lead-generator. Our team will construct the SEO foundation your firm needs to successfully maximize your brand’s online presence and support your strategy to increase your book of business and expand your footprint in niche markets by driving traffic to your site. Intrigued? Let’s talk. See why Agents, MGAs, and Insurers love Agency Tsunami.