Every business needs a website and I remember the days in early 2000 – 2005 clients saying to me they don’t need a website. How the view of websites has changed so much since then.

I have found that up until 2014, all I needed to do was create a brilliant website for my client. This website would be filled with fresh and unique content on the subject, and organic search engine optimisation SEO applied to the site. Within a few months, they would be on page one for most of the keywords.

Since February 2014, Google has changed the game and so much more work is now involved to gain a high score for your website. Fresh and unique content is still significant. Now, we supply Google with this via blogs.

Outbound marketing vs. inbound marketing

Outbound marketing is essentially the use of traditional advertising methods such as flyers, email marketing, and cold calling to reach potential customers. This wide-net method tends to be rather costly and ineffective due to the lack of targeting and usually offers a relatively low ROI.

While outbound marketing focuses on reaching out to potential customers, inbound marketing methods are aimed at attracting prospective customers who are already seeking a product or service like yours. By providing value by offering useful and helpful content at every stage of your prospects buying journey, they are much more likely to purchase from you.

However, what is the most effective inbound method to include in your marketing strategy? The answer is surprisingly simple yet highly effective: launch a blog (short for ‘web log’) on your company’s website and regularly publish useful and relevant content.

With this in mind, here are six reasons why every company needs a blog on their website.

1. A blog can increase traffic to your site

If your primary marketing strategy focuses on outbound methods, you most likely only attract a low number of qualified leads per month. Chances are, your website doesn’t receive much traffic from search engines – and this is where a large proportion of your potential customers will be coming from.

As most business websites are just a few pages long, they are unlikely to be found when people are idly browsing the internet. However, by publishing articles that cover trending topics, provide solutions to both common and specific problems, and offer a unique perspective on important issues, your web presence will be significantly expanded.

This will result in more web pages for search engines to index your website and include it in web searches. Therefore, when your potential customers type a query into Google, the chances of them finding the useful content – and in turn, your website – increases exponentially. Simple? Yes. Effective? Most definitely

2. A great blog can encourage purchasing behaviour

Research has found that B2B companies with a regularly updated blog have an 88% higher monthly lead generation than those without a blog. To discover exactly how this happens, we need to understand how buyers make their purchasing decisions.

The purchasing journey begins with research – usually through online reviews and company blogs. This information helps buyers to decide if they will buy, and if so, which company they will buy from. A helpful and informative blog can help to build trust with buyers, which often leads to higher sales.

3. Blogging can help with your company’s social media marketing

As your current and potential customers regularly use their favourite social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, these are the ideal places to be sharing your latest blog posts.

Social media serves as an incredible marketing tool for keeping your business in front of your customers – as long as your content is relevant and engaging.

4. A blog can improve your social media engagement

A regularly updated blog provides fresh content for your audience on social media, which leads to more traffic to your website, more qualified leads, and more sales.

5. Blogging helps to improve your website’s SEO

A blog can help tremendously towards your SEO efforts, as search engines rank websites with fresh, quality content higher than those that don’t. The more original and diverse content you publish – such as videos, images, and relevant keywords – the more opportunities you provide search engines to find you. Other website owners will be more likely to backlink to your site, which is another excellent way to improve your SEO.

6. An exciting blog can support your email marketing strategy

If you have a company blog that is kept fresh with interesting, useful, and informative content, your email subscribers will look forward to seeing your emails in their inbox – rather than clicking the unsubscribe button. A blog that provides valuable information is a great way to keep existing and potential customers interested in your business, which in turn leads to more sales.

Vlogging – what is it, and how is it shaping digital media?

Between 2012 and 2016, online video viewers increased by 87% from 372,000,000 to nearly 700,000,000, while viewing time has risen from 26 minutes a day to almost an hour. These incredible increases are mainly due to the popularity of mobile internet browsing, which has overtaken desktop viewing.

Online video is rapidly becoming the media of choice for web users due to its low engagement requirements. A certain type of video proving to be popular with audiences – Vlogs. A vlog, or ‘video log’ is a type of video where ‘vloggers’ share self-recorded videos of their lives.

As these six reasons show, having a blog on your company website and adopting a strategic approach to your blogging efforts can lead to higher website traffic, which results in more qualified leads and an increase in sales. It certainly takes some effort and consistency, but your business bank account will thank you for it.

Senka Pupacic is the founder of Top 10 SEO: www.top10insydney.com.au.