Countless small businesses create and upload blog posts each day in an attempt to attract newer audiences with quality content. According to WordPress, more than 20 billion web pages are viewed each month by more than 409 million people worldwide. Missing out on this large online audience can spell the difference between business survivability and business success.

Small businesses suffer from time and money constraints that make it difficult to set aside capital for long marketing campaigns. The most cost-effective option is to engage in digital marketing and more specifically, content creation in the form of blog posts.

The blog management process includes more than just posting a blog. It involves determining the right choice of topics, the type and length of the content, promotion, handling and replying to comments, making continuous improvements, and keeping the website updated and safe from hackers.

Not sure if your company website should include a blog? In this post, we’ll list a few reasons why effective business blog management can elevate your small business website far above your competitors!

What is Blog Management?

The primary purpose of creating a blog is to provide relevant information or to solve the customers’ queries … all with the goal of drawing people to the products or services you offer. So, it’s safe to claim that a blog is only as useful as the content it provides.

Blog management helps small businesses address the following key aspects:

• Content Strategy: An excellent strategy for small business SEO (Search Engine Optimization), this involves carrying out market research to determine the needs of the target audience. It includes reading comments and staying in touch with social media trends. Small businesses can also leverage analytical tools to determine appropriate keywords for SEO and to develop a strategy that sets them apart from the competition.
• Quantity and Quality: Creating high-quality content and adhering to a strict posting schedule. According to a HubSpot study on blogging frequency, (chart below) blogs posting more than 16 times each month bring in 3.5 times the traffic compared to those that only publish a maximum of 4 times.
• Writers: Employing a team of writers that specialize in different fields.
• Advertising: Choosing the right social media platform(s) to advertise the blog.
• Maintenance: Tightening security, creating backups, and updating blog themes, plugins, and more are key aspects of routine maintenance. Outdated versions of the blog platform (such as Wordpress) will increase the risk of getting hacked.

Why It Pays to Manage Your Business Blog

1. Rank Higher in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)

Ranking high in SERPs is the main reason to spend resources on creating quality blog posts. According to the latest marketing statistics published by HubSpot, 80% of companies that utilize blogging as part of their marketing efforts acquired new customers.

Publishing blog posts around specific keywords not only lets you keep track of your performance; it also enables search engine crawlers to position your content higher up in the rankings.

2. Establish Yourself as an Authority

Blogging is the perfect medium to share your knowledge with your customers regarding industry affairs or other relevant areas of interest. The hallmark of successful companies is that they routinely push out articles and blogs that cement their authority as a subject matter expert.

This helps build consumer confidence and trust in your brand and makes it easier to convince customers to purchase your offerings.

3. Enhance Customer Experience

If there’s one thing customers hate, it’s overly salesy brands. Some small businesses make this mistake in their blogs as well. When a customer’s reading experience is interrupted every few lines by mentions of your services or products, they’ll quickly become annoyed.

The key is to provide a better user experience than the competition. When you provide useful information, you’re enabling the customer to make informed choices. This coupled with the fact that you’re providing information for free boosts customer loyalty, helping convince them to buy your products or services.

4. Guarantee Long-Term Results

A well-written blog attracts new leads and customers and increases sales months after the publish date. A large chunk of blog views comes from older posts, which also act as a primary source of leads. While it’s important to continually push out new content, old content can remain relevant for a long time to come.

Also, old blog posts that have moved up in the rankings bring in a decent amount of traffic, which can be used to facilitate the success of current campaigns. A few small changes here and there to update the post can help keep the blog relevant.

5. Connect With Your Customers

Brand awareness is a key element of any marketing campaign and blogging enables you to show the personal side of your business to your followers. It can allow you to share your brand message and engage with both prospective and engaging customers in ways not possible via traditional marketing techniques.

6. Keep the Website Updated

Having stale content on your website is asking to get de-ranked on SERPs. People searching for products and services like yours are on the lookout for up-to-date information. If your blog posts are outdated, expect visitors to head over to your competitors.

7. Gather Inbound Links

Crafting well-researched content encourages other blog writers to link back to your blog, creating an additional source of organic traffic while slowly building your reputation as an industry leader.

Joseph Dyson is a digital marketing and small business SEO expert at Search Berg, an award-winning digital marketing firm that provides organic link building and monthly SEO services. He specializes in on-page SEO, link building, and small business digital marketing solutions. Find him on Twitter @SearchBerg.