Al McCullough is blogging traveller and travelling blogger, Al is now providing his expertise on building an online presence for your brand. If I’ve learned anything in the decades I’ve been on this planet, it’s that technology changes – quickly! But what’s even more amazing is the amount of people that resist change, wait for things to become mainstream, or worse – miss the boat altogether! When it comes to business matters, websites have been pretty commonplace for almost 20 years. Yet so many businesses still go without one. A website is the new face of your business, a welcome mat if you will. It’s also how potential clients find out who you are, what you sell, where you’re located, or even a place where customers can purchase your product or service. But nowadays, having just a website isn’t the only thing a small business needs to help build your brand voice. In fact, a website is just the tip of the iceberg. Your business needs to have more than just a website to get in front of potential customers, regardless of what you sell. In this series, we’re going to offer up some of the low-hanging fruit you can harvest that will help build your brand voice and get more more eyes on your company’s offerings, starting with the classic website add-on: the Blog. 4 benefits of blogging for your business I don’t need to go into detail about what a blog is, I think we’re past that. But what I will explain is the benefits and reasons you should have a blog, so let’s jump right in. Listed below are four reasons why you should be blogging for your business. 1. It’s a voice for your company The ability to communicate with the entire world has never been easier. Imagine you’re back in 1985 and you want to tell people about your product. You would have had to spend some serious coin on a national TV ad or to be heard on the radio. A more likely scenario was that you purchased some ad space in your local paper, or created your own flyers and paid some kid a fiver to slap them on car windshields in the K-Mart parking lot. Now you can save that five bucks and publish a weekly blog, and you’ll hit a larger audience too! Here are a few things you can blog about to help build your brand voice: Product Update Blogs Informative “How-to” or “Scenario” Blogs Company Announcements What a difference a few decades can make. Now you can tell people all about your company without cluttering their windshield! 2. It’s a way to promote your business and what you’re selling Attention K-Mart shoppers…Promoting your product doesn’t have to be done on the overhead speaker anymore! Try Kashoo for Free – No commitment, no hassle! Not only does having a blog allow you to promote your product and/or service, but that self-promoting post is there for as long as you want it to be – it’s not just a one-and-done announcement. Try Kashoo for 14-days, totally Free! Many times on Kashoo we like to tell our clients about new features, expand on existing features, or point out real-life scenarios where Kashoo is the perfect solution for you. Try Kashoo for Free – Start right now! Social media automation software company, Hootsuite, promotes their software via a Listicle blog post about How to Write The Best Instagram Captions, and when you scroll through this Listicle blog, you’ll see #12, “Schedule your Instagram posts for optimal engagement“. Within that section is some self-promotion of their software by promoting their scheduling feature – how convenient, right! And that brings up another point – you can (and should) have a clear CTA (call to action) that allows your customer or lead to sign up for a newsletter, download your app, or try your product/service for free – did we mention you can Try Kashoo for Free? 3. It’s a way to educate clients (and potential clients) When I first started at Kashoo I was like a lost child wandering the aisles of K-Mart, hoping to avoid the surly Security Guard and find the wondrous toy section! But seriously, I wasn’t exactly Rainman when it came to numbers. A few weeks later we published a blog series on the Income Statement report within Kashoo. It opened my eyes to how one simple report, run different ways, could help business owners truly understand the health of their business. Articles like these are a great way to help educate your customers. It doesn’t have to be limited to just service-based offerings either. Take Vancouver-based clothing mecca Lululemon. They take an opportunity to provide care instructions for your snugly-fitting Lululemon gear. And these educational articles serve another purpose – they help promote your product/service by demonstrating the value of your product/service! 4. It helps with your search ranking One of the aspects of ranking higher in google search results (GSR) and other search engines is how “fresh” your site is. Part of that equation is how often your site is providing new content. Search engines like new stuff, so feeding those engines new stuff can help your site rank higher, and a higher ranking means more visibility, and more visibility can lead to more site visits, and more site visits increases leads, and more leads increase sales potential…and more sales po — you get the idea. Blogging isn’t just about typing words and letting google search do the rest though. In order to build your brand voice, there are some things to keep in mind when writing a blog, and even more things to understand on how to get eyes on said blog too, but that’s…another story. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks in the coming weeks as we continue this 3-part series of Building Your Brand’s Voice!
