Three ways blogging is good for business

The majority of people react the same way when I tell them I'm a blogger. Their eyebrows raise slightly and there's a brief pause as they try to figure out whether I'm joking. Then comes the inevitable question: "Why?"

Why blog? It's a great question -- a vital one, in fact. Blogging requires a huge and persistent effort. Oftentimes it seems as if you're talking to yourself, and that can be a pretty lonely feeling. And it calls for a certain level of vulnerability; you're putting your thoughts and opinions out there for people to mock, disagree with or laugh at. If you don't know why you're doing it, you shouldn't do it at all.

Fortunately, there are lots of reasons that make blogging worthwhile. I've chronicled below just three of the ones that are specifically related to business.

1. Blogging allows you to demonstrate your expertise.

   When you buy products or services, would you rather buy from someone who just started in the industry or someone who's a recognized expert? More to the point, how do you know who's who?

   Imagine you visit two websites. They both sell flux capacitors. They both have home pages, About Us pages, Technical Specifications pages. In fact, they are identical in every way except one: FluxExperts.com has a blog with 500 posts on it.

   Each post discusses some aspect of flux capacitor usage: how much lightning is required for the perfect capacitation, whether the tires on your DeLorean make a difference, and what to do if you go back in time and fall in love with a younger version of your mother.

   Which site will you trust more? Which site demonstrates its experience better?

   Don't take my word for it: Pete Caputa at HubSpot feels the same way. In his post 13 Ways to Use Your Blog to Improve Your Sales Process, Pete says:

   As an internet marketing advisor at HubSpot responsible for helping our prospective clients buy HubSpot's Inbound Marketing Tools and Internet Marketing Training, it's critical for me to gain credibility and demonstrate expertise during the sales process.

   The challenge is that not every prospect has the 400 hours required for me to impart my years of hard-won internet marketing experience onto them. Actually, none have that much time. And I don't really want to spend that much time before someone buys either...

   My blog and the HubSpot blog have really helped me educate prospects and build credibility.

2. Blogging helps your customers find you.

   You'll often hear this phrased as, "Blogging is good for SEO," but what does that mean? What is SEO and why should you care?

   Here's the bottom line: when you blog about a topic, you use important words related to that topic. When you use those words often, with a steady stream of new content, Google takes notice. Google says to itself, "This must be a good site for people looking for information related to those words." Then when people do searches using those words, your site comes up highly.

   So when you Google "flux capacitor" or "time travel" or "Marty McFly", FluxExperts.com -- the site with 500 blog posts relating to flux capacitors -- will be tops on the list.

   Of course, this benefit is closely related to the first benefit: if every search for your topic brings up your site, you will be perceived as the de facto expert. Mack Collier pointed this out in a piece called Eight Ways Your Company Can Benefit from Blogging (unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to see the full article):

   ...since blogs rank much better with search engines, you have a big advantage over competitors that are not blogging. If you blog about hygiene products for the restaurant industry, and your competitors don't have a blog, your thoughts and writings on the industry in your blog will do much better in search engine results. This will greatly help establish your company as an expert in this area, as opposed to your competitors that have only a Web site that they never update.

3. Blogging lets you establish a relationship before the sale.

   On the Missing Link home page, we use the phrase "conversational marketing". It's a reasonably new term, but it reflects a profound truth that the best salespeople have known for decades: your job is never to sell your goods. Your job is to help your customers succeed.

   If you understand this profound truth, the sales process gets turned on its head. If you don't have a relationship with your customers, you can't possibly know how to help them succeed.

   On the other hand, before someone becomes a customer, you've got a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. How do you create a relationship from scratch?

   Blogging is a terrific way to do this. Discuss the challenges your customers are likely to face. Invite feedback, opinion, and dissent. Allow potential customers to write guest posts, if they so choose. Above all, make sure your blog fulfills its potential as a two-way conversation between you and your readers.

   Used correctly, a blog takes you a long way towards becoming a trusted partner, rather than a peddler -- a difference that can be the key to your success.

What has been your experience of blogging? Share your stories below -- or, if you've got a really good one, shoot me an email and we'll post it as a guest piece. Looking forward to hearing from you!