Today’s blog post is about the benefits of blogging for your business. In addition to being undeniably meta, today’s topic is also potentially helpful to business owners looking to boost business in our increasingly digital world.

SEO Booster

After you finish building your business’ website, you only really need to update it every so often. In an alternate universe where your business has zero competitors, that would be perfectly fine. There would be no one to compete with for space on a search engine results page (SERP), so there would be no need to update your website.

Unfortunately, in our universe, if you don’t keep your website updated, then it grows stale, at least in SEO terms. This means that Google, Yahoo, Bing and all the other search engine algorithms deem your content less relevant.

Every time you update your site, a search engine adds that fresh content to its index. This boosts your site’s SERP ranking. Suddenly, your site isn’t so stale anymore.

One new update every couple of months is by no means what it takes to keep your SERP ranking high, though. As with all things PR and marketing, consistency is key. For example, here at PR Over Coffee, we post at least twice a week. That is the level of consistency you need to build and maintain your SEO ranking.

Needless to say, that’s where blogging comes in.

At the risk of being redundant, blogging more frequently means that you are regularly adding fresh content for search engines to index. As long as you are adding relevant content and using the right keywords, this will boost your SEO ranking over time. Why is that important? The higher the SERP rankings, the greater the amount of organic search engine traffic your website will see, not to mention the more leads you will have to help grow your business.

What’s more, because you are adding content to your site that is not directly related to the who/what/why of your business, blogging shows up in more searches.

For example, local coffee shops usually only show up in searches for local coffee shops. However, if a local coffee shop has a blog about the best books to read this winter (while snuggled up with coffee) then it’s opened itself up to traffic from people looking for good books to read with coffee this winter.

Lead Booster

As I alluded to above, if your company does not have a blog, then it may only show up in a few Google searches related to your industry.

Blogging helps your company show up in a wider variety of searches because it diversifies the information on your website, attracting a wider audience to learn more about you, and therefore attracting more buyers.

Credibility Booster

When you post helpful, educational blogs about things related to your industry, you may eventually become a resource for a variety of audiences. For most blogs, this takes time, and a lot of posts, but in the end it’s worth it.

By writing extensively and deeply about related topics in your industry, , you become a go-to resource for a wider variety of information. In the process  you demonstrate a degree of thought leadership that earns the respect and admiration of followers of an industry. t.

People like to buy things from brands that at the very least seem like they are industry leaders. As such, the credibility boost that blogs give brands can help convert potential buyers into loyal customers.

Social Media Booster

One of the best things about blogs is their shareability.

This works two ways.

First, blogs give you a constant stream of fresh content to post on your own social media networks. Second, they give other people something to share on their social media networks.

Sure, someone can share the link to your brand’s homepage, but a homepage usually reads like an advertisement. A link to a blog, on the other hand, gives visitors more reason to stick around, something to chew on. Since a blog gives people something to read and potentially learn from, the time on site tends to be higher.

And, trust me, you want visitors to hang out on your website. The more time they spend on your site, the less time they spend on the competitions’ sites, and more likely they are to buy from you in the future.

In other words, someone might not be interested in hiring a PR firm just then but they might be interested in Lady Gaga’s Incredible Brand Transformation or Branding Challenges for One of Colorado’s Emerging Industries. Then, if they ever need to hire a PR firm in the future, you are more likely to be on their shortlist since you have already helped them learn more about PR, digital marketing, etc.

What’s more, brands that are recommended by others in the form of a retweet or share, rather than the brand’s original account, are seen as more trustworthy. When you see a blog that your friend shared, you are more likely to view that information as more credible than just an ad from that same brand.

It’s a bit like a stranger telling you that they were the best juggler in the world versus your friend telling you that the stranger was the best juggler in the world she’s ever seen. You have no reason to believe the juggler, given his inherent self-interest, until your friend – a person who you like and trust – vouches for them.

At the end of the day, that’s what a blog does: it helps vouch for you. By providing a ton of valuable information to your key buyer personas you ‘earn’ their trust over time. Everyone and everything, from jugglers to small businesses, needs someone to speak on their behalf sometimes. That’s why blogs can be so beneficial even though they are ‘owned’ by the brand.

About Weslie Oeftering: Weslie is a student at The University of Texas at Austin and Swyft’s resident PR and marketing intern. She supports clients with social media, blogging, and tech PR activities. Swyft is a top PR firm in Austin with offices in Denver, Houston and Antwerp that provides PR global PR services and trade show PR support for tech companies around the world. Some of their services include media relations, content and inbound marketing, CPC campaigns, and marketing automation consulting.