You know you’ve done it. You’ve considered blogging for your company, but decided against it for one reason or another. Or, maybe for lots of reasons. But, here’s the thing. Your blog can be an extremely valuable asset and can bring a big ROI, if you know how to use it. With 77% of internet users reading blogs, chances are that you can reach your target market with your own posts.
I’ve heard all kinds of excuses for not blogging, but most of them fall into the same categories of lack of inspiration, site traffic, or time. Here are four common excuses—which most of us have used at one time or another—and how to beat them.
“But, I don’t know what to write about.”
Blogging does require a certain level of creativity, there’s no way around that. But, it’s not as hard to generate good blog post ideas as you might think. In their book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Chip and Dan Heath explain the concept of “story spotting.” They explain that to tell a good story, you don’t have to come up with something out of the blue; you just need to be able to spot a story and then tell it.
When you stop to think about your business, how it started, your products, your employees, or how you contribute to your community or industry, you’ll find that there are all kinds of stories there waiting to be told. Spotting good stories that are already there, but haven’t been told yet, is the first step to filling up your blog’s content calendar with post ideas that will attract an audience and build your brand.
Spotting stories that are waiting to be told is the first step to filling your content calendar. Click To TweetYou’ll also find that as you start blogging, ideas will build on each other and your list of ideas will get longer and longer.
“People don’t visit my website anyway.”
Do people have a reason to visit your site frequently? I hate to use the old “if you build it, they will come” cliche, but blogging can be a great way to start generating some traffic to your website. High quality content that provides real value to your target market will make people click through on your social media posts and email marketing campaigns to visit your blog.
Depending on your business and goals, high site traffic numbers may not be your priority. Blogging is a way to showcase your strong points, get your voice out there, prove your value, and establish yourself as an industry expert. Regularly producing content that helps you accomplish these things will bolster your other marketing, public relations, and sales goals, even if you don’t have astronomical traffic statistics.
“We don’t use content marketing.”
If you publish online, you are using content marketing. You may not be focusing on it and you may not even be doing it intentionally, but you are doing it. Everything you publish, from blog posts to tweets, reflect on your brand and influence your public. People decide what to think about your business, whether to buy a product from you, whether to trust you, and whether to recommend you to a friend based on what they know about you, and any piece of content—regardless of how small or haphazard—contributes to this reputation.
If you publish online, you are using content marketing. You may not be focusing on it and you may not even be doing it intentionally, but you are doing it. Click To TweetBlogging also brings some great SEO benefits because your site is linking to others, you are providing content for others to link to, you are attracting traffic, and you’re telling search engines what your site is all about. With consistent and purposeful blogging, you could see your search rankings increase.
Even if you don’t put together an elaborate campaign, putting some effort into creating consistent and high quality content for your blog will benefit your reputation and your business. And who knows, you may even decide your blog is the beginning of a concerted content marketing effort.
“I don’t have the time to keep up with blogging.”
This is a hard one. Everyone is busy and if you want your blog to reflect well on your business, it will demand time. It takes time to brainstorm ideas, create posts, format them, add images, and then not to mention, share them across social media. But, blogging is one of those things that gives back what you put into it. If you spend your time making your blog an excellent resource, it will bring high returns like increased site traffic and search rankings, a stronger online reputation, a direct line of communication with your market, a more recognizable brand, social media shares, brand advocates, and the list goes on.
If you truly don’t have the time to blog and your focus needs to be on other parts of your business, ghostwriting is an excellent option. I’ve worked with many business leaders to create posts that portray their own, unique ideas and are published under their name.
There will always be lots of excuses not to blog, but there are many more reasons you should blog and the benefits you’ll reap will only boost your business.