We’ve all heard the saying, “People do business with people who they know, like, and trust“. I find that one of the best ways for people to get to know you, like you, and trust you ONLINE is by BLOGGING.
So what exactly is blogging some may ask, according to dictionary.com, a blog is a website containing a writer’s or group of writers’ own experiences, observations, opinions, etc., and often having images and links to other websites. I will also add that a blog allows others to communicate with those writers by commenting on what they have posted!
First let’s take a look at a brief history of blogging. The first “blog” started in 1994 and was known as Links.net, and the term “weblog” was coined in 1997, a few short years later “weblog” was simplified to just “blog” in 1999.*
So how can blogging help your business? Well, the fact that a blog allows you as a business owner to write about your experiences, observations, and opinions, helps people to know more about you, your business, your business style, and the culture of your company. Therefore, helping you to build on the “know” factor in the know, like, and trust formula.
In addition, the content that you post on your blog helps people to figure out if they “like” your style, your information, your point of view. This helps with the “like” part of the know, like, and trust formula.
And thirdly, how consistently you post, how much you care about providing valuable information to your readers, and how knowledgable you are about your topic helps to build the “trust” part of the know, like, and trust formula.
In addition to helping you build your know, like, and trust factor online, blogging also helps you to become known as an expert in your field, which can lead to more business for you.
There are also technical reasons to blog for you business which includes Search Engine Optimization. Now I am no SEO expert, but the basics of how blogging helps with your SEO is:
- It allows your website to stay current. Search engines prefer to share up to date information with the people searching for a particular topic, and if your blog is posting current information about a particular topic this could help you to rank higher in the search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
- The use of keywords in your blog can also help with your SEO. If someone is searching for a particular keyword and your website ranks high for the use of the keyword organically (existing on the page), then this can help you rank higher in the search engines.
- When people find the information on your blog useful and link to it from their websites, this creates backlinks to your website, which is great for SEO.
This is a short and simple list of how blogging helps with SEO, as SEO is a whole other topic that could be a whole blog itself (and as I mentioned, I am not an expert on SEO).
So what do you think? Do you think blogging is one of the best ways for people to get to know, like, and trust you online? Are you using blogging in your business?
* Source- New York Magazine