Benefits of blogging for business: 8 good reasons to have a blog

A blog gives people a reason to find your business, trust it and come back to it. Each useful post answers a question your customers have. It can also bring new visitors from search and lead readers to what you sell. Blogging for business is worth considering whether you're a sole trader or a larger company, and whether you sell to consumers or to other businesses. What it takes is useful posts, published regularly, and time.

A business blog is the part of your website where you publish posts about your field, such as tips, guides, product news and customer stories. It follows the general idea of a blog, but it sticks to topics your customers care about.

8 reasons why your business ought to be blogging

Not every reason will matter as much to your business. Pick the ones that fit best and plan your first posts around them.

1. You show customers you know your field

A blog is the place to show what you know. When you write useful posts about the questions and problems in your industry, readers see that you're an expert. That can be what makes a potential customer choose you over a competitor.

Some examples of posts that do this:

• A dentist writes posts such as “Why are my teeth sensitive?” and “How to brush your teeth properly”.
• A shoe shop explains the different types of insoles, how to clean trainers and how to choose school shoes for children.
• A recruitment firm shares tips for job interviews and explains which channels different industries hire through. It also tells the story of how it helped a large client hire 10 new people.
• A restaurant shares its favourite recipes and posts such as “The story behind our autumn menu”.

Update older posts now and then, so readers can still rely on what they find.

2. Customers get to know the people behind the business

A blog also lets you show the people and the work behind your brand. Try a post about a day with your delivery team, or share photos from a team trip. Show real people and real stories, not only your products, so readers feel they know who they're buying from. Storytelling techniques help you turn these moments into posts people enjoy reading.

3. New customers find you through search

A new post is another page that can show up in search results when someone looks for something related to your business. People who search are looking for an answer, so a post that gives one brings you visitors who are already interested.

For example, someone with sensitive teeth searches for advice, finds a local dentist's post and remembers that dentist if the problem doesn't go away. The post has done its job long before they need an appointment.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) helps search engines understand your pages and helps people find your site when they search. For a blog, that mostly means writing about what your customers actually search for. Keyword research shows you the words they use, and each post then answers their question clearly. Google's guidance for site owners says its ranking systems are designed to favour helpful, reliable content made for people, not content made to game the rankings.

4. Each post can lead readers to what you sell

A post can end with a next step for the reader. Calls to action (CTAs), such as a button, invite them to take it. The step could be subscribing to your newsletter, reading about a related product or booking a table. Place one where the reader is ready for it, usually after the post has answered their question.

A business that sells to other businesses can link to a landing page. There, the reader asks for a quote or downloads a guide and leaves their details.

You may have been on the other side of this yourself. You're looking for new walking boots and find them in several online shops. One of them also has a guide to choosing durable boots, and you pick up a few tips you hadn't thought of. The guide links to the boots it recommends, with a discount if you sign up for the newsletter, so that's where you buy them.

5. Existing customers keep coming back

Customer retention means keeping the customers you already have, not just finding new ones. A blog helps with it, because each new post gives past customers a reason to come back to your site.

For example, a customer who was happy with an earlier purchase may read about a new product and want that too. Or they learn a new way to use something they've already bought from you. If you tell customers about new posts in a newsletter or on social media, you stay on their mind between purchases.

6. You learn what your audience wants

A blog also tells you a lot about your readers. An analytics tool such as Google Analytics shows you how many people visit each post and how long, on average, they spend on it. It also shows what brought them to your site, for example a search engine or an email such as your newsletter.

That shows you which topics to write more about and which to drop. Use what you learn beyond the blog too, in your product descriptions, your campaigns and the pages that sell.

7. Your posts do your marketing for you

A post keeps working for you long after you publish it, as new readers keep finding it. You can mention your products and services in a post directly, as the subject of the post, or indirectly, as one useful option inside a wider piece of advice. For a direct approach, you could write:

• A list of situations your product solves.
• A how-to guide that uses your product, such as “How to keep white trainers clean”.
• A step-by-step look at your service, such as “What happens after you book a boiler service”.

An indirect post could be a guide to keeping warm on winter walks, with your jacket as one tip among several. Most readers don't want a sales pitch. Give them information they find useful or entertaining, and mix your product posts with advice, news and stories about your team.

8. Your website stays up to date

A blog lets you show visitors that the business behind the website is active and that its information is current. A post from last week tells a visitor you're still open for business. A site that hasn't changed in years can make them wonder whether anyone will answer their email.

Should your business start a blog?

For most small businesses, yes, as long as you can keep it going. The main cost of a blog is time. If your website has no place for posts yet, you'll also need a platform and a hosting plan, such as our Hosting for WordPress. Before you start, check that you have three things:

• An idea of what your readers want. Know your target audience and the questions they ask.
• A publishing plan. Decide which topics to start with and how often you can publish them. A simple list will do.
• Someone with time to write. Give the job to someone who knows the subject and has room for it alongside their other work.

A blog can pay off slowly, as your posts build up and start bringing readers in on their own. If nobody has time to write right now, it's better to wait than to start a blog that goes quiet after a few posts.

Our advice: start with the questions your customers already ask you. Each one is a ready-made topic, and the answer helps the next customer who wonders the same thing. Publish at a pace you can keep, and check now and then which posts people read, so you know what to write next.

How often should you post?

If you're unsure, one post a month is a good start, as long as you keep it regular. A steady rhythm counts for more than the number, so avoid a burst of posts followed by a long silence. Stick to your rhythm for a few months. Once blogging is part of your routine, you can add more posts when you have the time and the topics.

How long before a blog brings visitors?

It can take several months before search brings a steady flow of readers. Google first has to discover a new post, for example through a link from a page it already knows. Google also says some changes to a site might take a few hours to show in its results and others could take several months. How long SEO takes also depends on things such as the age of your website and the competition in your industry.

Readers from your newsletter and social media arrive sooner, so share each post there while your search traffic builds.

What to write about

If you're not sure where to start, these are good places to look for ideas:

• The questions customers ask you by email, on the phone or in person. Keep the words they use, because those are often the words they search with too.
• Your competitors' blogs. See what they write about, then cover the topics they miss.
• The best-known blogs in your industry, including ones from abroad. Adapt their ideas to your own customers.
• The reasons in this article, which give you expert tips, posts about your team and product guides to start from.

Keep a simple list of ideas as they come up, so you never start from a blank page. For more inspiration, we've collected blog post ideas for business blogs you can adapt.

Start blogging for your business

To start, you need a home for your blog on your own website. If your website already runs on WordPress, you can add the blog to it. If it runs on another platform, check whether it lets you publish posts before you change anything.

If you're building a new site, or your current platform makes posting hard, WordPress is a good choice in most cases. It's an open source publishing platform that millions of websites use, from creators to small businesses. Once you've chosen your platform, our guide shows how to create a blog, from choosing its name and domain to writing your first post.

Our Hosting for WordPress plans give your blog a home on your own website, with an SSL certificate that keeps the connection secure for your readers. They also include email on your own domain, with one email account on Starter and more on the bigger plans.

Plan time for upkeep too, not only for writing. WordPress, your theme (the design of your site) and your plugins (add-ons that give it extra features) all need updates now and then, and on Hosting for WordPress you run them yourself.

When you've chosen your first topics, compare our Hosting for WordPress plans and pick the one that fits your website and your blog.