Blogging has come a long, long way. We’re about to break down why blogging is important (nay, essential) for small business owners looking to accelerate their growth. 

But first: a bit of back story. 

Record-keeping in the early days of the internet left a lot to be desired. But in 1994, a Swarthmore College student by the name of Justin Hall popped onto the scene with a site called links.net. The New York Times quickly named Hall the “founding father of personal bloggers.” 

(What could you find back in the day on links.net? Reportedly Hall’s deep and winding thoughts on the future of the internet, as well as some less-than-fully-clothed pics of the Father of Blogging himself.)

Things have progressed at light-speed from there. 

Nowadays, blogging is an essential part of any small business marketing strategy. 

Not only can blogging bring new eyes and leads to your site (in numbers that peak past the 1,000s or 100,000s), but it’s one of the quickest ways to nurture a sense of authority with your audience. The kind that makes it 100% clear that you’re the definition of “Real Deal.”

So if you’re dragging your feet on putting a blog in place for your biz, or spending plenty of hours a week tapping away at your keys while wondering what the heck you’re doing this whole blogging thing for, let’s break the benefits of blogging down. 

1. Why Blog? Because It’s Your Search Engine Optimization Power Player

I was chatting to a nonprofit organization recently (this one) when it came up kind of casually that they’re raking in 275,000+ organic traffic eyes each month.

And those eye-popping worthy numbers are just an average. 

On a good month, they’re bringing 400,000+ visitors to their site. Without paying for ads.

The “how” behind those drool-worthy results comes down to a sprinkle of consistency and a sound blogging strategy. 

They take the top Google search engine result page spot for key terms like “name the oceans” and “names of the oceans.” One particular blog post that addresses this topic brings in 75,000+ visitors a month. With just one web page. 

Why are blogs important for SEO (and so freaking good at attracting organic eyes to your site)? 

Because they hit a few results-giving high notes that makes Google fall in love with just a glance, namely: 

They keep your website updated with fresh content 

Google absolutely adores fresh content. And for good reason: most people work under the assumption that newer content takes into account a modern perspective, rather than approaching things from an outdated lens. 

And for a search engine like Google that wants to be at the forefront of innovation? Outdated info just doesn’t cut it. 

They make users linger on your site for longer

Google takes into account the average time spent on a page when deciding their search results page rankings. 

While most users will click off your main website pages (like Home, About, and Services) within 10-20 seconds of landing on them, visitors to your blog will often stick around to read things in full. Those longer read times make your website look desirable to Google, which will reflect positively in your search result rankings. 

They’re a link-building gold mine

Linking is kind of a big deal when it comes to search engine optimization. You can’t ask the question “Why are blogs important for SEO?” without asking “Why should I care about linking?” 

(I mean, I guess you can, but leaving linking out of the convo would lead to plenty of missed organic traffic.)

When people link back to your blog posts, Google takes notice. And the more backlinks you start to build, the more Google will reward you in the form of a higher overall website ranking. 

They help you target the keywords your visitors are already searching for 

Sure, you can strategically build the main web pages of your site around some keywords that you really, really, really want to rank for. 

(Like being a business that offers online cooking classes to newbie chefs, and popping “online cooking classes” as the main keyword on your Home Page.) 

But it can be hard (or near impossible) to gain traction when all your competitors are also working hard to hit this same top spot in the search results. 

Blogging helps you target what are called “long-tail keywords,” which are keywords of four or more words that are less competitive but just as often searched. (In fact, about 50% of searches are for long-tail keywords). 

Essentially, targeting long-tail keywords helps you be a bigger fish in a smaller pond: you’ll have more opportunity to rank and get your site seen, without drowning at the bottom of the search results pages in the same Olympic-sized pool that your competitors are swimming in. 

2. Why Blogging Is Important for Showing That You’re the “Real Deal”

No one wants to pay top price for a service provider that kinda maybe sorta just might know their stuff. Or whip out their credit card details and click “Buy Now!” for a course that could potentially I don’t know might help them up-level their skills. 

Among the many benefits of blogging, the practice helps you tell your audience (in a conversational, very non-sales pitch kind of way) that you know what you’re talking about when it comes to your area of expertise. 

Which is important, because as the old marketing adage goes: your audience needs to see your offer a grand total of 7 times before they’ll feel ready to buy.  

And if those 7 times don’t make it clear that you know your stuff? That’s just plain old missed money.

Another Reason Why Blogging is Important for Business: The Case Study 

It’s a pretty common scenario: a small business does the work, puts in the hustle, and ends up with their dream client on their “have worked with” list. 

Ya know…the type of client that most small businesses in their niche would to have in the “Worked With and Trusted By” logo bar on their Home Page…

But…now what? How do you leverage that dream client into even more highly-qualified client requests and automatic course payment notifications swinging into your inbox? 

It all comes down to the case study. 

When you get a huge, giant, “can’t wait to talk about it to my network” WIN on the client front, you have to have a non-braggy way to talk about it. 

That’s where your blog comes flying in like the caped superhero it is. 

Celebrate your biggest client wins with a case study that leaves your audience confident in your ability to “wow” even the most recognizable names. Then leave them hungry to get those same brag-worthy results themselves. 

3. Turn Lookie-Loos Into Real Clients and Course Sales 

No one proposes marriage the second they meet someone on a dating app. 

(Okay, I’m sure someone somewhere has done this. But I’m sure we can all agree that it’s a Certified Bad Idea™.)

And in the same way, no small business owner should expect to be able to get real business growth-accelerating results by pitching their services or products to people who have never heard of them before. 

When it comes to the customer journey, there are a few checkpoints that have to be hit before you’ll see the payment notifications come in. 

Your blog posts help move people through the first stage, when they’re just starting to decide if they want to engage with your small business in a way that will make them a lead. 

You can think of the customer journey that moves people from “stranger” to “customer” looking a little like this: 

Stage 1: The Dating App Match

A web visitor who is yet unaware of you, your business, or your offer lands on your site. They like what they see from the first few seconds, so they stick around for minutes or more. 

Stage 2: The Convincing Convo

After feeling out your content for a bit, that visitor makes a decision about whether or not they want to engage further (aka: take that metaphorical step toward a first date). 

You make the next step an easy choice for them by including a CTA (or Call to Action) in your post that tells them exactly what that further engagement should look like. 

This could be a compelling pitch to try out a free offer, a call-out to sign up for your weekly newsletter, or an invitation to engage further through social media platforms or additional free content. 

Not every web visitor will choose to further engage with your website or business after being introduced to you through your blog post. But if they do, they officially transform from a “random visitor” to a “lead.”

Stage 3: The Dating Game

Over the days and weeks that follow, you’ll wine and dine your new leads through various email marketing flows and marketing efforts. 

You might go hard on offering high-value posts through your various social media platforms, or continually put the kind of endlessly-helpful freebie content in their hands that makes them quick-click to get more of the good tips you’re giving. 

Stage 4: Sealing the Deal

At a certain point, your leads will have engaged with you enough that they’re ready to take the next “whip out their credit card” step. 

The marketing equivalent of DTR-ing (or Defining the Relationship, if you happen to not be a Millennial or a member of Gen Z), this is when your leads will actively become customers or paying clients. 

Without a blog to attract visitors to your web pages and move them toward “lead” status, you limit how many people end up being aware enough of your brand to feel comfortable moving toward becoming a customer. 

Which can ultimately cut away at your bottom line, as well as your business growth. (And why cut away at your business growth when you can just as easily add gasoline to your revenue-boosting fire?)

4. Importance of Blog in Modern World of Social Media: Making Repurposing Content Easier

Repurposing content is one of the quickest ways to grow your customer/client base and drive your brand’s visibility. And the easiest, too. 

When you write blogs, you produce high-quality content that can easily be transformed into “do it in 15 minutes” email newsletters, subscriber-attracting lead magnets, and social media posts. 

The more you can get in front of your audience — and in more diverse ways — the more traction you’ll see as you climb that mountain of revenue growth. 

So that instead of spending 15+ hours in front of the computer screen every week, drumming your fingers against the keys while trying to think of new and compelling ways to show up in front of your audience, you can turn one blog post into…

…without really having to put much extra time and money in. Which is what we in marketing like to call a “win-win-win-win” scenario. 

The Big Blogging Takeaway

So is blogging just a waste of time? 

Heck no. 

When it comes to why blogging is important for business, it’s true that a well-crafted blog strategy can be the not-so-secret way to help your website show up in front of an extra 10,000 or 100,000+ eyes each month. 

(Need a li’l extra motivation to get your blog going? Stats show that B2b businesses gain 67% more leads than competitor companies who do not put a blog strategy in place.)

But you shouldn’t go into blogging without a strategy. Because though blogging for business can put you on the fast-track for sales and growth, it can also lead to plenty of hours wasted if you go into it without first understanding how to write blogs that rank. 

Which means setting aside a few hours each week to get a high-value blog post written and published now that you know why blogging is important. 

And building out a plan for turning that new organic traffic you’ll soon be seeing into paying customers and clients by bringing things full circle with an email welcome sequence that sets you on a smooth path toward the conversion.