Benefits of blogging: Top 13 reasons to start a blog for your business

When blogs first started appearing on the internet, they generally served as a kind of online journal for their creators to share their personal lives with the world. Over the years, blogging as an activity has changed significantly, with many people now using blogs to further their professional, rather than just personal, objectives. 

Nowadays, when you go on the web, you can find a plethora of blogs created by companies and individuals alike to help build their brand and/or promote their products or services, regardless of the industry. 

If you’re an ecommerce entrepreneur, you might be wondering why you might want to start a blog and if it’d be a worthwhile venture for your own online store. After all, maintaining a blog requires a certain amount of dedication… you can’t just write a single post on any topic and hope to be successful. However, with a great blogging strategy in place, your blog has the potential to bring your business a multitude of advantages.  

Here are 13 benefits of blogging that may be just what you need to convince you to get started today!

1. It can improve your SEO and therefore drive site traffic 

So you’ve taken the time to build a great, easy-to-navigate ecommerce store, one that features beautiful photos of your products as well as carefully crafted product descriptions to help entice shoppers to make a purchase. Now you just need to sit back and wait for those sales to come in, right? 

Well, while you’ll definitely want to optimize your website when you first create it to start ranking on search engines like Google, keep in mind that a well-planned SEO strategy requires consistent effort. This means that you’ll need to continue to add content to your site in order to maintain or boost your position in the search results. 

Blogging provides an excellent opportunity for you to improve your online store’s SEO and drive traffic to your site by performing keyword research and providing your target audience with relevant content via the articles that you write and share. Every new article that you post adds another indexed page on your site, giving you an additional possibility to appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) and catch the eye of internet users.

What’s more, as you continue to add high-quality posts that respond to your audience’s most in-demand queries to your blog, Google will begin to view your site as an expert in your field. This in turn can lead to the search engine moving your store up the rankings and in front of a greater number of potential customers.

2. You’ll establish authority with your audience 

As mentioned above, search engines like Google take high-quality blog articles as a positive indicator of a website’s expertise in a particular niche. However, blogging can help establish authority not just with Google but your audience as well. 

Say that you have an ecommerce business that sells, for example, surfboards and surfing accessories. After doing some keyword research, you learn what topics are trending with your target market and what issues they’re currently facing, such as knowing how to clean a surfboard, determining which surfboard is best for beginners, and understanding the pros and cons of fish boards. Internet users who discover your helpful blog posts on these subjects will gradually begin to trust your brand more and more. 

Even if these consumers aren’t in the mood to buy one of your products at the moment, your online store will remain at the forefront of their minds when they are ready to make a purchase. These prospective buyers will already have a good understanding of your business and what you have to offer, which makes them more likely to convert into paying customers.

In addition, if people find your blog content useful, there’s a better chance that they’ll share it with others on social media or other platforms. Your well-written article filled with relevant information could quickly go viral, allowing you to grow your reach exponentially! 

3. You’ll be able to strengthen your customer relationships

Another one of the major benefits of content marketing, specifically blogging, is that it gives you the opportunity to strengthen the relationships you have with current and potential customers alike. Consider that many consumers are often hesitant to buy goods from a company with whom they’re unfamiliar. They may not put much trust in marketing techniques like paid ads that promote the brand’s products directly.

In contrast, when you provide your audience with free access to helpful, informative content on your store’s blog, you demonstrate that you care about more than just their dollars. This willingness to help them solve their problems or find answers to their most pressing questions concerning your domain can go a long way in building great connections with shoppers, whether they’re new to your site or they’ve been loyal customers for years. 

Tips, tutorials, industry news, and other educational and/or entertaining content are all likely to be welcomed by your readers!

4. It can help you earn more revenue

While there are many reasons that brands utilize different types of content marketing like blogging for promotion, one of the biggest is to bring in more revenue for the business. Although a blog shouldn’t be used as a giant advertising space for your products, the beauty of a well-employed blogging strategy is that it’ll naturally help you to boost sales of whatever it is that your store offers. 

The more quality content you produce, the more your blog will grow, attracting new readers along the way. Of course, the key is to share articles that’ll ultimately pique readers’ interest in your business and the products you sell. Thorough research concerning your market and trending keywords for your particular niche can assist you in creating content that your audience will appreciate.

In addition to boosting sales of your products and/or services, blogging can bring in revenue for your business in other ways. Once your blog grows in popularity, you might be able to earn money by supplying advertising space or even via affiliate offers that encourage readers to click on links that direct them to items that other companies offer (of course never in direct competition with your business) and allow you to earn a commission. 

5. Blog content can be repurposed for social media

A well-rounded content marketing strategy will generally involve the use of a variety of methods to assist in boosting brand awareness, authority, and trust. However, constantly churning out content that’s creative and new can be a lengthy process, one that can soon get exhausting if you’re the sole person managing everything for your business.

As with many things in life, including ecommerce, the trick is to work smarter, not harder! Ensure that your marketing efforts are as efficient as possible by finding a way to use the content you create in multiple ways when possible. Although writing a top-notch article can take some time, one of the top benefits of blogging is that you can repurpose the content you share on your blog and incorporate it into your social media strategy. 

Using the example of a surfing-related online store again, you might, for instance, write a blog article detailing the best places to surf around the world. You could then create an infographic or another kind of post that summarizes the information in the article, perhaps a Top-10 list, in an easy-to-understand, visually appealing way to share on your social networks. Furthermore, if one of your followers on social media asks a question about a topic you’ve already written an article about, you can provide them with a link to your blog post to assist them.   

With this tactic, you’ll increase the amount of content you have at your disposal for boosting your social media presence but also increase visibility of your blog. 

6. It can aid in getting backlinks 

When you write high-quality, informative blog articles, you’ll be helping not just your prospective customers but also other companies and organizations viewed as important in your specific industry. This in turn can lead them to link back to your posts in the content they share on their own sites or platforms. Obtaining these external links, referred to as “backlinks,” from trusted websites is a crucial aspect of a good link building strategy.  

Google considers backlinks, also called “incoming links,” one-way links,” or “inbound links,” to be an important signal when it comes to ranking content on the internet. To put it simply, when another site links back to yours, it’s as if the other site is giving you its vote of confidence. When implemented strategically, your efforts to secure backlinks can improve your credibility, boost your rankings, facilitate the finding of new pages on your site by Google, and drive referral traffic your way. 

Despite the significance of obtaining inbound links, many marketers find it a challenging action to accomplish. In fact, according to a study by Ascend, 41% of SEO experts believe link building to be the most difficult tactic to execute when it comes to optimizing a website for search engines. However, taking the time to create and share well-written articles on your blog, offering content that’ll strike a chord with both consumers and industry leaders, can make getting those highly sought-after backlinks much easier!

7. It offers a quick method for obtaining feedback

Even when you put a ton of planning into your content marketing strategy, it can be difficult to know exactly what will appeal to your target audience and have a positive effect on your business. One of the great benefits of blogging, though, is that it allows you to get immediate feedback on the content you share. As soon as you publish a blog article, you can start receiving comments from your readers.

Regardless if the comments are positive or negative, they can be quite valuable in helping you to improve your business, including your products, services, and marketing efforts. Taking the example of the surf-themed online store again, say that you write an in-depth guide on the best types of surfboards for different levels of surfing experience for your blog. 

If you get people commenting on the post to thank you for the information, mention how it helped them to determine the right surfboard for their needs, and/or respond favorably to any of your products you described in the guide, you may be able to ascertain that this is the kind of content your readers appreciate or that a specific product is a hit with customers. 

In contrast, if people are asking lots of questions in the comments due to not understanding certain aspects of your post or leaving negative feedback regarding your products, you’ll learn that you may very well need to rework your blogging strategy or rethink your product design.  

8. You’ll expand your own knowledge

As you’ll probably have come to understand, your blog provides you with a golden opportunity to share your knowledge with the world. Through the information shared in your articles, you’ll be able to teach your current and potential customers about a variety of topics and demonstrate your brand’s expertise. However, starting a blog will also give you the chance to expand your knowledge. 

After all, even if you already know quite a bit about your niche, there’s always room for improvement. You’ll want to learn as much as you can in order to better educate your audience and provide them with valuable content. 

Blogging will also help you to stay up to date with the latest trends and news in your industry. No matter what you sell, ecommerce is an ever-changing beast. Knowing what the current happenings are for both online sales and your specific niche is key to staying on top of the competition. 

Furthermore, launching a blog will help you to boost your knowledge beyond the products that you sell. As you begin to write articles and gain experience in creating blog content, you’ll learn more about different marketing techniques to drive traffic to your blog, such as social media marketing, search engine marketing, and email marketing.  

9. It gives you an easy way to share company news

Has your ecommerce business recently released an amazing product that you think shoppers will love? Have you started offering a new service that will make your customers’ lives easier? Are you about to host an online event or launch a pop-up store to expand your reach? Did your company just complete a study concerning your industry and discover some very interesting findings relevant to your target market? 

Consider using your blog to share your exciting news with your audience! 

While you’ll want to avoid getting too “salesy” or promotional on your blog, articles sharing your company news are perfect for mixing up the kinds of posts you publish. What’s more, they can help to humanize your brand and/or give a behind-the-scenes look at your business.

You might be wondering why you wouldn’t just tell people about your news with a quick Facebook post or tweet on Twitter. Well, although you’ll likely want to utilize a variety of channels when you have important information to broadcast, blogging about it has the added benefit of giving you more space to provide your readers with more details regarding the news. It’s a strategy that’s therefore best employed for bigger, more exciting events rather than small updates.

10. You’ll grow your network

Yes, your blog will serve as an excellent platform for being able to cultivate your relationships with your customers, but it’ll also assist you with building relationships with other people in your industry and growing your professional network. Blogging allows you to create genuine connections with folks you might not otherwise have gotten the chance to meet!

By sharing interesting, valuable content in your blog articles, you’ll naturally expand your readership and may even start to develop a fan base made up of people inspired by your posts. Other companies and brands may reach out to you for assistance or to collaborate on a future blog article or perhaps an event, either online or in person. 

In addition, you’ll likely be reaching out to other people yourself at some point when creating content for your blog. For example, you might contact another expert in your field to request an interview. While you might just be in touch for the one article, it could also lead to a long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationship, where you take turns helping each other out, maybe by guest posting for a blog, creating social media content, or contributing to an ebook. 

11. It gives you more control over your online presence

These days, consumers have a wide range of brands from which to choose when purchasing products on the internet. With so many options at their fingertips, they’re likely to spend at least a little while examining their choices before making a final decision. 

In fact, in a 2023 study concerning attitudes towards online shopping in the US conducted by Statista, 43% of respondents stated that they always perform some research when planning a major purchase. While what’s considered a “major” purchase can vary from consumer to consumer, it’s clearly advantageous to provide shoppers with as much helpful information as possible about your brand and products. This is all the more crucial if you have a relatively new business and aren’t very well known yet! 

Over time, blogging offers the benefit of giving you more control over your online presence. When people search for your business on the internet, they’ll discover your blog articles and/or your guest posts on other blogs. 

Consistently adding high-quality content to your blog, combined with ensuring a solid presence on social media and providing a user-friendly, eye-catching website, will help you to cultivate your brand as you see fit and boost your chances of being viewed positively by your audience.

12. It can help you build your email list

Email marketing can be a very effective tactic for promoting your business and connecting with your target audience. Thoughtfully crafted email newsletters are one of the most reliable methods for communicating on the internet today. However, building a decent list of subscribers may take a while when you’re just starting out. 

When people enjoy visiting your blog and appreciate the helpful content that you share, they’re more likely to want to sign up for your emails and receive important updates from your business. Consider creating a specific landing page to encourage email signups and direct your blog visitors to the page via links and clear calls to action placed strategically in your articles.

And remember, promoting your blog and your newsletters works both ways! Once you get people to subscribe to your emails, you’ll be able to drive traffic to your blog by mentioning articles relevant to the content in your newsletters. 

13. You’ll improve your writing skills

If you’re dreaming of starting your own blog for your business but are worried that your writing skills aren’t that wonderful, don’t give up before you’ve even begun!

No matter where you think your abilities concerning writing currently rate, creating articles on a regular basis for your blog is guaranteed to improve those abilities. As with any skill, practice makes perfect when it comes to writing blog posts. In time, you’ll learn not just how to better your writing in general but how to write in a way that appeals to your target market.   

In addition, as your blogging experience grows, you’ll discover how to improve your time management when organizing your writing sessions. Writer’s block and brainstorming new, creative ideas for your blog can be seemingly difficult obstacles to overcome at first, but after a while, you’ll learn how to work more efficiently and use different strategies to combat these common writing challenges. 

Furthermore, remember that you’re not alone when it comes to creating content for your blog! 

Besides basic spell-check features in programs like Google Docs or Microsoft Word, tools such as Grammarly and Hemingway can be very helpful allies. Use these grammar checkers to improve your blog articles by ensuring that your sentence structure, punctuation, spelling, and style are up to par.

Finally, if you’d like to save time when writing blog posts, consider taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) to help you get the job done. For instance, with the WiziShop ecommerce solution, you can use our AI for numerous writing tasks related to running your online store: product descriptions, ad content, text translations, meta descriptions for SEO, and, of course, blog articles!

You'll be able to take advantage of the AI as soon as you sign up on the platform. Give WiziShop a try today and enjoy a 7-day free test period (plus your first month for just $1) to see why the platform is the best option for launching your ecommerce business!