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Blogging for SMEs – to blog or not to blog?

Blogging is a way to reach your target audience at scale, without paying for ads. But for SMEs, is blogging always the right step?

With around 4 million new blog posts being published each day, is there any room out there? Isn’t blogging really time-consuming? How soon will you get results? And what if writing really isn’t your thing? Could you just use advertising instead?

Isn’t it all about video and podcast these days?

YouTube is already the world’s second largest search engine – behind only Google (which also owns YouTube). Many business owners now use a YouTube channel to distribute content. Video is a dominating force on the web, with some experts predicting that 80% of all internet traffic will be video in 2020.

Podcasts are also growing in popularity and provide an excellent way of sharing content with the busy consumer. Their audio-only nature means that listeners can absorb information while doing other things.

What’s so good about blogging then?

Search engines like Google are constantly indexing the text in written content and presenting results to people looking for answers to questions. They’re not particularly good at indexing video and audio content, meaning that text-based content continues to perform better in search.

And since blog posts are permanently on your website, they give a content footprint that can remain visible for years to come, serving readers around the world day and night. Unlike ad campaigns, content published on your own website will continue working for you for years.

Does your business suit blogging?

To choose the right format for your content, decide what you’re best at, what your audience most wants to consume, and what best suits your business. For example, it might not be wise to create a podcast for a business where analytics and data are important, as these might be better displayed in tables, graphs or infographics.

Similarly, a blog might not always suit a SME that specialises in outdoor experiences; videos would do a much better job. And videos might not be best for content consumed on the go, where commuters might be better served through an audio podcast. There are great examples of SMEs successfully using blogs, videos, podcasts, infographics and other types of content. Whether one is better than the other depends on you.

I’m a new blogger – how do I get started?

If blogging feels as though it could be right for you, you have a little planning to do first. To save you time, we’ve compared some of the best DIY blogging resources on the internet and we can recommend this one from John Espirian. It’s clearly structured, super detailed and spells things out step by step.

John says it takes at least 4 hours to write a good blog post and 30 months to really build your blog success. He says “Remember that there are a lot of terrible blog posts out there, so don’t add to them by rushing the creation of your own content. Take your time and do it right.”

But if you can create quality blog content on a regular basis, you’ll eventually become known as a trusted voice in your industry. And who doesn’t want that?

Take a look at our blog: At Be the Business, we use our blogs to tell you a little bit about ourselves and our mission – as well as pass on a few practical tips.

 

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