Why Does My Website Need A Blog?
Many soon-to-be website owners experience the following thoughts during the process of having their new site created: I’m not a writer. I certainly do not want to write “dear diary” posts for my website visitors. I just want to gain new customers and sell my widgets. So why does my website need a blog?
Blogs create an opportunity to give website visitors engaging content.
Blogs have come a very long way since the days before Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. In the early 2000s, blogs were generally used to share ideas and thoughts on an individual’s personal website. The primary goal of these early personal blogs was to simply provide entertaining content to each individual’s typically small circle of family and friends. Nowadays, there are benefits to adding a blog to your website…and keeping it up to date.
Your new website is most likely comprised of all the typical pages: home, about your company, products, services, contact us, etc. All of those individual pages are necessary, of course, but they all serve a very specific purpose. A blog is your wildcard. Use your blog to write about topics related to your industry/business/products/services that go a bit beyond the content that is featured throughout the rest of your website. Write engaging blog content that demonstrates to your website visitors that you are a thought-leader in your industry.
Blogs are terrific "Google Food" and give search engines more reasons to rank your site higher.
Each and every blog post you write lives on its own page on your website. More blog posts mean more pages, and all of these pages eventually get indexed by Google and other search engines. The end result is that your blog posts will help your website rank higher on search results pages, and your blog posts will also provide additional entry points for new website visitors to find your site. In short, maintaining an up-to-date blog makes your website more visible to your potential audience.
Blogs keep your website from getting stale.
Website visitors are savvier than they’ve ever been, and they can often smell when a website’s content is out of date and stale. Potential customers will often leave a stale website in favor of a competitor’s website that is being properly maintained and manicured. Even if most of your website’s pages don’t need much upkeep, implementing a blog gives presents an opportunity to routinely create content so that your site doesn’t appear old and stagnant. Your site should appear to be living and breathing, and creating fresh blog posts help keep the stink away.
Blogs are certainly not limited to the “dear diary” format that was popular over a decade ago. Creating engaging content sometimes isn’t easy and it might seem like a chore, but the benefits of providing informational, educational, and entertaining content for your website visitors far outweigh the required effort. If you have any questions about how Torx can help your business with blogs, content marketing, or digital marketing in general, please don’t hesitate to contact us by submitting the short form below.
About the author:
Christopher Rhines
Partner, Director of Development
Christopher is the Director of Development and one of the partners at Torx. In addition to keeping Torx's Richmond office firing on all cylinders, he can often be found deep in the trenches, building custom content management systems and WordPress-powered websites. He still remembers how to write Basic computer programs on Apple IIs and Commodore 64s.