Would my small business really benefit by having a blog on our website?

If you've performed any research on how to grow your business online or through digital marketing, you've likely stumbled upon dozens of different ways to use the internet to market your business.

You probably saw things like:

• Post on social media
• Create a website
• Share videos on YouTube

And maybe even, if you already have a website, starting a blog. All of these items and more can turn out to be very successful marketing and growth tactics for your business, but they all have a cost - typically either money or time.

Regardless of what the type of cost is - we all have finite money and time, so we need to know that what we do spend will be worth it eventually.

A blog's cost is time. Time to generate ideas. Time to write. Time to edit, update and improve.

Can you afford to spend time writing a blog?

No living person on earth would say "yeah, I have plenty of time!". So, think in terms of realizing the need and desire to grow your business. You know that you need to do something, so what do you have more of at the moment? Money to give to someone else to grow your business, or time to grow your business yourself?

If you don't have the money, then you need to be willing to find time. An hour per week, 15 minutes a day, whatever is easiest for you to transition and commit to.

But, your time is valuable, so you should only spend it on things that you're confident will make a difference.

Can a blog actually benefit my small business?

Since we're proponents of content creation, we get questions from our clients like this all time:

We celebrate questions like this because it tells us that people like Allison are really taking the time to think about and research the idea instead of just diving in blindly because someone told them it might be a good idea.

Every business is different, so we'd encourage you to sign up for BizPilot so that we can learn about your business situation and answer this question specifically for you.

But generally, here are a few benefits of blogging and having a blog:

• Exposure: more than half of all purchasing decisions start with searching online. If you blog about your products or services, you stand a good chance to be seen by people who are looking for your very product.
• Expertise: when consumers see a website with a lot of quality content about a given product, they assume that they're the experts in the field. Whether or not that is true, blogging can help you to appear like a pro which garners instant trust.
• Keeps you front of mind: as a consumer continues searching and learning more about their upcoming purchase, they'll continue seeing your content - whether in search engines or on your website. Your product will end up being one that they consider.
• Shape your customer's perspective: if a consumer wants to buy a golf club, they may perform research about the best one to get. If you sell a golf club with a certain type of grip, and the consumer reads one of your blog posts, they may be convinced that the golf club they purchase must include that type of grip as well.
• Getting consumers on your site: the more content and pages that your website has the greater the chances that someone will click on one of your search results. When do they, they're now officially on your website where you can feature your products and services directly do them.

Could your business benefit by any of the above? Or is your business a little different? Share your specific business with us and we'll share which benefits could apply directly to you.