Does My Business HAVE to Blog? Yes.

As a business owner, you may have asked yourself- What is the point of blogging? What do I blog about? Do I HAVE to blog?Yes. Not only do you have to, but you want to.

As of May 2015, there were more than 47 billion Web pages indexed on Google. Instead of letting the 47,000,000,000 other pages intimidate you, educate yourself on how to leverage search engine strategies and use the internet to help you, not scare you.Blogging builds engagement, followers, knowledge and authority for your business. You may not be able to attach a statistic to customer knowledge, but the power of reaching your customers through blogs speaks for itself. Other reasons to get blogging:

• Blogs drive traffic to your website- fresh content and consistent keywords will help your Google rankings skyrocket.
• Blogs boost conversions that turn into leads- so choose blog topics based on questions your customers might ask. This makes it simple for them to seek you out, get the information they need, and are 97% more likely to return to your website again.
• Blogs yield long-term results. Once in the Google search rankings, you’re always in the Google search rankings. Over 75% of our web traffic each month comes from posts that weren’t even published this month.
• By 2020, customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human. That means that if your business is lacking an effective digital presence, it will fall through the cracks.

Now that you know why blogging is so beneficial to any business, here's your blogging checklist so you can get started launching your own:

1. Identify valuable keywords. The more these keywords are searched for, the higher up your website will appear in the organic search rankings.
2. Define a calendar of post topics and post frequently. This will help you stay consistent.
3. Know who is writing and editing your posts. These people may be internal employees or external content writers.
4. It is just as important to tightly identify the readers of your posts, so determine your audience and write to reflect their points of view.
5. Establish partnerships outside your company. Having third party partners sharing your content will increase links back to your site.
6. Create a social media strategy. Provide sharing links to your customers and post throughout all email and social media channels.

The best news yet? The only thing a blog will cost you is time. And increased customers due to rising in Google rankings boost is definitely worth the time.