A lot of strategic decision makers wonder why blogs are so important in today’s world of marketing.
The answer is really two-fold.
First of all, blogs are a great way to add content to your website, without junking up the navigation section. If companies were constantly adding more and more to their navigation section it would, very quickly, become an unmanageable experience for your visitors. So by having a blog section of your website you’ve got an area where you can constantly add new material, and not interfere with the overall navigation.
And new information on your site is key in today’s economy. Because, thanks to the Internet, the traditional sales cycle has been turned on its head. Now, before people even come talk to your sales team, they’ve already done a bunch of research online. And if your website isn’t constantly publishing new material, when someone does a search on Google, there’s a likelihood that someone else (possibly your competition) has published their own perspective on the information they’re searching for. So if you’re not out there with your own perspective there’s a likelihood that by getting information from your competition they’re already starting to create loyalty to that brand, and not yours.
So while blogs can take a lot of time and money to do well, in today’s economy, if you want to stay ahead, or sometimes just even, with your competition, for the most part they’re an essential part of modern-day marketing.
TRANSCRIPT:
TIFFANY SAUDER: One of the questions I get asked a lot is, “Why do I need a blog?” So, obviously I don’t get this question from my marketing friends, but a lot of the people I talk to that are CEOs, COOs, CFOs still don’t know, or really understand, what’s the base reason for this “blog thing”, and why do I need to spend the time and money to make one for my company.
So let’s do a quick review. In my non-technical mind here’s how Google works: All of the websites in the world are essentially books in a virtual library. And the depth of content that you have is essentially the width of the book, and the number of different topics that your website talks about is the number of books that you have on the shelf.
So let’s say a competitor of yours has a website that has 3,000 pages, and they talk about 10 different topics. So that would take up, let’s say, this much room (spreads hands to about shoulder length.) So, if your web site has 300 pages and you only talk about three different topics, proportionally the space that you take up on the shelf is a lot smaller. Right?
So it’s really, uh, “hairy,” let’s say, to add lots of different pages into a web site in the simple navigation that we have a lot in our sites. We’ve got a “product” section, maybe “services,” “about us,” “careers” we have these nice contained little spaces in our site, and if we just keep adding content, and adding pages to that, over and over and over, year after year after year, it starts to become this really hairy, mangled mess for visitors to be able to visit.
So we came up with this idea, well I say “we came up with it,” I obviously didn’t, but there’s these blogs that have essentially become reels of content, that we can keep adding, and a lot of them go on, seemingly indefinitely, where we can post new, relevant content to our web site, in a place that doesn’t, let’s say “disrupt” the normal flow inside of your “normal” website – or the contained portion of it.
So the reason blogs are so important is, one, so that as we’re adding content it doesn’t mess up the normal flow of a visitor, but also, we have to keep adding content to our web site so that Google knows we’re still in business. We know about this topic. We’re continuing to publish the latest and greatest information about a specific content area. Because if we’re not posting from our own websites information to Google, likely our competitors are.
And we know, one things we know for sure, today as marketers, is that the buying cycle has completely changed. That us, as brands and companies, have less control that we ever have, and the consumer is taking more and more control over the buying cycle.
So when they come and talk to our sales team they’ve done a ton of research, a lot of shopping, a lot of reading about our products and services, and if they’re not coming to our sites and learning that, their likely going to competitors and being informed from their perspective, and starting to create loyalty to that brand.
So as a CEO, or as a CFO – someone making strategic decisions for a brand and a business, in the year 2016, we have to be sure that we’re not just competing in the marketplace that we can all see with our eyes, like tradeshows and sales meetings, etc, but that we’re also positioning our brand, really strategically, in this other marketplace that is less easy to see sometimes, but in the world that Google creates for us.
And if we’re not publishing content, routinely, to our website, keeping it updated and making sure that the best and greatest information is coming through the lens of your brand, then likely you’re not in the selection set, and they’re going to go to a competitor.
So while blogs can take a lot of time, and money, to really keep up, and do really well, it’s 100% worth it, and if you’re serious about competing in today’s marketplace, it’s a non-negotiable.
