Sometimes when I’m deciding what to write for this blog I step back and think, “That sounds a little gratuitous, doesn’t it? If I write that piece, people will think I’m fishing for business.” I want to clear the air on two points.
For starters, yes, I’m fishing for business. I’m in the web content writing business, and this is my business blog. Second, I have a dual motive in fishing for business: to help you be successful and to motivate you to order more copy. You won’t do the latter if you can’t manage the former. You know everything there is to know about your business, but you probably know less about this particular subject than someone whose entire business is content creation.
With that in mind, I want to take the next few minutes to explain to you in detail why you should be ordering more copy and what it can do for your online reputation. To put it simply: You will never win over an audience with silence. The frequency at which your audience hears from you is every bit as important as what you have to say. This is why I always say that regardless of the kind of business you run, you need a website and you need a blog.
The problem is that too many marketers or business people who don’t have a strong working knowledge of how things like search engine optimization (SEO) work don’t see the urgency in keeping up with their blogs. They also don’t like the idea of paying someone to keep it up.
In the long run, it is far more expensive to let your content stagnate than it is to invest in high-quality, informative, engaging, and persuasive copy. The content of your blog is one of the main things that will keep your audience interested in what you and your brand have to say if you keep up with it. So why do the amount of content and the frequency at which you deliver that content matter? Let’s look at three key reasons.
#1 – A Swiftly Changing Market
SEO has gotten much trickier to manage over the years. As the algorithms that determine ranking get more complicated, so does the process of hitting and maintaining the highest rankings.
SEO has become far less contingent on static keywords and far more so on the overall quality of a website (or individual webpage) since the advent of dot-com everything. Everything right down to the images you put on your pages determines whether your site will ever achieve the pole position on mega sites like Google.
To keep up with market demands, you need to deliver lots of content. Your written content, in particular, needs to be made perpetually relevant based on current search trends. Some keywords will remain the same over time, but many will also change and fluctuate depending on current market needs.
This is why frequent blog updates are important. The company that will rank high in the summer offering landscaping services needs to deliver copy about landscaping during the warmer months of the year. That same company needs to shift to topics like snow and ice removal when that weather sets in.
It is also vitally important to always research current keywords before writing or ordering copy. If your copy is seeded with keywords that are relevant today, it will help tremendously in your efforts to increase rankings, particularly in a local search.
#2 – Original Content Is King
It goes without saying that content, in and of itself, is very important, but fresh, original content matters more. So many of your competitors get this part wrong. They curate large percentages of their content, even for their blogs, and then wonder why people just scroll past it on social media.
The kind of thing that gets people to stop and tap is something they haven’t seen before. Reposting content – even relevant industry content – will only get you so far. Your audience wants to hear from you. Give them what they want.
#3 – People Tend to Forget Things
…and the internet helps them forget. The less they click on your content, the less of it they are going to see. This is especially true with Facebook, but it applies to all social channels as well as every other corner of your web browsing experience.
The last thing you want your audience to forget about is you. You keep that from happening by always being in front of them with killer content that keeps the focus on your brand, not on your competition.
The internet does a stellar job of creating a level playing field wherein the company with the smartest strategy can win the game, even if it isn’t the biggest or the richest. It doesn’t matter how much money you have.
If you spend your content creation dollars well and offer consistency in the way you deliver your brand message, you absolutely can compete with brands that are way bigger and more visible than yours in other ways. You can make your brand unforgettable by simply not giving your audience the opportunity to forget and by having something meaningful to say when you post to your blog.
Final Takeaway
While there are many more reasons why you should be blogging consistently, I think these three really are the foundation for all of them. Keeping up with a changing market and the SEO demands that come with it is nonnegotiable, so look for easy ways to do it. Blogging is among the easiest.
Don’t get lazy with your content. The goal is to create content, not to repost it. While the latter has its place, it should never be the centerpiece of your content marketing strategy. Curated content is forgettable. Your brand story, told through original, high-quality content, is what wins and keeps people’s attention long term.