Imagine a shop window. It is stuffed with fresh produce, bursting with beautiful, vibrant colours. Doesn’t it make you think of the shopkeeper as someone who cares about his work and takes pride in it?
Now, imagine that next door is another shop window, with old, on-the-turn produce that lacks life and colour. It’s conjures a very different mental image of the proprietor, doesn’t it?
If you’re reading this, then you’ll know that blogging is good for your business because it brings people to your shop window (your website). While they’re there, there’s a good chance that they might be buying whatever it is you’re selling, if they like what they see.
So, do you want to turn them off with a shoddy and out-of-date site with old, generic content? Or do you want them to be pleased they visited and impressed by the fresh regular content? If you want to keep people coming back, then you’ll want to choose the second option.
The question is, do you have the skills or the resources to create this fresh content on a regular basis? Say, once a week, once every two weeks or monthly (at least)? Of course, it depends on the size of your business but if you are a small business, then probably not. So, what do you do?
You could try Fiverr or PPH where you will be inundated with people desperate to write for you for pennies. But it will be generic, impersonal, saturated with keywords and possibly not up to a standard you would expect or hope. This would not do your business reputation much good, and it would not encourage your readers to return.
Good blog posts are more than just keywords. It must be relevant to your customer, but it must be interesting, and it must shine a light on your business – let the readers know a little bit more about the story behind it. That’s what gets people interested in your business, give them insight into its values and ethos, and makes them want to be part of it by using your product or service.
This might sound a little wishy washy, but if you write your own blog posts, you will give people a taste of the passion you feel for your company and make them want to buy from you. I understand that this is not always feasible so instead train up a member of staff who knows your business inside out and can embody your passion in a blog post. Or find someone who will do it with the care and attention that it needs to convince your readers that it is you and your business behind the words.
You won’t get that from a £5 blogger, now will you!