Do blogs for businesses work in this modern day and age? In my personal opinion, YES, IT DOES. Let me explain why.
Blogging may have gotten its start from people putting their thoughts together and publishing it as a personal online diary. I’ve been doing this for decades and I am committed to continuing doing this until the day my grave calls out to me.
I do this for both my personal blog and business site because I see value in it, both personally and professionally.
The Difference Between Business Blogging Then and Now
During my stint as a freelance blogger, writer, copywriter, and digital marketer, I blogged for businesses as well. Those days, SEO was anything-goes. We didn’t have a long list of rules to abide by, and we didn’t have to be afraid of flouting any hidden guidelines and being banned FOR-EVER.
Because of the assailable situation and our incorrigible need to get to the top of the first page of search engines fast, we did everything within our power to string words together just to pump something out.
Honestly speaking, it’s complete RUBBISH by today’s standards.
If I did the same thing today, writing and publishing blog content for businesses, I would get people in trouble. The articles were stuffed with keywords and were somewhere between 350 to 500 words long. Nothing long and deep. Just surface-level information that we all found on the internet, anyway.
How Does Business Blogging Look Like Today?
Careful. Strategic. Planned. Vetted by countless people. Checked again and again, and again. Every business blog we push out into the internet, we have to think about the kind of content it is going to be. Is it going to be:
- Functional – to be indexed and found by search engines and internet users
- Informational – to educate and add value to the lives of the readers who have found your article on the internet or through social media
- Transactional – it has one main purpose – to give people as much information about the products and services you’re offering and lead them quickly to action
- Navigational – these are important pillar pages where the content may change over time because of evolution within your own business. We may cover a wide range of topics but it is structured in such a way that readers will have no problems finding exactly the kind of info they want on your website
People are impatient on the internet and content writers like us, especially when we’re writing for blogs for businesses, need to make life EASY for them.
There are more than 410 million internet users today who read about 20 million blog pages every month! That’s a lot more business blog pages than I thought it was going to be, in all honesty.
Why Do Business Blogs Still Work?
Most of us in the SEO world are already noting that Google launched a feature called Passage Ranking. Basically, it’s a complex, ever-changing algorithm that Google is still working on in an effort to provide faster, better results to users.
Instead of ranking a page or website based on all the text and META tags on it, the engine is attempting to answer queries on the best pages and passages with the most relevant content.
So let’s say, you’re searching for ‘how to change your car engine oil’ on Google. You’ll notice that it may take you to a long-form content page where there are lots of information about ‘repairing a car’ or ‘maintaining a car’ but with a relevant passage within that content on ‘changing car oil’.
In fact, they’re doing the same thing with Google Videos.
When I searched for ‘how to make coffee art’, it presented me with a bunch of videos with timestamps so that I can click on the timestamp and get my information instantly.
So, although business blogs are no longer the primary way people search for information, it remains relevant. Especially to search engines.
The only thing is that there are multiple ways people are consuming information – some read, others watch, and listen. Content creators and businesses with an online presence have to simply adapt or die.
When you write for your business, be more aware of the true intention of your article. Be specific, keep it simple, illustrate as much as you can, be genuine and personable, and tap into the right medium to reach the right audience.
Answering Questions, Adding Value, and Getting Leads
Creating blog content is going to take some time and I understand if you think it’s a task you might want to put on the backburner for a while.
Let me just talk you through it.
If you’re a laundromat, creating content on how to deal with laundry and maintain proper care of clothing is valuable to your visitors. You’re offering them a free solution that they can work out on their own time. And if they can’t, they know where to find you!
If you’re a pest control company and you provide useful tips and tricks on how to control local pests through DIY solutions, they’ll be thankful or even sign up for your newsletter.
And if you’re a lawyer, imagine how grateful people are going to be when they get local legal advice from you on your business blog because going to a lawyer to get their seemingly elementary questions is going to cost them.
How Should You Move Forward with Your Business Blog Today?
Today, instead of pushing out a bunch of blog articles, the focus needs to be on
- Intent
- Direction
- Connection
- Relevance.
And instead of writing a whole bunch of articles aimlessly, we need to focus on producing quality blog articles instead of a LOT OF ARTICLES.
Once upon a time, I used to write either one blog every day or at least twice a week, without fail. Today, I say we focus on 4 articles a month and make them really good ones! We should spend more time researching, polishing, refining, rewriting, enhancing, and promoting the article to help it reach its maximum potential.
If the types of content you produce are different from each other, I suggest making use of two (or more) platforms or accounts.
For instance, I have a personal platform for my whacky stuff and personal pictures and videos, and another account for my professional articles and videos. That way, readers and followers won’t be confused about the kind of stuff I am trying to do.
If one account is for entertaining stuff, stick with it, and then create another account for the promotion of your products and services. We just have to be absolutely clear about the intention and direction of the article.
The good news is that those good articles also tend to rank better with search engines and bring invaluable backlinks. People also tend to interact and connect with your brand or business better when you are authentic and thorough.
Before I go…
I hope businesses don’t see the fall of blogging as a reason to stop doing it because a lot of companies continue to do it and are ranking well because of it. Search engines still rely rather heavily on such content.
For example, Chris Brogan still writes his blogs and publishes newsletters to his fan base, Mashable remains to be one of the leading content publishers on the internet, and needless to say, do’s Hubspot and GoDaddy.
So, keep blogging for your business because it still works. Content is King and I don’t see it changing too drastically any time soon. Not even with the advent of AI and all that.
Nothing beats humans.
Copywriting & Content Marketing Specialist 
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