If you don’t have a blog or have gradually phased out posting on your old one yet business is ticking along just fine, you’d be forgiven for questioning why your tech business needs a blog.
To make matters even more confusing, it only takes one session of scrolling through social media to conclude that blogs are best suited for travelers, fashion houses and beauty brands to dish out endless ‘inspo’. And, since you’re not in these fields, blogging is no big deal, right? Wrong. Very wrong
Having a SaaS, IT or Tech-based product should not be viewed as a drawback that prevents you from blogging. Even with a service-based business, there is no reason why you can’t have a fun, engaging and value-packed blog with a strong readership who can’t wait for your next post.
Achieving this isn’t down to what you sell but rather what you choose to centre your writing around. So, just in case you aren’t completely convinced already, here are 8 reasons why your tech business needs a blog.
Develop a strong brand voice and compelling image
Whether intentional or not, every brand has a voice and the great thing is you get to develop this voice.
It’s quirks, personality, opinions and even its sense of humor all come down to you…
This can not only be a great deal of fun but allows you to connect with your audience on a more personal level by crafting a voice that is in tune with the interests and values of your target audience,
a surefire to ensure your content resonates with them.
Also, it’s wise to remember that people, in general, like to know a brand is not faceless and are often curious to know who is behind it.
This is why behind-the-scenes and day-in-the-life content works so well (side note you should definitely give this type of content a try and post it on your blog, of course).
So, give your audience what they want and allow them to get to know and trust you.
Continuing on, this voice can and should extend into other aspects of the business such as customer service. Take the retailer, Nasty Gal. They may have had a rough couple of years but if there is one thing they have got right it’s their impeccable on-brand voice.
Their voice is uniform across the business, from the copy on their website, product descriptions and blog posts to even their customer service reps. They hire staff that speaks like a ‘Nasty Gal’ because they understand the importance of having a strong brand voice.
As a result, customers instantly recognise and relate to the Nasty Gal persona, propelling the brand’s status a regular fashion corporation to an actual being and a strong-minded one, well-loved one at that.
So, not only does having a blog increase the likeability and relatability of your brand, but it also increases its visibility as you share your content on social media and even more, prospects can come to know of you.
Become the authority in your niche
Let’s just imagine for a second that you are in a super-niche sector in within the tech industry that is gaining traction fast.
At present, you have around 10 competitors. Among these 10 competitors, 1 has a successful blog that potential clients are engaging with and even recommending this particular blog to their friends.
There are also 2 brands that have tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to launch a blog but on close inspection, it is clear their failure was caused by them publishing content misaligned with their audience’s needs/wants, plaguing their posts with uninspiring headlines, paying zero attention to SEO best practices and stuffing their blog with boring updates that mean nothing to their audience.
Finally, we have the 7 companies who were either too busy to write content, struggled to find someone to write for them or quite simply couldn’t be bothered to engage in the lengthy task that is content creation
This scenario presents a number of opportunities for your hypothetical niche brand that you could be most certainly use to your advantage. For instance:-
- Low levels of competition and low barriers to entry provide a chance for your business to shine so long as you come prepared with the right angle on topics that interest your target audience
- Although diligence of the successful company has allowed them to carve out a significant slice of the pie in terms of SEO ranking, street-cred and ability to generate warm leads. This should not be seen as a threat but rather a source of motivation. This means there is still space for a challenger to become a thought leader in their niche.
Now, you may be thinking that this does not apply to you because your specialty already has a number of well-to-do blogs.
However, it’s important to remember there is always room for a blog that offers a different perspective on topics that cater to your target audience’s needs, wants, and interests.
Pick your angle and run with it!
Show your expertise whilst offer free training and support
Even if you are not concerned about SEO or generating leads through your blog.
Having one acts a source you can refer prospects to demonstrate your expertise and enhance your social proof as more people begin to comment on and engage with your content.
Your blog can also act as a useful hub to aid the onboarding and boost customer success rates by housing your how-to guides, infographics and training materials on so customers have one place to gather information from at any time.
This has the potential to increase sign-ons and customer success rates, another great perk of having a blog!
Did someone say free traffic?
Yes, we sure did! Whilst running targeted ads is great, you can’t beat the (almost) free traffic gained from prospects stumbling across your business through a search engine or your audience referring your blog to their friends because you helped solve a nagging problem they’ve been experiencing.
Contrary to stories that SEO is dead, SEO is very much alive and kicking so long as you’re willing to apply the time and dedication needed to make your blog a success.
Whether you’re VC funded or relying on a mixture of loans and savings, you’re bound to have aggressive sales and growth targets.
Creating a blog and ultilising SEO and social media to get your content in front of your prospects is a cost-effective way to gain trust and generate more leads to push you closer to meeting these goals.
Sure, its long game, but isn’t everything else worth achieving?
It is very cheap to start a blog and you can get started by buying domain hosting and setting up a simple blog on WordPress.
Whilst it is affordable, it’s important to consider that if you choose to write the posts yourself or have a team member do it, you will pay for the blog with your time in order action the tasks necessary to increase the SEO ranking and traffic of your blog.
This includes tasks such as sourcing relevant topics, writing content and frequently uploading content (at least twice per week) as well as including anchor text, keyword enriched metadata and alt-text to your site pages and blog posts so that your post and images can be found when searched.
But, most importantly ensure your content is high in quality, long-form and includes the keywords you’re targeting in your headline, beginning paragraph, and subheadings as Google has recently changed its Algorithms to favour such content.
If you need help, Moz has an amazing guide that will get your SEO skills up to scratch in no time.
If you can’t set aside the time for this I highly recommend outsourcing it to a content marketer or blogger like me (shameless plug) as it is well worth the investment and over time can add zeros to your revenue.
Stay on top of trends in your niche and update your followers
No, need to babble on to much with this one as i’m sure you can imagine that having a blog pushes you to research developing trends in your specialty so you can be one of the first to bring them to the attention of your audience for further discussion.
It also has the added benefit of sparking new ideas in your business that can improve your product offering and business processes. It’s a no-brainer really
Uncover who your audience really is through analytics
We all think we know who our audience is…until we run the analytics on our website and blog.
Having a blog can expose new groups of people who you hadn’t considered to be your audience. You’ll be able to spot trends, dips, and peaks in certain demographic visiting your site as well as their favored device type.
This provides you with additional information that you can use in conjunction with your website analytics to will enable you to make data-driven adjustments to your marketing strategy, drafting content ideas, setting up sales funnels to capture each sub-group and expand your reach without having to go and seek new groups of people.
To round things up….
It’s no secret that running a blog and persistently adhering to best practices so you have a chase at ranking in search is no easy feat. However, when done correctly your business could reap benefits such as organic traffic, an engaged and thriving community, list building opportunities and producing qualified leads for years to come.