In today’s market, every business knows that blogging is a very effective tool to use for finding and converting more leads through inbound (online) strategies. No matter whether a company is B2B or B2C, blogging can help reach more people who will turn into leads to be converted. 

So, why does blogging continue to be so important for businesses these days?

First, blogging generates more leads.

 A lead is someone who comes to your site and leaves their information.  Blogs provide a great reason why someone would want to visit a company’s site again. The more the visitor returns, the more opportunity the company has to convert them for whatever goal.

 Source: State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report – http://bit.ly/cVMpkn

Second, blogs do well with the search engines.

That is active blogging does well.  Search engines are looking for new, fresh content that matches what the searcher wants.  Blogs are easy to update so there can always be delicious content for hungry little web crawlers.  A website is standard, but it should include a blog so that it does not become stagnate.  There is no dyed in the wool standard number of times to update a blog that stands out as the magic number for being findable with the search engines.  So active could be once an hour or once a month.  The key is to be consistent.  

Third, and perhaps the biggest benefit of blogs, is that they provide visibility.

We are talking mainly about blogging for business but it is fair to say that individuals could benefit from blogging as well.  After all, we all have a story to tell and if we do not tell it, someone else will.  In the past, it was a little harder for others to spread stories about us or our company.  The storytellers had to have enough influence themselves before the story spreaders like journalists and news reporters would even pay attention. Today, anyone who wants can put up a blog, video, newsletter, etc, and actually gain attention very quickly because of the internet and search engines. 

Blogging increases the chances of being an expert in your subject or industry.  Even if you work as a clerk in the payroll department, there are many aspects of what you do that brings others to you when they have questions.  The same goes for the CEO or entrepreneur.  When you are already telling others who you are and what you know, the storytellers job becomes more difficult as they have to revamp what people already believe.

Here are three best practices that you could adopt to make your blogging strategy more effective.

Make good use of the sidebar.  Do you have a fan page?  Then put a badge in the side bar and tie the two together.  The same goes for Twitter.  This is a good place to put video such as a welcome message for your readers.  The goal is to create interest or perhaps invite your readers to other relevant sites.  So, don’t overload the sidebar just try to have a plan for what you put there.

Increase your activity.  There’s nothing worse than going to a blog, enjoying it, then coming back time after time for nothing.  Make a commitment to blog on a regular basis.  Readers and search engines will love it.

Ask others to be guest bloggers on your blog.  This is a great way to increase the activity on your blog without it becoming an increased burden for the blogger.  One word of caution though, be very selective about who you accept because this person will now be linked to you. 

Blogging may not be for every business or individual, however, because of  it’s highly positive impact, it should be seriously considered and not summarily dismissed as a great tool for finding and converting leads that meet your desired goals.