We love blogging. It’s a great opportunity to share our thoughts about marketing, branding and design issues, and to hear your feedback and ideas.
Does that mean, though, there’s any business ROI (Return on Investment) in it? Could blogging instead just be something that keeps us busy and self-satisfied – a giant exercise in existential navel picking?
Fortunately, there IS a positive business return on the typical blogging investment, with plenty of evidence to back it up. Read on, and you’ll see how your blogging time, resources and investment can generate significant returns that move the needle for your business. (And your worries about existential navel picking can be tossed aside…)
The State of Blogging
It’s estimated that there are 600 million+ blogs online today. Looking at it from a user perspective, U.S. internet users spend 3X more time on blogs than they do on email. People actually view over 20 billion blog pages each month.
According to B2B Content Marketing 2020: Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 89% of the B2B companies surveyed were blogging. Clearly, the investment in blogging is significant and the business value is worth investigating.
The ROI of Blogging
Marketers who have prioritized blogging are 13X more likely to enjoy positive ROI. And blogging ranks as the most effective form of content for generating awareness.
Blogging is obviously generating significant returns for many companies. Let’s dig a little deeper now and explore the specific ways that marketing teams are leveraging their blogs to maximize value for their companies.
Lead Generation Growth through Blogging
The analytics software company KISSmetrics is a good example of the power of blogging. They re-thought how to grow a software company, essentially building the business on top of a meticulous blog-building methodology. Through publishing posts regularly and through the inclusion of unique guides and infographics in their blog, they increased monthly blog visitors from zero to more than 350,000 over the course of a few years. The blog ultimately accounted for 82% of the company’s site traffic and over 70% of leads!
Stratabeat as well generates a large percentage of our leads through our blog. For example, the blog post “6 Elements of a Winning B2B Brand Strategy” alone has earned more than 6,800 page views since its publication date. Even looking at a more recent post, such as “Rebranding Strategy: 8 Steps to a Successful Makeover,” the page has received more than 1,800 views in just over one year. Each of these posts includes CTAs for the reader to contact Stratabeat to discuss how to take their branding to the next level, and this has resulted in a range of prospect inquiries.
According to InsideView, B2B businesses that blog achieve 67% more monthly leads than those that do not. Lead generation is one of the most common goals of content marketing for B2B companies, and when executed well, blogging is clearly a worthwhile lead generation tactic as part of the marketing mix.
Website Traffic Growth through Blogging
Blogging builds website traffic. Whether through SEO, social sharing or email marketing, blogging is a surefire method for increasing your reach and traffic.
According to a survey by MarketingSherpa, content creation is ranked as the single most effective SEO technique by respondents. To be truly successful, of course your content must thrill your audience with its level of usefulness or entertainment value. Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links than companies that do not, and as everyone knows, inbound links are absolutely critical to SEO success (Source: HubSpot).
In our own case here at Stratabeat, seven of our top eight landing pages for our site (the first page a site visitor lands on) outside of the home page are from our blog, acting as a solid acquisition funnel. Blog posts rank in organic search results, delivering qualified traffic. Looking beyond organic rankings, online sharing of posts can also generate more awareness of your brand and conequently more traffic to your site. For example, one of our blog posts was shared more than 1,600 times, bringing waves of new visitors to our site. Not too shabby for about three hours worth of work in putting just a single post together.
Backlink Acquisition through Blogging
Acquiring high-quality backlinks is one of the most critical factors in Google organic rankings. How can you increase your backlinks substantially?
Websites with blogs have 97% more inbound links than those that don’t. This post is an updated version of a post published previously. How did the original version fare when it comes to backlinks? Two-hundred eighty-one (281) dofollow links from 92 websites. Among those, 19 of the sites boast an Ahrefs Domain Rating of 70-100, representing a top echelon of sites.
If you want more high-quality backlinks, look to high-quality blogging.
Influencing Decision Makers through Blogging
Blogging is also a constructive way to reach decision makers. Eighty percent (80%) of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement (Source: Content Marketing Institute). Considering that 57% of the buyer journey is complete before prospects reach out to vendors, your blog can act as an important part of your funnel before you even begin a conversation.
Measuring the ROI of Blogging
If you are looking for specific metrics to use in the ROI calculations for your own blog, consider the following:
- Lead Generation: As mentioned above, lead generation can be a strong metric against which to measure the success of your blog.
- Sales: In the case that your website is transactional in nature, sales can be a good success metric for your blog.
- Blog Subscriptions: A new blog subscription increases invaluable brand touchpoints during the sales process, and can be effective at building loyalty and repeat purchases among existing customers.
- Organic Traffic: Blogging is an effective way to capture real estate in the Google search results, helping you to get in front of your audience at the precise time they are most receptive to your message and your solutions.
- “New” Unique Site Visitors: This metric is valuable in ensuring that your blog is introducing your brand to new prospective clients.
- Landing Page Views: As mentioned above, your blog can act as a robust acquisition platform for prospective customers through SEO and social media.
- Customer Engagement: For companies that may not be looking to generate “leads” as much as engage with customers and build loyalty, a blog is a fantastic opportunity to have a conversation.
- Social Shares: Blog posts tend to be shared exponentially more than standard web pages, enabling you to expand your reach and visibility.
Summary
Whether you’re looking to generate leads, sales or simply top-of-the-funnel, first-time site visitors from your blog, the ROI is clear for your business. Focus on making your blog as valuable as possible for your target audience, and see your marketing results go skyward!
This blog post was originally published on Feb 19, 2015. It was updated on September 7, 2020.
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