The Benefits of Blogging

If you have a company website, it should probably include a blog. Many businesses, especially, smaller ones might not see the point. However, some great benefits come with setting up a blog on your website, five of which we’ve listed below.

Increases search engine traffic

Having a blog on your website increases the number of times you’ll appear in search engine results and drives traffic to your site. Create content using keywords and phrases that are likely to be used by your target audience and make sure these are included as often as possible in your posts (without affecting the flow of anything you write).

Increases leads

The more often you appear in search engine results and the more often those looking for information visit your site, the more likely it is that you will be able to create leads and convert these into customers.

Personalises your brand

No matter how wonderfully written your website is, it won’t do as much to personalise your brand as a blog. This is because a blog gives you a voice beyond any corporate messaging. You can share that voice with your employees by having them write blogs on their jobs or project they’re working on, or you can let customers and clients know how you feel about key issues facing your industry.

Makes you an industry expert

Sharing your opinions on major issues is a great way to turn yourself into an industry expert, someone people turn to for information, advice and guidance. This, in turn, builds trust in your brand, increases website traffic and improves conversion rates.

Builds a connection

Perhaps the most significant benefit of blogging is that it helps establish a relationship between you and your customers through the comments section. Knowing what your customers are thinking will help you make sure your brand and any messaging are relevant to what they want and need.

Finally, it’s important to remember that these benefits come at the price of blogging regularly and delivering interesting content that engages customers.


What Is PPC? An Introduction To PPC Advertising

PPC, or pay-per-click, advertising is a model where advertisers pay every time an internet user clicks a designated link. PPC advertising is an efficient way of using search engines to generate clicks onto your website. Because these clicks are paid for, the traffic that it generates to your site isn’t considered to be organic traffic that would come through users finding your website in other ways.

While not organic traffic, traffic generated through PPC advertisements can lead to them being returning customers as well as the possibility of a significant return on investment through sales.

How Does PPC Advertising Work?

Every time a user clicks on the advertisement that you have paid for and is sent in the direction of your website the search engine takes a small fee. PPC advertising works in such a way that, when the adverts are well designed, any traffic that is directed to the website is of higher value than the cost of the click itself. PPC advertising is particularly useful if it leads to sales on your site.

How Will It Benefit My Business?

PPC advertising is beneficial to both advertisers and people making the searches. People are not afraid of being advertised to, with research showing that often, paid search ads are more frequently clicked than other types of advertising. As searchers use search engines to look for specific products, the paid adverts are usually relevant to the product or service that they are looking for, increasing the chances of a sale following the click.

At the same time, advertisers are able to put their product or service across to an audience in a unique and specific way. Analytics are readily available to advertisers, meaning that the number of clicks to conversions can be tracked and advertisements modified according to their success. Such an advertisement is usually win-win, leaving both client and advertiser content in their decision.


Opens vs Clicks: How To Measure Email Marketing Success

Email marketing is still one of the most effective marketing methods out there. In fact, 59% of B2B marketers say that using email newsletters is still the most effective marketing tool to generate revenue. However, all businesses are vying for space in their customer’s inbox. So, how do you check your campaign is working and measure its success? Is the best way through opens, or clicks?

How Should You Measure Your Success?

It is important to know how you will measure success before you begin any campaign. Having a goal in place and your metrics ready to measure is essential. Every email you send needs to be tracked. For emails that aren’t hitting the mark, you do not want to be posting similar content out again.

Opens

This measurement is tracking the number of people that have opened the email to view the content. Your open score only measures the people that wait for the images to load and sees the email. It does not count the people that open it to close or delete it immediately.

You also have an open rate; this will be the number of individuals that opened the emails divided by the number of emails you sent to individuals. This will exclude the number of bounces.

Clicks

The click-through rate is the number of people that not only read your email but scroll to your call to action and click on it. This shows not only people being interested in receiving emails from you but interacting with your content too. This helps you to determine which content your users enjoy and resonate with the most.

Which Should You Measure?

Quite simply, you should measure both. Your open rate will help you to determine how catchy your subject and header is. This will show you how compelled individuals are to see your content. However, for more significant analysis of your email content, the number of clicks will show you what is working well and what is not working at all.

In fact, with all metrics in place, you help to refine your target audience and work out what they want from your emails. With over 196 million emails being sent every single day, it is essential to use all the metrics you have available to ensure your emails stand out.