From connecting with more customers and donors to putting your industry expertise on display for the world, the advantages of having an active blog are numerous for any organization. Perhaps the most important benefit of a blog is the positive impact it will have on your organization’s website. By analyzing data from our own blog (the one you’re reading right now), we’ve pinpointed three significant ways a blog will make your website more valuable.
Three Important Advantages of Blogging for Your Business or Nonprofit
A blog will bring more people to your website. A lot more people. And you definitely want more people on your website. More people visiting your website means more people learning about what makes your brand unique, and your products and services. Here are three specific ways having a blog adds value to your organization’s website:
#1 The Traffic Spike
By analyzing our website traffic data over the past six months, we’ve noted a pattern of significant spikes in traffic whenever a new blog post goes up. Keep in mind, we promote our blog. We post links to it on our social media sites, and share it in emails and within other online communities. All that promotion contributes to our results. We found the publication of a new blog post generally produces a spike in overall website traffic on the day of post publication and the two days immediately following publication. That’s a consistent three-day spike before our traffic settles back into average daily numbers.
#2 The Ripple Effect
Here’s the kicker: While the majority of website traffic following publication of a new blog post is directed at the specific post, our results showed traffic also increased on all other pages of our website. That means with each new post, your entire website (all pages) experiences a traffic spike for three days. One can reasonably stipulate the influx of visitors to the new post are trickling out to the other pages of the website. This result illustrates the single most compelling reason an organization should have a blog: With each new blog post, more new visitors will lay eyes on your website. More people will learn who you are and what you have to offer.
#3 The SEO Factor
After initial publication and the three-day website traffic spike, blog posts continue to add value to your website. Primarily, they do this through SEO (search engine optimization). Analyzing the hundreds of search terms that brought visitors to our website, we determined more than 2/3 of our search engine traffic leads visitors directly to blog posts. That means your blog serves as a vital website entry point. Weeks, months, even years after you published a post, you will find people are still entering your website through that post because it turns up in search engines. In this way, blog provide a great SEO advantage.
A Note on Timing Your Posts…
To get the most out of your blog posts, you should publish posts when they will have the biggest impact. For a blog targeting businesses and organizations (or more specifically people who work at businesses and organizations), the best time to publish posts is during the work week (Monday-Friday). When taking into account the two-day echo of increased website traffic that follows each new post, you will want to publish early in the week (Monday-Wednesday) to get the most out of your post.
Want More Website Traffic? Start Blogging
The bottom line is a blog will give your organization’s website traffic a significant boost. In the case of our website, over 1/3 of all our site traffic is the result of our blog.That’s a big number, and it means a lot of additional eyes exposed to your brand and your website. If you’ve been dragging your feet on launching a blog for your business or nonprofit, don’t miss out on this easy way to increase your site traffic.
A couple final tips to help you get the most out of your blog:
1. Post regularly to your blog. Publish at least 2-4 new posts a month. The more you post, the better results you will see.
2. Spread the word about your blog. Share new posts on your social media pages, in email newsletters and any other way you can.
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