The benefits of blogging are many for business owners who want to grow their businesses and reach a wider audience. One of the most evident benefits of blogging is that it makes your business at the top of the mind of prospective clients that wants to patronize businesses in your industry.
In this piece, I will be discussing the several benefits of blogging and the exact questions that should be asked and answered before you start a blog.
A blog can be the center of a low-overhead, location-independent, lucrative business. There has never been a better time to build and start a blog.
We are living in a digital age, and that means it is cheaper for you or anyone to start a business if you’re willing to put in the work. Most people who have succeeded in running a blog as a business were willing to put in the work. You too can make it happen.
To Grow An Existing Business
One of the benefits of blogging is that blogging will help grow your existing business. Content is king, and content marketing is one of the best ways to drive your business forward.
A blog is a tested and trusted format of content marketing. Many of the world’s biggest brands have their own blogs. They are using digital content to market their products and services, so you will not be alone if you do the same.
Blogging To Showcase Your Expertise
You can use a blog to showcase your expertise and show yourself as an authority in your industry. Blogging is a great way to position yourself as a thought leader.
Many people have used their blogs to land jobs, get speaking engagements, land contracts, etc. Also, if you want to be an author, I mean if you want to write a book, blogging is the best place to start.
Building Relationships
Another benefit of blogging is that it will help you become an active member of your community, and help you build long-lasting relationships with people you want to reach. I know people who run niched communities, who have built relationships that they have taken offline.
For us at Entrepreneurs.ng, writing has helped us meet so many people in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. In fact, our first event, The Network was attended by 95% of our online community who were frequent readers of the content we put out on our platform.
Also, many people have subscribed to our services (Business Registration, Workspaces) because they found our content useful to the growth of their business. Believe me, it’s amazing how many people you can meet organically by becoming an active member of your community through blogging.
Blogging For Fun And Enjoyment
I’m passionate about entrepreneurship and I believe that entrepreneurship is the solution to our economic problem. And, business comes naturally to me, so anytime I have the time to write, it’s actually fun because I enjoy it.
If you’re passionate about your topic, you may find that writing about it is a lot of fun for its own sake. Even if you don’t consider yourself a great writer, the process of researching and sharing ideas with people is incredibly fulfilling.
What Does It Cost To Own A Blog
How much does it cost to start a blog? It cost as low as nothing, or as high as thousands depending on your budget and ambition. You can get a blog up and running with as little as N30,000.
Now, if you’re blogging for business, you know you have to spend a little extra to get it to an acceptable standard. Also, as your blogging business grows, you have to invest in things like security for your site.
What To Do Before You Start A Blog
Before you start a blog, you have to know ‘your why‘. How does blogging fit into your long-term vision? It matters because it will determine whether you fail or succeed as a blogger.
Think about the overall vision you have for your life, career, or business. Then, determine how starting a blog fit into your long-term vision. What’s your end game?
For instance, are you passionate about a topic and you want to share that passion with an audience, just like we are passionate about entrepreneurship at Entrepreneurs.ng. Do you want to start a business that allows you to live with freedom and flexibility?
Or maybe, you want to earn more money. Hey, there is no shame in writing to earn more money. Entrepreneurs.ng make revenue too even though my team and I are passionate about what we do.
You need to know your motivation because that is what will keep you moving forward when things get difficult. Always remember why you started in the first place.
The Act Of Discipline
Passion and being motivated are not enough when starting a blog. You need a healthy dose of discipline when building a successful blog. Trust me, someday, you’re fired up and some other days, you just want to stay in bed.
The solution is discipline. Commit to working on your blog and making tangible progress towards your goals every single day even when you don’t feel motivated.
Habitual commitment is what separates world-class performers from the rest. It’s the same thing that distinguishes successful entrepreneurs from people who have failed in business; the ability to stay with it a little longer.
The Mindset Of A Winner
Most blogs fizzle out long before they’ve had the chance to prosper. There’s a lot of competition out there and the odds are stacked against you. When you’re working with the right mindset, it is much easier to make everything else fall into place. I read somewhere that, “no blogger has ever failed mid-keystroke”. Failure in any venture comes when you stop executing.
Starting out, you may not have as much traffic as you want or as much influence as you want, or the revenue you want. The thing to bear in mind is, those things; traffic, influence, revenue, authority, etc can be improved if you continue to put in the work. But, if you give up, it means that you didn’t give yourself the chance to succeed.
Treat Blogging As A Business
Because I’m a business person, I always find a way to relate my writing as well as everything I do to business. If your blog is going to be a business, it needs to be treated like one from the onset.
With any business, there are going to be ups and downs, learning and unlearning; and plenty of setbacks. It’s going to take a good deal of time and effort to grow. So, make sure you’re prepared to deal with the challenges you will encounter, and don’t be too hard on yourself. When you start treating your blog as a business, what you’re really doing is building a media company. A media company needs a business model.
So, your blog is not different from any other business. Therefore, it’s important that you think about your revenue model not in terms of monetising your blog, but as providing a valuable product or service that improves the lives of your customers.
This kind of mindset shift helps you remove the focus on monetising your blog and put you in a position, where you are focused on creating value to your readers and clients. It’s by creating value and solving problems that revenue is made in any business.
Challenge With Writing?
Most people do not consider themselves good writers. It’s a mental block that keeps a lot of people from getting started. Understandably, you may not be the best writer, but everyone started somewhere. The only way to get better at your writing is to consistently practice. That’s actually the best way to get better at anything.
Personally, I get better with each content I put out. Also, if there’s anything I have learned in the course of building Entrepreneurs.ng, is that you get better with every content you put out. Drawing from the experience of my team, some of them were embarrassed by the first content they produced, but they’ re getting better with each content.
Curious to know the best way to improve your content? The best way to improve your writing is to write.
You don’t have to win a Noble Prize in Literature or win the Pulitzer Prize to build a successful blog.
Don’t limit your horizon as an entrepreneur, let the world know about you and your business by profiling your business today.
