blogging

5 Big Benefits of Blogging and How to Write One

Blogging is a tremendously helpful tool when it comes to building your digital presence, your personal brand, and starting a new business. 77% of internet users read blogs regularly. It involves a bit more work than other content formats, but that can be balanced based on length, and striving for speed and volume rather than perfection. 

As you’ll see, the benefits are substantial. It’s good to have a plan but it’s certainly more important to just start doing it, now, and regularly. 

Here are 5 big benefits of blogging. Start today and you’ll be a blogger by tomorrow.

1. Get more visitors with improved search engine optimization

A top reason for most of us (and why I’m writing this now) is to attract more people to your site and this happens mainly through search engines like Google. When you publish new content, Google crawls it and informs its algorithm and ultimately assigns a page ranking to it.  And since it values new content, as long as you’re blogging often, using relevant keywords, and giving it a proper promotion, blogs should be helping you increase your search ranking. 

Note that the quality is also key since engagement and views will increase your ranking, but volume and consistency are more important.

2. Position yourself as a thought leader

Writing is the OG format of the thought leader. Combining hard facts with your personal perspective are the essential ingredients. When they’re combined into an interesting, value-adding piece of written editorial, you’ve just become impressive. Do it often enough and you are well on your way to becoming an expert and thought leader on the subject. Just imagine having ten long-form pieces of content on your topic – that’s something to be proud of. You’ll impress your network, inspire your customers, and most definitely yourself. 

3. Turn your blog into 20+ pieces of social content

If you’re not convinced yet, this one will do it. A blog is essentially a page of 20+ pieces of micro-content – picked apart and packed properly, they are now a calendar of marketing posts for your other channels. As an example, I think I’ll turn that last sentence into a tweet on the @Paper_li Twitter handle. Done. 

blogging_content

Grab quotes, powerful sentences, create top 5 lists, summaries, and easily turn them into texts and visuals for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, email and more. Then, take all those images and turn them into an Instagram story or Slideshare presentation. You’ll invest some time in the blog post, but it will fuel your marketing channels for weeks.

4. Keep visitors on your page

Is your website for personal or for your business? 

It doesn’t matter, you NEED fresh content to keep visitors coming through search, social, and referral. Blogging will get them there and it will keep them on your site for longer. This means they’re more engaged, will be more exposed to your brand, your value proposition, and more likely to convert in whichever way you need them to. 

And if you plan to monetize your site with ads, affiliates or whatever else, time on site is going to be an important metric. 

5. Build your personal brand

Regardless of your brand, audience, or objective – no reader gets excited by a blog that’s missing personality. Eliminate the jargon and write how you speak. Break a few grammar rules. Add short sentences. 

Use extra paragraphs when they aren’t required, just to keep the reader engaged. 

Building a personal brand means celebrating who you are, being bold, and letting your individuality shine through The only way you will succeed in building a digital presence and that’s originality. What better way to be original than to be yourself. 

How to make blogging easy

The good news is that you don’t need to fill the page all by yourself. The easiest way to create rich, informative blogs at speed and scale, is to combine several sources of content, including visuals, articles, stats and quotes, from others (while giving them full credit, shoutouts and links to sources) and adding your perspective on top. 

That’s why we’ve built this format directly into the Paper.li blogging feature, called Stories

Get inspired by articles and add them in: Write a Story

Paper.li Stories are meant to be simple, easily assembled, and visually rich. The process starts when you are inspired by something that you’ve read. When you come across an interesting article, don’t think twice – click the + Button, then select Write a Story, and start to record your thoughts, opinions, and why you found it interesting.

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Copy and paste quotes, stats, and powerful sentences. When these few sentences are combined with a nice visual of the article, congratulations, you already have a good chunk of your blog. 

Some examples of stories you can create include

  • Write articles and blogs
  • Create an About Me page
  • Build your resume/CV
  • Make a collection of articles
  • Share customer testimonials

Here are a few more tips for blogging

Add an interesting title

Now that you have a key piece of content, think about how you can elevate this to a short article or blog. What’s a strong title that is relevant to what you wrote, but a bit broader so you can include more?

Write a short intro

This one is simple. What’s the summary of the blog, and how will your readers benefit from reading it?

Add more articles, videos and images

Scan your paper and add in more relevant content. Take this same approach as the first step: add content links, pull out quotes, share your perspective. Repeat.

Conclusion and call-to-action

Summarize your thinking, and give your readers a specific call to action, for example:  Subscribe to your paper

Turn your blog into an article on your paper

This one is simple. Within a few clicks you can turn your blog into an article, and featured on your paper homepage. 

Share and promote

Share your blog on social and your newsletter. Turn your blog into 20+ pieces of content and share every day. When you share, tag people who might find it valuable, and ask for their perspective (but don’t spam). 

Blog as a freelancer

If you’re looking to generate income as a blogger, try your hand at freelancing. Sites like Fiverr and Jooble provide a simple way to start promoting your services, as well as generating a new source of revenue. 

What are your ideas on the benefits of blogging? Let me know on Twitter @Dandifed.

Dan Di Federico
I'm the Executive Director at Paper.li and Finity.