6 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog

If you’ve just started a business and you’re using your company supplied replicated website  or you’re using a free blogging platform like Blogger.com or WordPress.com, you’re leaving money on the table and your content could be at risk.  

Here are a few reasons to install a self-hosted WordPress.org blog to build your brand and grow your audience.  

1. It’s relatively easy.  If you’ve installed software on a computer or downloaded and uploaded files, you should have no problem installing WordPress on your blog.  In fact, the actual installation takes about 15 minutes.  
We have a step by step tutorial with videos and detailed instruction guides that walk you through setting up hosting and your domain and installing your site.  We also have a free course that walks you through how to set up your blog posts so that they help you make money.  

2. It puts you in control.  If for example, you’re using the Blogger platform and Google decides that they don’t like your content, they will simply take down your entire site.   

If you rely on your social media posts or a Facebook page for example to get in front of your audience, any changes that Facebook makes to their policies could have an effect on your ability to earn.  Facebook and Google are known for making drastic changes.  And now, when you post to your Facebook page, unless you buy paid advertising, no one may even see your posts.  Not even the people who have liked your page. Some of the changes made by Facebook have had a negative impact on many business owners.  

In another case, I had a free Blogger site in the health and wellness niche.  I posted for years before Google found my site and decided they didn’t like my content.  The company I was with was a network marketing company and I later found out that they hated network marketers. They immediately yanked my site and all that content went down the drain.  And FYI, Facebook isn't friendly for network marketing sites either.  

If that had been my only site, I would have been up the creek.  It’s a good thing that I had a self-hosted WordPress site as my primary content marketing platform.    

3. It helps you build your brand. Your company supplied website is building the brand of your sponsoring company. It’s not doing anything to make you stand out from all the other people who are selling what you’re selling.   Branding your business makes you stand out from the crowd and almost requires that you have a solid, consistent platform where your content can reside.  A blog is a place that provides a consistent location, where people will find and connect with your business. Without it, your content is most likely all over the place.  

What happens if your sponsoring company decides to close their doors? That means your company supplied website and all your information goes away and you have to start all over again. The reality is that companies are closing, merging, moving, and downsizing.  It doesn't matter if you work from home or on a 9 to 5 job, change is inevitable.  

4. It lets you monitor and track your progress.  When you send traffic to your company supplied website, you have no idea who is visiting your site unless they buy something.  You most likely have no idea which content is the most popular or the number of people who land on your page and immediately leave (bounce) from your site.  You may not know which traffic sources are sending you the best traffic and visitors who actually buy something. If you're posting affiliate links, you may not know which links are performing the best.   

To access details about the people who visit your site, with in-depth information that you can use to grow your business, you need to have access to the code or back end of your site.   

For example, if you want to use Google Analytics, a free service that can give you tons of information about your site, you need to be able to insert the tracking code on your pages.  If you’re not able to do it yourself, you can hire someone at a very reasonable rate to do it for you.  

Once the tracking code is on your site, you will be able to see detailed information about who has visited, where they went, which pages and products were the most popular, and so much more.   

Google Analytics is just one tool that you can use to gather information about what’s happening on your site.  There are many more tools that you can use, that require access to the code in order to work.  Monitoring and tracking your site activity is one of the best reasons to build a self-hosted WordPress site. You can test things out and learn what works and what doesn't to grow your business.  

5. It helps you generate leads.  There again, having control and access to the back end of your site enables you to create pages that convert readers into paying customers.  Having a self-hosted blog will give you the ability to earn more over the long run because you can put tools on your site that will enable you to collect leads and follow up with content that helps your readers to learn more about your business.   

6. It helps you reach a larger audience without using paid advertising.  Use social media to share your posts and content for free.  If you optimize your blog posts, you can structure them so that they will attract the audience you want to reach.  Take a look at my free blog post checklist to learn how to structure your posts so that they work for you 24/7/365 days a year.  

There are many more great reasons to start a blog. Think of where you want your business to be in the next few years and whether the solution or platform you're using now will help you get there. Change is inevitable,  and you want to make sure you have everything you need to make your business successful.