It’s true that blogging has changed and evolved, which is why some people don’t get the results they used to, and many people claim it’s no longer worth doing.

Blogs originally started as ‘web logs’ (or weblogs), which is where the word ‘blog’ came from. They were essentially online diaries, usually with a single author.

Then businesses started getting in on the act. Blogs became a useful tool for attracting website visitors, promoting products, and providing information.

Blogs were also useful for getting found in search engines, and most SEO strategies included adding regular blog content.

Blogs are still good for all these things. People still use them as online diaries. Businesses still use them to promote products and provide information. And they are still useful in SEO.

But now we have AI in the mix. Many businesses are using AI to generate content, which means there is more content to compete with (despite a lot of it being poor quality).

Search engines have also changed the way they show search results, giving us AI summaries for our questions. This means that people no longer need to click into a blog post to get the info they need.

And this is partly why people are claiming business blogging is dead.

But blogging is not dead. People do still read blog posts. People just don’t engage with them or find them in the same way.

Sticking a blog post on your website and hoping people will find it has never been a great strategy, but proactively promoting it has become even more important in recent years. You can’t rely on search engines alone. You have to promote your blog. And if you do that, your blog can still be a useful marketing tool.

I’ve been a fan of content marketing since I started my business, and I still think blogging is one of the easiest ways to get started. It’s inexpensive to do and offers many benefits. Here are my top five:

You can claim you’re an expert as often as you like, but people are more likely to believe you if you show them you’re an expert. A blog is a great way of showcasing your knowledge and expertise through blog posts that:

By giving people helpful information and advice, you earn their trust. And people are more likely to do business with a company or individual that they trust.

Using your blog to raise awareness and promote your products and services can be helpful when:

You can use your blog to raise awareness of your products or services without being too ‘salesy’.

Search engines have a very simple goal – to ensure that they provide searchers with the most relevant results. If they don’t do this, then their users will go to other search engines.

Consistently adding quality content to your site improves your chances of getting listed by search engines (and AI/LLMs) because:

If search engines can see that people are linking to your pages, clicking through to your site and staying on your pages longer, they will rank your pages higher.

Blogs can be a brilliant way of staying connected to your past and existing customers. By regularly providing useful content, you make sure you stay at the forefront of their minds. When they are ready to make another purchase or need your services again, they won’t have forgotten about you.

Plus, they are more likely to recommend you to someone else in need of your services if they’ve recently read something you’ve sent them, as you’ll be fresh in their mind.

And you can let clients know about your latest blogs by including them in your marketing emails. This is a great way to:

Let’s say someone is in the market for your products or services. They haven’t heard of you before, but they’ve come across your website and a competitor's site. You both offer what they need, are both within budget, and both have fantastic testimonials.

But your website has a blog, and your competitor’s doesn’t. On your blog is loads of helpful advice and information.

Which company is the customer more likely to be drawn to? The one that might be able to help or the one that is already helping them by:

I like to think of a blog like doing customer service in advance. You can use it to show people how great you are before they do business with you.

Most websites are built with a blog function (if you aren’t sure how to publish blog posts, speak to your web designer). But if you don’t want to share your blog on your main website (or you don’t have one), there are plenty of free platforms you can use, including:

There are loads more platforms, but these are platforms I have used myself (so if you need help deciding which is best for you, drop me a message).

Once you’ve written a blog post, share it in as many places as possible - in your emails, on social media, and directly with people who would find the content useful. Cross-post and repurpose - get as much mileage as possible from each post.

Ideas for blog posts are everywhere, but if you’re stuck, I recommend starting with the questions you get asked most often. Answer each of these in detail in separate blog posts. Think about the problems your ideal clients are facing right now or the outcomes they want to get, and use these as inspiration.

If you’re struggling to cover a topic in detail, head to Google and type one of the FAQs into the search bar, then check out the “people also asked” section. These can make great subtitles for a detailed article or ideas for future posts.

And if you’re really stuck, you could ask ChatGPT or Copilot to suggest some blog ideas and then tweak these slightly to suit your audience and your business.

Keep track of your analytics so you know which topics get the most readers, so you can create content on similar topics.

And go for quality over quantity. Nobody is going to be interested in reading your blog posts if they don’t offer anything they couldn’t get from AI.

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