Have you ever wondered why some websites have blogs? At first glance, it may seem like having a blog is purely for the purpose of connecting with readers. While that is a legitimate and important reason for maintaining a regular blog, there’s much more to it than that. Keeping a live blog on your website has a multitude of benefits and functions for your business. Here are 5 reasons why you should have a blog on your website, and why you should update it regularly:

#1. To connect with your readers and potential customers.

First and foremost, a blog offers a way for you to connect with your customers, readers, and others who may have just stumbled upon your website. Whether or not your blog has a designated space for readers to comment, by consistently updating and maintaining a series of articles, individuals who engage with your website will feel like they are connecting to you through your articles.

It’s important to regularly update your blog for several reasons. First, and most importantly, updating your blog regularly shows that your business is relevant and active. From a consumer’s perspective, there is nothing more disheartening than discovering a website (through Google, a recommendation, or an old link) and finding blogs and content containing irrelevant information—or worse, actual embedded dates revealing that the content is months or years old.

Other important reasons to update your blog regularly:

• It signals search engines that your website is live and maintained, making them more likely to recommend your website.
• It challenges you to stay in touch with topics and information that are current and pertinent to your business.
• It encourages you to maintain and update other parts of the website, including contact information, hours of operation, and other important news.

#2. To offer legitimate (free) value to individuals who find your website.

Providing information is a critical part of establishing authority and legitimacy for current or potential customers. Providing free, valuable information to your audience is a service that sets the foundation of trust and value for any service you intend to charge for.

By offering valuable, free content to your audience, you don’t only help them—you also increase your own credibility in your industry. The value that you provide in your blogs is just a taste of the insights and value that you provide in your service, but it’s enough to help those who need information, who may bookmark your website as a resource for future use—and potentially, future business.

#3. To make your website more visible on search engines.

Writing a blog provides you with the opportunity to use keywords and key phrases. If you utilize SEO (search engine optimization) technology, this allows you to include potential keywords and phrases in your blogs and increase the rank at which your website appears when searched through various search engines.

Search engine optimization is an important part of developing an online presence that maintains visibility and longevity over time. Blogs can serve as the perfect vehicle for continuing to boost SEO on your website, keeping it relevant and easily findable for individuals searching for the services that you offer.

#4. To hold yourself accountable for special events, sales, business changes, and more.

Too often, when a company begins to experience expansion and an increase in business, events, sales, business changes, and other updates fail to be communicated to current customers.

Blogs are an important part of keeping your communication lines open with your customers, and they help you to remain accountable for any updates and changes that you make by ensuring they become part of your website, and consequently, worked into your website’s content.

#5. To continue developing your brand.

By continuing to update your website through blogs, remaining in communication with your customers, and providing valuable information at no cost to your audience, this provides the unique opportunity for you to continue developing your brand.

Just as your business continues to grow and expand, your brand can change, too. Your brand is the face of your company, and it is how your audience learns to recognize you in your market. Blogging creates the chance for you to continue developing and fleshing out your brand, determining exactly what you want to provide to your audience, and better understanding your own vision.

Want more information?

Do you want to know more about the best steps you can take to build your business into something that will last? At Graphicwise, we’re the experts—with over twenty years of experience in digital marketing and branding and a true passion for what we do, we’re happy to help create your vision with you. Book a consultation today to see how we can help.

We all want to believe that our customers are purchasing our incredible product—after all, for most companies, the product or service that is being sold is where most of the time, energy, and cost is directed. It’s for precisely this reason that business owners often wince when they finally make one game-changing discovery: your customers are purchasing your brand first, then your product.

The two principles of consumer psychology.

There’s a reason why companies like Nike, Nestle, and PINK continue to exist, even in the face of equally-priced, and in some cases, higher-value products which function exactly the same way:

Principle #1: Consumers value branding above most everything else.

When people build a relationship with a company, it’s rarely with the product itself.

A stellar product will be remembered for its function and usefulness, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the brand will be remembered. In fact, the durability of a high-quality product or longevity of a service can actually override the need in a consumer’s mind to purchase a second or third iteration of the product—the determining factor will be the influence of the brand.

People are visual.

Not all products and services are “visual” and have a material form, but brand is always visual. Branding exists in the minds of consumers as a visual entity that they associate indefinitely with your product or service.

What does your branding consist of?

Branding consists of your logo, the color palette and imagery that you utilize for all company-related marketing, communications and packaging materials, your website design, and any visual content related to your products or services.

Branding is inherently visual, even if it isn’t tangible—your logo will appear on your business cards, social media platforms, on your product itself, and in virtually every other interaction consumers have with your company.

Your brand tells a story, and it leaves an impression.

It’s important that when you’re designing your brand, you are aware of what you want your customers to feel when they’re engaging with your product or service. Branding sets the tone, both directly and indirectly, for your customers’ interactions with your product.

Cheap, carelessly designed logos and branding concepts can be perceived by your target market. Branding is the foundation on which your service or product rests, and if it is strong, then everything else will fall into place.

Your brand becomes your reputation—and an innovator in its industry.

When a company has successfully established its brand, this often creates a powerful trend-setting phenomenon in the industry.

In many instances, branding has actually become synonymous with (or replaced!) the actual names of the products and services that they represent. Below are 20 brand names that have become better-known than the actual name of the objects that they sell.

• Aspirin – Blood thinner drug
• Chapstick – Lip balm
• Crock-Pot – Slow cooker
• Dumpster – Mobile garbage bins
• Escalator – Moving stairway
• Frisbee – Flying disc
• Jacuzzi – Hot tub
• Jet Ski – Personal watercraft
• Kleenex – Tissue
• Laundromat – Coin laundry shop
• Ping Pong – Table tennis
• Pogo stick – Spring stilts
• Popsicle – Frozen ice treat on a stick
• Post-it note – Sticky note
• Q-tips – Cotton swabs
• Rollerblade – Inline skates
• Taser – Stun gun
• Thermos – Vacuum flask
• Velcro – Hook-and-loop fasteners
• Zipper – Separable fastener

In addition to brand names becoming common household vernacular, brand images can also become unmistakable parts of modern culture, as well.

Once a brand—a company’s most powerful advocate—is established in the culture of its target market, it goes to work as your business’ representative. Superior branding ingrains itself into modern culture and the minds of its consumers and potential customers seamlessly.
Repeated exposure to a brand builds trust, especially when it is backed by valuable and useful goods and services. For example, you can probably visualize the logo and branding of companies like McDonald’s, Toyota, Best Buy, Netflix, Apple, Chanel, and Walmart, even if you’ve never patronized them before.

Branding is critical to building a relationship with customers—it’s what your customers recognize, irrespective of the quality of your product or service.

Well-known companies who have built a relationship with their consumers with one brand have experienced serious set-backs in the rebranding process.

Why can rebranding be detrimental to well-established companies?

Because their consumers have a relationship with their brand! Examples of rebranding blunders by well-established companies include Tropicana, Gap, Kraft, Animal Planet, Yahoo!, and Weight Watchers.

Principle #2: A superior product or service can be sabotaged by inferior branding.

It’s important for your product or service to be as high-quality and high-value as possible—this provides the ideal foundation for your branding and logo to go to work in popularizing your offering.

Unfortunately, it’s common for superior products and services to fail if they are not supported by an equally high-quality logo and brand.

Although people use a product and service, they connect to your brand.

Whether you are just developing your brand for the first time, or you are taking on a rebranding or brand-refreshing effort, it’s important to note what qualities are fundamental and quintessential to your company that will be highlighted by your brand.

Your brand should convey a feeling, a promise, and your company’s values. It should encapsulate the essence of your product or service and capitalize on what makes your offering unique.

Brand awareness plays the largest role in acquiring recognition amongst your target market.

Brand awareness is best supported by a strong brand—the more popular your business becomes, the more important it is that your brand be representative of your mission and your product.

In time, consumers will rely on your brand to spread the word about your product or service, and the more you’ve invested in creating a brand and logo that fully encompasses your offerings, the more you’ll be able to rely on those factors to help maximize your efforts.

We build brands and logos that last.

For over 20 years, Graphicwise has specialized in creating brands and logos that capture the best of your business and leave a lasting positive impression on consumers.

With clients ranging from major corporations to small first-time businesses, our passion lies in understanding your vision and helping to craft a brand that leaves a legacy.