So if you are going to have a website, why not make it interesting and relevant?
Maybe it is because the business owner has not understood the value of the website, is too busy working in the business or believes that they do not have the expertise to keep the website updated.
My name is Stuart Wills and I am a New Zealand mortgage broker who does blogging to help promote our business and website. Here I have written about the three key reasons that I suggest business people do blogging and a little about how I have learned about blogging and marketing.
Three Reasons To Write Blog Posts
I started writing blogs a couple of years ago when we were part of Mortgage Link and established a new website for the business in Auckland.
As an Auckland mortgage broker in a large market like Auckland it is hard for your website to get found on Google searches so I decided to write blogs in an effort to get the website to rank for the key search words like "mortgage broker" and "Auckland mortgage broker" as well as others.
1: Get Free Website Traffic
I was keeping an eye on the keyword rankings using some smart Kiwi software called Traffic Travis and I still use this today. Once I started writing the blog posts the website started to climb in the rankings until we were consistently on the front page for the key search words that I was targeting.
Of course we recently resigned from Mortgage Link and joined The Mortgage Supply Company and had to start the process again with the new brand and website but this time it has been easier. Using Traffic Travis (which you can get a free version of - CLICK HERE) I have been keeping an eye on how the keywords are ranking and using Google Analytics we have been watching the site visitors too and it has been pleasing to see the results after just a couple of months and without spending a single dollar on Google Adwords.
This is all free traffic coming to our website and from this people can see what we do and make contact with us.
2: Be Recognised As An Expert
In a business like mortgage broking we are primarily selling our expertise and experience. People can go directly to a bank to arrange a loan, but people choose to talk to a mortgage broker when things are a little less simple, when they find the banks a little too difficult or when they want to know that all options can be explored and they will get the best deal.
My blogging gets read and shared on social media which is great and produces business leads, but it also means that I now get contacted by people in the mainstream media seeking comment for articles that they are writing and this helps elevate me as an expert.
Of course it is the person not the brand that is the expert.
When we decided to leave Mortgage Link a key issue we wrestled with was to leave a brand that we had spent years building a reputation for; however we spoke to a few people and established that in the mortgage broking business the brand not as important as the person (the expert) in the eyes of the customer.
Of course the brand is still important so once we decided to leave Mortgage Link we needed to consider our options carefully in regards to a new brand. We looked at a few options and decided to join with The Mortgage Supply Company as they are highly respected with the lenders, progressive with technology and most importantly have similar business values and ethics to ourselves.
3: Blogging Brings Direct Business
Many of the blog posts that I write and publish in my finance blog or personal blog bring in little or no business and that is fine as this was never the primary reason to write; however some of the writing that I do gets shared on social media, gets a huge number of views and leads to direct business.
I recently was watching The Block final when the houses were sold and everyone was in the "wow" space with the prices that were achieved.
Being a numbers person I did some calculations and commented that it might not be quite as good as it seemed. Doing my numbers and factoring in the real costs that I might have doing the same project I decided it was not as great as it was being made out to be.
I wrote a blog post and it went viral.
I shared this on our business Facebook page: CLICK HERE
You can read the full blog post on my finance blog: CLICK HERE
This one post got a reach on Facebook of over 6400 with 1300 people engaged and 96 reactions being comments, shares etc and a few more page likes too. Again this is without spending a single dollar with Facebook.
You Don't Need To Be A Great Writer
I am not great at writing but I do believe I am a good mortgage broker and have ideas to share, and writing blog posts has been something that I have started doing and it has been successful for our business.
The key to blogging is to be consistent and provide good information.
Nice one Stuart!
ReplyDelete