What makes a quality business blog better than one you might find lower on a Google search   results page?

There is no easy answer to the last part of that question, but the best business blogs help people. With education, awareness, and thought leadership, proper business blogging can answer readers’ common questions before they’ve been asked.

Note that if you are writing your blog to push your services and sell more, you might want to consider stopping now.

Obviously, it business blogging – you are investing time and money in blogging to generate more money – but there is much more involved in that. If you want to win people over and get them to put faith in your products or services, you will have to give a little in return.

If you are consistently creating helpful content, you will start to establish yourself as an expert in their eyes. They will begin to trust your brand and come to you with anything they might have, from questions to business solutions.

Blogs are a particularly handy tool for your sales reps, but also anyone interacting with leads and customers. When creating new content, sales teams are a great source of ideas because they generally have the most interaction addressing prospects’ questions and challenges.

If your sales rep writes a blog, it can also help establish his credibility. They can point out they have written helpful content on the question or problem. Best of all, they can position themselves as helpful by providing free, useful content.

Today, studies have shown that 57% of a consumer’s buying decision is made before speaking with a sales person. This statistic can speak to several things, but for this purpose, that means consumers are taking it upon them to educate themselves on a product or service prior to even talking to anyone.

Not only do blog posts help move along the sales process more efficiently than a sales rep could, that rep is now better positioned as a helpful resource to their prospect.

Our next blog will review the final reason you should be blogging for your business: getting long-term results.