It’s 2025, Does Your Business Still Need a Blog?
Yes and no. It depends on what your business is, your marketing goals, and what time and financial resources you have available.
What, Why and How-to Blog: A Crash Course
Think of a blog as your business’s voice online—a way to connect with customers, show off your expertise, and drive leads and sales while building a stronger digital presence.
What is a blog?
Articles or posts on a website focused on a specific topic or industry. It’s a way for businesses to educate, and share insights, news, and other valuable content to connect with their audience.
Check out the Big Bad Marketing Blog, packed with articles focused on marketing and strategy for small business owners.
Why make a blog?
Educate and Engage: Answer your customers' questions, share tips, and position yourself as a reliable expert.
Boost Visibility and Website Traffic: Blogs improve your chances of showing up on Google or other search engines when people look for relevant content like the solutions you offer. (More on this later.)
Trust and Authority: Consistently sharing valuable insights builds credibility with potential customers.
Support Other Marketing Channels: Blog content can be repurposed for social media posts, email newsletters, or even videos. (More on this later, too!)
How to make a blog (in 4 simple steps)
Identify topics and relevant keywords that will answer prospect and customer questions.
Create an outline for the article.
Write it. The piece should be engaging, helpful, and aligned with your brand voice.
Publish.
Blogs and websites require ongoing maintenance, so don’t post it and forget it. Check-in regularly to update statistics, keep it current, and wipe off the dust. If you’re interested in doing the maintenance on your own, we can help.
What types of businesses benefit from blogs?
Here are a few examples to help you decide if blogs are worthwhile for your small business.
✅ You sell your product or service to other businesses (this is called Business to Business or B2B.) Blogs make great sales support tools, especially when potential customers require a lot of contact and touchpoints before they buy.
Example: You sell accounting software that helps small businesses track their purchases and sales. A blog titled ‘Common Bookkeeping Mistakes and How to Avoid Them,’ will help establish your expertise on the subject, address common pain points, and build trust with potential customers since they’ll know you understand their problems.
✅You sell your product or service directly to your customers (this is called Business to Consumer, or B2C.) If your customers require additional information or a little further education about your products and services, a blog can help.
Example: You sell specialty skincare products to reduce aging marks. An article called ‘Top 5 Ingredients Proven to Fight Wrinkles,’ will help educate your customers, build trust in your product’s effectiveness, and guide them toward making an informed purchase.
🚫Transactional businesses like gas stations or fast food restaurants won’t benefit as much from a blog since customers typically know what they want and make purchase decisions based on location and convenience. While they’ll still need a modern, optimized-for-search website that addresses the things their unique customer base is seeking, a blog may not provide as much value.
Example: You run a convenience store that sells select grocery items. A blog like, ‘The History of Canned Soup,’ is unlikely to drive traffic to your site or influence buying decisions since customers prioritize convenience and proximity when making a puchase.
Blogs are Good for the Algorithm
Aside from educating and building trust with your customers, blogs are good for Google.
Google works by crawling and analyzing websites and the webpages within them, and assesses the value they offer to prospects compared with other industry leaders and local competitors. The search engine then uses this information as part of its mysterious algorithm to determine which position you’ll rank in.
Depending on the business it could make strategic sense to incorporate a blog that both satisfies customer queries and shows Google that you know what’s what.
Build a Big, Bad Blog
If you decide on a blog, here’s how to do it right:
Consider your goal: Is your blog purely to share thoughts with your customers and increase brand awareness? Are you trying to do SEO? Understanding the intention early will save you from wasting time and money down the line.
Execute regularly - Choose a cadence that feels achievable, even if that’s quarterly. If you publish a bunch and then drop off the face of the internet, your customers (and the search engine) can tell you’ve ghosted.
Create a content plan - Map out a strategy and calendar to follow as you develop your blog. Not sure how? Set up a quick call to partner with Big Bad Marketing and get an action plan to build your business.
Use human content - AI is tragic and you can instantly tell when an AI blog is pushed out. While there are many helpful use cases for AI, blogging is not one of them.
Add images and visuals - People like pictures. Wherever possible throw in infographics, photographs, videos, and other creative imagery for a more engaging user experience.
Create once, publish everywhere (COPE) - Leverage the blog across as many channels as possible. Turn it into a series of social media posts, use it in an email newsletter, or create a podcast on the same topic (like our Why Blogs Matter - or Don’t - For Your Business podcast episode.) If you did your research, built out your strategy and developed a plan before you created the content, it should speak volumes to your audience on whichever channel they’re hanging out on, so use it and reuse it as much as possible!
Blogging Bonus: Insider Information
As you build a blog for your small business, kick it up a notch with these tips.
Most readers are going to skim.
The time of reading and digesting lots of words, and lots of paragraphs, and lots of pages is over. Give your readers the info they want in quick, visually appealing snippets. Avoid big blocks of text that fill the screen.
Eye-tracking studies (yes, creepy!) show that most page visitors scan blog posts in an "F-pattern." They focus on the beginning headlines, then scan down the left side of the page only reading the first few words or sentences of each paragraph before scrolling down to the end. Don’t waste your time trying to be Shakespeare. Be quick, consistent, and to the point.
Fewer words. More bang.
Blogs only kind of, sort of lead to conversions.
Blogs aren’t meant to be a direct-to-purchase tool or to get your prospects to buy immediately. Like social media, blogs are a long-game strategy to educate your people and help showcase you as a Big Bad leader in your industry. If you’ve done a good job, later down the line, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of your brand fondly, remember how helpful your top-notch content is, and make a purchase.
If you’re looking for more immediate conversion support, look at your landing pages, sales pages, and CRO. And if you could use support blogging or updating your end-to-end user experience, we’re here to help!