I started a blog as soon as I started my website, but I didn't reeaally jump on the blogging train until a few months later. My regret… I wish I’d started sooner. Like the day I pressed publish on my site (just like with building my email list).

Why? Because all of the things I talk about below have happened for me, but they would have happened sooner had I started sooner.

So don’t make the same mistake, start blogging ASAP - looking for Squarespace blog examples and inspo? read this !

And then as soon as you’ve launched your website, or before if it’s still in the process (get some drafts ready to go as soon as), and if you’ve had your site for a while but that blog section is still sitting empty… what are you waiting for…

This post may contain affiliate links. These are denoted by a *. If you make a purchase via one of these links I may get a small kickback. I only recommend products and services I use and love myself! Thanks in advance :)

1. Blogging provides value to your existing and potential clients and customers

My blog began because I wanted to provide support to my clients as they were preparing their copy, images, and brand collateral (like colours and fonts) for their website builds. I noted the main sticking points and questions they had and created my blog post topics around them.

Over time, I began to notice that people that weren’t yet clients of mine were also finding value in my blog posts. As they were finding free value from my blog, they also started feeling like they trusted and knew me and so when they needed help building a website, or rebranding I was already top of their list of people to contact.

2. Google loves blogging - it’s great for your SEO

Google loves a living and up to date website - regular blogging is a great way to signal this to google. But not only that…Google also looks at all of your pages (a blog post is a page with its own url - unique reference link) and each page is a chance to pop up as an answer to a search query. More blogs = more pages, more pages = more chances to pop up as a response to a search query.

The new SEO plugin for Squarespace is a great help here too - to optimise your blog posts & get keyword tips too.

Seeing your traffic grow month on month via your Google Search Console is one of the most satisfying things! Don’t have your Search Console set up yet? Read this!

3. Blogging can save you time

OK, hear me out on this one. I know a lot of time and energy can go into researching, writing and publicising a blog post. BUT, if that blog post answers a genuine question or solves a genuine problem for your clients or costumes, in the long run it can save you time in responding to multiple queries on the same subject - instead of writing a response or having a conversation each time, you just send across a link and your client or customer gets a full, researched and thorough answer to their question or issue.

If you’re smart with your content calendar you can also connect your blog topics to your social media posts and email marketing to communicate around 1 holistic point. Batch working also helps you do this! My blog saves me tonnes of time when it comes to my weekly email as I distill the key headlines from that week’s blogs and structure my email content around that.

Curious about how I get my emails looking so gorgeous?

Meet flodesk* get a free trial & 50% off your first year here.

Need some help to get your blog up and running?

4. Blogging can earn you affiliate income

A great way to supplement your business income is to become an affiliate marketer for products or services you use and love in your business (I say this because I don’t believe in being an advocate for things I don’t use and love myself… i think it’s naff).

Many organisations use affiliate marketing as one of their primary marketing strategies and it’s a great way to reward word of mouth referrals by giving a kick back to the affiliate and usually some kind of discount or special offer to the referee.

Blogs are a fantastic way to place and drive traffic to your affiliate links as they can be placed appropriately to support your blog content (e.g. if I’m blogging about stock images for a website I’ll always mention Moyo Studio* - my favourite source of stock images and mock ups). At the beginning you might just make the odd $5 here or there, but over time this can really add up and I know fellow bloggers making thousands of dollars every month through affiliate marketing on their blogs. It’s a really cool way to supplement your income through recommending things you’d be recommending anyway!

5. Blogging allows you to position yourself as an expert in your niche

A lot of research goes into blogging. I for example am a better web designer because I blog. I’m curious, I research more, I have become more of an expert in reality as well as being seen more as an expert because people can see I know what I’m talking about. Interestingly a common curve for bloggers is that they begin by blogging about the doing, and as they become more and more expert in that, they begin to blog for their peers, giving them access to a whole new audience and potential for different product or service offerings.

An example of this is friend Jonny Melon, a travel blogger who began by blogging about his travels (shock!) and as he became more and more successful and grew an enormous following, has started blogging about how he has built a following, and earns a living as a travel blogger (as well as launching a course to teach others). I’m not suggesting that blogging needs to be, or become your main activity, but it’s an interesting evolution that I’ve seen again and again.

Bonus reason…

It’s quick to start a blog if you already have a website (especially on Squarespace!)

It doesn't need to be complicated to start a blog, on many website building platforms, like Squarespace, starting a blog is as simple as pressing the “+” button next to the blog collection option and getting going.

Of course to have a high quality, effective blog that brings you website traffic and ultimately (most importantly clients & customers) takes time, trial and error and experience, getting started is really THAT simple

And on the trial and error point… skip it by downloading my free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Blogging on Squarespace. Everything you need to know to set up and maximise the impact of a blog for your business.