business blogging Archives

By now, most marketers know that blogging is great for business. Publishing a professional, thoughtful blog positions you as an industry thought leader, and thanks to Google’s Penguin and Panda updates, it’s almost essential for SEO success. Blogging well definitely requires an expenditure of both time and mental energy, but anyone can do it, and we’re going to show you how.

Before we get started, here are a couple of quick stats from HubSpot for those readers that may not be quite ready to jump on that blogging train.

57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog
Businesses that blog get 55% more web traffic.

These facts show that blogs can act as a powerful lead generation tool. On a higher level, they illustrate that customers are beginning to rely on blogs as trusted sources of information about industries, products, trends, etc. Plus, blogs are an excellent vehicle for collecting email addresses and subscribers to your email newsletter, which is where Marketfish thinks the true lead generation value lies.

Persuaded? Good. Now, let’s jump in to how you can build an effective blog.

Position yourself as a thought leader

If you want your blog to persuade people to purchase your products or services, then you need to be seen as an industry luminary, a thought-leader, a person that really knows what’s going on with your area of expertise.

Start by writing how-to pieces, sharing your perspectives on industry trends, or by providing commentary on industry research reports. Providing unbiased info to your readers is a critical component you don’t want to sidestep. I find that thinking like a magazine publisher is the easiest way to keep my content unbiased.

One last thought, try to set yourself apart. It’s OK to disagree with the status quo. Don’t feel the same way about a trend or best practice as someone else? Then go ahead and say so. I do recommend maintaining civility. Backing up your opinion with concrete facts and insight is a great way to do just that.

Use a conversational tone

This is a big one. Check the business lingo at the door. No one likes reading an inscrutable textbook, and that’s what some B2B blogs sound like. And don’t worry. Yes, you can be authoritative and speak conversationally. I even recommend trying to mix in humor and wit. Just strike an appropriate balance. Tonality is critical to adding a human face to your brand. You want to entertain and inform. Write with that ideal in mind.

Use analytics

Google Analytics, WordPress Stats, and Site Meter are all free analytics tools that you can use to track your blog’s traffic. Beyond finding areas to improve, analytics can tell you how many people are reading your blog – certainly reassuring information. I recommend looking at your most read posts, and replicating whatever it was that made those so popular.

Give readers a way to subscribe

One of your blogging objectives, no matter the industry or subject matter, should be lots of recurring readers. So give your readers a way to subscribe. RSS is nothing new, but it’s still one of the easiest and most popular ways to subscribe to a blog, so don’t forget to include an RSS subscription button.

I also recommend including a simple email sign-up field in the sidebar of your blog. Make it blatantly obvious that it is there for subscribing to your newsletter (don’t worry; we’ll get to that in a moment). The newsletter will act as a tool for nurturing your blog readers into potential customers and actual customers. Beyond building customer loyalty and your brand, collecting email addresses for a newsletter is the primary reason to blog.

Give away content

Here’s where your newsletter enters stage right. Repurpose blog content, compose some unique, non-blog content, and mix in some promotional content (product offers) to build out the body of the newsletter. You can also provide links to download any whitepapers or ebooks you might have. Just be sure your download and offer links always point to an offer/content specific landing page, and never to your regular website.

This newsletter will keep you top of mind with potential customers, and continually position you as a valuable source of industry information. It also gives your subscribers and potential customers another avenue for interacting with your brand, as well as an effective vehicle for promoting your products and services.

There you have it. Now get on out there and start building your blog!

As a marketer, you should (and probably do) understand that your company’s website is a marketing tool. It’s the first place that potential customers visit when they’re hungry for information about your product or service offerings. So, think about it like it’s your marketing HQ, and make sure you include these three things.

Calls to Action

At Marketfish, we have a call to action (CTA) on every page of our site. But CTAs shouldn’t be limited to buttons in the sidebar, though those are very important! We reinforce our sidebar CTAs by developing site designs and copy that drive engagement and direct visitors to our CTAs. We also include CTAs and reader questions throughout our copy.

The idea here is that your website should function as a marketing hub. And the number of site visitors that you can convert into leads is a critical factor in determining marketing success. But you can’t do that effectively unless you include frequent CTAs throughout your site. It’s also important to test CTA placement before rolling out a larger scale redesign. Free tools like Google’s Website Optimizer streamline this process for you.

A Well-Maintained Blog

Every business needs a blog, and I don’t say that just because I like blogging. Customers and consumers trust and rely on blogs for accurate information about practically anything you can imagine. This alone is evident in the rise of citizen journalism. But blogs offer a number of distinct advantages for businesses. They’re the perfect tool for driving thought leadership within your industry, and thanks to Google’s latest update, critical to SEO success.

It might help to think of your blog as your own trade publication. Brands that think like publishers are better equipped to speak directly to a customer pain point, which correlates with sound lead generation marketing. One note about blogs, lacking the time or energy to build and update a blog isn’t an excuse for not having one. You can easily outsource your blogging, or hire an individual to build and manage a blog for your company. Just have a Subject Matter Expert (SME) on hand to ground their content creation efforts in topics that are relevant to your industry.

Clear Contact Info

This one is a personal frustration. I hate it when I’m looking for contact info on a company’s site and I can’t find it. Or, when I do, I have to fill out some long web form just to ask my question. All I’m looking for is a phone number or email address, and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Before customers make a major purchase, they often want to speak to, or email a real live human being. It shouldn’t be hard to do so. Don’t lose potential customers because they have a question and you don’t provide a simple way to ask it.

I hope that you found this information useful, and that you have some ideas for sprucing up your company’s website. If you have anything to add, please leave a comment.

Tag Archives: business blogging

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