The ability to create truly effective B2B blog posts that generate real value relies on a well planned content strategy which not only investigates competitor content, but also studies your audience’s online search intent. No matter how well the blog is written, the maximum value can only be achieved if the content strategy that governs it is done well.
In our experience, we’ve also generated better blog results for our B2B clients when both the SEO services and the content writing services are within our purview. SEO and blog writing go hand-in-hand, so if the writing is offshored to freelance content writers who have no exposure to the content strategy, the results usually suffer. Likewise, if the SEO is outsourced, synergies are lost.
It’s common to hear people say you should write for people, NOT google bots. However, we think that you can still write for bots without insulting the intelligence of your reader, and you can still write for people without diminishing an article’s SEO value.
We achieve that by having an experienced SEO expert and B2B copywriter work in tandem. Together, they ensure your living and breathing readers are engaged while the bots know how to index your content.
Our not-so-secret blog writing approach is threefold. We provide your readers with new perspectives in a respectful way, we inspire them to think differently, and we motivate them to take action. The way we do this differs from industry to industry and company to company, but we hold strong reign on three basic principles:
To strengthen your message, our blog content always includes credible statistics from non-competing sources and authoritative external links. Our content writers will source stats externally, or recommend internal quotes from senior management.
Not only is our content writing approach unique, but so is our approach to SEO copywriting, and that’s why we get results. Our content writers create unique page titles and meta descriptions that stand out to both human readers and Google bots.
Our blog articles are easy to navigate as we use subheaders to guide readers and search engines. Our content writers also ensure relevant CTA’s as well as internal links, to minimise bounce rates and guide your readers to other relevant areas of your site.
Blog writing aside, it’s important for SEO purposes to get the right combination of onsite and offsite content by using a combination of byline articles, editorial content and onsite blogs.
To be honest, this is highly subjective, and there is no hard and fast rule. In the past 600-800 words was recommended as it would equate to a 3-5 minute read. However, many SEO agencies now suggest that longer content in the vicinity of 1,200 – 1,500 words is more effective for SEO purposes.
Make sure you are only using one H1 header tag per page, and you’re using optimised H2 header tags. Every blog should have an SEO page title, meta description, and the blog content (particularly the headers) should be written according to search intent.
A common thing overlooked is duplicate content. Make sure you’re not penalised by Google for duplicate content by ensuring every blog is a minimum 60% of original content. Our B2B, tech, and finance copywriters make sure this is 90-100% (referenced quotes and statistics are unavoidable), but the bare minimum by Google standards is 60%. If you are running off-site content on other platforms and republishing it on your blog, then be sure to use the rel=”canonical” tag function to show Google your content is the original version.
Finally, ensure your images are saved with the appropriate and optimised alt tags and your site map is updated when you launch new blog pages.
This is another highly debatable topic, but as with anything consistency really is the key to getting the best SEO results – Google gives priority to sites that show fresh content.
For small companies, we recommend a minimum of 1 on-site blog per week, 2 offsite bylines per month and 1 offsite editorial article per month – numbers vary industry to industry and company to company.
Naturally, many companies start out enthusiastically and generate a lot of blogs when they first start, but as time goes on, it’s common to end up posting sporadically as initial ideas are used up. This is where a well planned out quarterly content strategy and ongoing analysis of keywords and search intent can help.
We don’t like to sit on the fence, but this is yet another answer that very much splits the seas. Some people prefer to write blogs that play off current events while others prefer evergreen blog content that is long-lived. We tend to find a combination of both works best.
We recommend a combination of blog articles with some that are tightly focussed on current events, while others are generic enough that in two years if people are searching for an answer on something, they’ll still be able to find your content.
When it comes to blog content, it’s important to note that what works for one company won’t necessarily work for another. What’s important is to establish your current blog views and use that as your benchmark and aim for monthly improvements.
As with most things in life, it’s a trial-and-error process to find out what type of blog content your audience responds to best.
We understand if you want to steer clear of the word ‘blog’, it was a difficult pill for us to swallow using ‘blog’ on this page too. In the B2B, tech and finance world, the word ‘blog’ comes across more like a teenager writing a diary rather than a working professional with a sophisticated content marketing strategy. There are not many bosses out there who will give a bigger budget for a journal.
There are, however, some better terms that could be used depending on your industry, audience and content strategy. We tend to like ‘Insights’ or ‘Learn’, the latter is what we have in store for our own blog content as it suits our strategy. We recommend ‘Resources’ as an umbrella term covering all the different types of content you might have on your website and prefer ‘News’ to be reserved for press releases.
