The Importance of Blogging

You’re clear on your goals, have clarity on your audience, and you’ve crafted a concise message, so now what?

Blogging should be an essential part of your content marketing strategy and a core element of your communication plan. Having an up-to-date blog/archive/content repository is essential for B2B businesses because:   

  • It’s a perfect opportunity to show your thought leadership
  • You can share industry insights to prove your understanding as an authority in your space
  • Show potential investors and partners that you’re current, operational and expert
  • Provide your social team with authentic, signed off and on-brand content for sharing to your social channels – that links back to your website
  • Attract clients and talent by showing your personality online
  • Enrich core product or service pages with ‘read more’ opportunities
 

“B2B buyers consume an average of 13 content pieces before deciding on a vendor.”

But what’s the point? Isn’t blogging outdated?

Before we deep-dive into the many points of blogging, it’s worth noting that Google has recently rolled out its latest algorithm change; aptly titled the ‘helpful content update’. It’s about (damn) time and something we have long advocated. The purpose of the update is to make it easier to find high-quality ‘helpful’ content rather than content that’s purely for SEO purposes. This change means authentic content that speaks to its true audience will be firmly favoured over low-quality-keyword-heavy-written-for-the-sake-of-it. 

More than just a driver for traffic to your website, blog content is multi-purposed, and when done well it:

  • Provides content that can be repurposed across social media platforms, emails, and marketing collateral
  • Promotes products and services
  • Gives insight into you as a brand/business
  • Drives conversions 
  • Boosts your SEO – links/keywords 
  • Can be utilised for PR purposes

In fact, 70% of people would rather read a blog or article to learn about a company than via an advert. 

But, to stay seen, trusted, and up to date, you need to be adding regular, authoritative content to your website. 

Note: This is not carte blanche to be prescriptive. Don’t churn out bland content for the sake of it. Our advice is not to put a number on it; the four blogs a month trap will lead you down a dull and winding road of sub-par unimaginative copy – your clients will feel it, and you’ll lose focus and energy. 

Ask yourself, “What’s the point?” 

Looking for inspiration?

If you have to force it, don’t write it. Remember who you’re writing for. Keep it focused. Keep it valuable.

Once you broaden your horizons, you’ll start to see more opportunities.

Consider:

  • RFP – Are you constantly answering the same questions in tenders? If it’s not confidential, do you answer these questions front and centre on your site?
  • Case Studies
  • White Papers and technical documents
  • Podcast write-up and link
  • Vlog write-up and link
  • Webinar write-up with re-run link
  • Ebooks 
  • Interviews with partners, suppliers or key members of your team 
  • Re-writing previously well-received but outdated content

Narrow it down/prioritise by:

  • It’s important to audit your content and look at what’s doing well on your site and the keywords people are using to find you
  •  Can you create content to support that? 
  • Do some keyword research to seek out specific search terms in your industry that are on the rise

Never:

  • Lift someone else’s content even if you have permission
  • Neglecting your blog will give the impression that you have nothing distinctive to show for your products/services, resulting in a reluctance from the customer to place their trust in you
  • This is also the same for search engines. The E-A-T principle is a crucial SEO element

Make it accessible

Here are some quick considerations to make your blog content more accessible. 

  • Don’t forget ALT text in your images
  • Go high contrast where you can for easy reading
  • Caption any videos
  • If a link takes a visitor off-site, make it clear

Read the full blog on making your marketing more accessible here.

Don’t forget to:

  • Include clear call to actions
  • Make it obvious if you are taking them away from the page
  • Keep it simple and easy to navigate. 

 

Companies who blog get 97% more links to their website

What's next?

Be clear on what you want visitors to do next. Here are some ideas on call to actions that might engage a B2B audience.

  • Connect with the author on LinkedIn
  • Read more on this topic
  • See this in play in our latest case study
  • To discuss this with our team of experts, request a callback
  • Want to learn more? Listen to/watch our podcast/webinar
  • Subscribe for industry insights.

 

Generating activity on your website makes search engines happy, which is a massive tick in your business’s online presence. 

Waste not, want not! The importance of a regular content review

If you’ve already got a blog, then before you begin creating anything new, review what you’ve got. Remove outdated content and look at what tools and pieces of content you have at your disposal. If you can repurpose an existing blog and improve it, this is far better than creating additional content that then might compete against each other.

Evergreen content will serve your website well, so look out for those pieces of content you wrote a year or two ago that could do with a regular updates, whether it’s annually, monthly, or even weekly, make sure they’re in the content calendar! 

In fact, by removing outdated or unhelpful content from your site, you’ll actually help your other content rank higher, thanks to Google’s Helpful Content algorithm update.

Plus, did you know that every bit of content you write adds to your CO2 emissions? Don’t push out content just because; consider the value.  If you haven’t considered your audience, who are you writing it for? And, if it feels outdated or no longer serves a purpose, it’s wasting energy and time, two of your most valuable resources. 

Start afresh and get cosy with clusters

Start with a content strategy, and grow personas to understand your target audience. The more understanding you have of the audience, the better your content will speak to your customers. The more they engage, the more trust they build, and therefore the more sales you will generate. And, it keeps every piece you write purposeful; for your users and the environment. 

By completing a content audit as per the suggestions above, you’ll be in a great position to review what topics you tend to talk about. By pinning down some core areas of your expertise and matching them up with the appropriate audience, you can begin to cluster your content around these hubs. This not only helps Google crawl your content in a logical and natural way, it helps users stick around longer by immediately providing them with the next thing in that topic they might want to read. Once you’ve decided on these categories and assigned the blogs you’re keeping to them, you’ll also start to see areas you are lacking content, so you can then add these to your content strategy. 

Leaving your blog to go stale suggests to your audience that you don’t have the time to invest in them. Not only this, but you will also lose out on search engine rankings if you are not adding any new content to your website that compliments (not sells) your business. Make your blog work harder for you by being smarter with your content.

Need a hand getting started? We can help kickstart a content strategy or perform the content audit on your behalf so you can jump right into taking action to improve your blogging brilliance!