Although there is plenty of content online, even in the B2B community, customers and businesses still want more. And let’s be honest, you can’t have too much of a good thing. Before deciding on making a purchase, your clients/customers will always look for useful content in order to make a more informed decision. In fact, 61% of consumers have made a purchase as a result of reading an informative blog post.
This is where your corporate blog comes in. Even though having a well-designed, responsive website and active social media profiles is essential, your blog matters even more, as businesses that blog have 97% more inbound links, which not only results in better exposure, but also more traffic. The trouble is, while your corporate blog may offer outstanding content, this alone is not enough to get the spotlight. It will have to go up against a ton of mediocre content, and easily get pushed back in all that noise.
8 Ways to Stand Out from Mediocre Content Clutter:
To make your corporate blog’s content more relevant and visible, check out the following tips and tricks.
1. Hone Your Writing Chops
To stand out from the rest, your writing needs to be impeccable. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, as well as stylistic mistakes, can be fixed with practice, as well as by using tools such as Grammarly or Hemingway. There are also plenty of workshops, writing prompts, and online courses that enable you to really take your writing to the next level.
If you are struggling to do it yourself, you can seek out freelance content writers to help you out. If you are working with international writers, you can have them take an online ielts course in order to gauge their knowledge and skills and see which areas they can improve upon.
2. Add a Personal Touch
Yes, you’ve read that correctly. Just because you’re writing for a corporate blog that revolves around B2B subject matter, that doesn’t mean you should always adhere to the straightforward and somewhat sterile writing style that most other companies seem to go for nowadays. Apart from adopting a unique and friendly tone, you can also make use of other methods to make your company more human. For example, you can get industry influencers and experts to promote your brand. Not only does it provide your content and your brand with social proof, but it also makes your post sound less salesy.
3. Do Your SEO
Now, while you can get some short-term results with paid ads, SEO is still the most effective long-term strategy if you want to increase your blog’s online visibility and stand out from everyone else. While SEO is not a walk in the park, it’s well worth the effort if you know what you’re doing.
First of all, long gone are the days of keyword stuffing. However, you still need to do your keyword research in order to tackle the most relevant phrases.
Second, you need to provide awesome content, which we have already mentioned.
Third, you should secure guest posts and build links on reputable industry blogs to boost your authority and drive more traffic to your own corporate blog. These three are the most important SEO signals Google looks at when ranking your website.
4. Make Sure Your Data Is up to Date
When B2B blogging, the data you rely on during research, as well as that which you use inside your posts needs to be not only relevant, but also up-to-date. Unlike B2C or personal blogs, there is less room here for mistakes, since you are building your reputation on facts.
Fortunately, there is an easy way to ensure that all of the information you are using is accurate and timely, and all you need to do is use Google. More specifically, you need to filter out your search results by selecting a custom date range. For example, if you run a corporate blog on financing or stocks, your data needs to be as fresh as possible, because it will be used by readers in order to make decisions in the now.
5. Be Controversial If Necessary
Now, we’re not suggesting that you should go against the grain, so to speak, with each and every one of your blog posts. But occasionally taking a stand on a sensitive subject and backing it with facts will definitely make your articles stand out.
For example, every so often you will come across an article declaring that SEO is dead, or that YouTube is no longer relevant for whatever reason. If you don’t agree with the said statement, do your research and make sure to react quickly in the shape of a blog post. And make sure to reference the content which has motivated you to form a different opinion. In other words, call them out on their data and conclusions if they are wrong.
6. Solve a Problem for Your Audience
Whether you are a B2C or B2B company with a blog, your target audience will be looking for content in order to find answers to their questions, issues, and pain points. Unfortunately, a lot of blog posts out there offer vague and generic advice, or they simply toot their own horn.
Writing blog posts in which you will tackle a complex subject and provide detailed step-by-step instructions will grab your readers’ attention in no time. Not just because they are looking for valuable and actionable advice, but because there is very little such content out there.
This also benefits your business, because in-depth posts allow you to target long-tail keywords, which, in turn, affects your ranking, as well as your authority in the industry.
7. Make It into a Series
One of the reasons why you’re not sharing absolutely everything with your customers is because, at the end of the day, you still have a product or service to sell. But, another reason why you want to leave them wanting more is that they will be more willing to come back. Provided that you have given them something valuable in the first place.
If you have a blog post that has gained some serious traction and engagement, you can make it the first installment in a series of articles on that particular subject. Not only can you break up long pieces of content into a series of posts, but you can also use your listicles as a starting point, with each of the list items getting its own article.
8. Make Your Content Shareable
Now, after you have done all of the above, you can still make your blog posts resonate even more by making it easy for your target audience to share it. The most obvious way to do it would be by adding social media buttons at the bottom of your blog posts. Also, you need to make sure that your blog design is responsive, so that your reader can share it with others, regardless of which device they’re using.
Final Word
As you can see, while there are plenty of content creators out there, there are still plenty of ways in which your corporate blog can stand out. There is plenty of quantity, but a lot of the content out there is mediocre at best – which means you can still establish a strong online presence and get ahead of your competitors by following the tips laid out in this article. Good luck!
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