7 Quick Tips to Boost Your B2B Blog’s Performance

There’s nothing worse than putting in tons of time and effort into a project, only for it to get meh results. At best. That’s the feeling a lot of small B2B owners have every time they hit “Publish” on their blog articles. It’s just crickets.

 

What’s the point of going through all that effort if it isn’t going to be rewarded?

 

Well, the good news is that you can make some pretty simple tweaks to get better results from your B2B blog. Here are seven pro tips to help you gain more traction from your blog articles.

 

As long as you’re here: Why Sporadic Marketing Content Puts the Brakes on Business Growth

1) Talk Like Your Customers

Chances are, your customers aren’t industry experts — that’s why they rely on you. So they aren’t going to talk like industry experts. They won’t use the jargon, or the terminology that only insiders use.

 

Your blog absolutely needs to connect to your audience, but that won’t happen if you’re stuffing your articles with jargon and terminology that your customers never use or understand. Jargon sends a subtle message that undoes everything you’re trying to accomplish: it says, “This article isn’t for you.”

 

Jargon creates a wall between you and your customers. It tells them you don’t understand where they’re coming from. It makes your company feel more foreign and unfamiliar. It can even come across as judgy.

 

Instead, speak to your customers the way they speak to you. Avoid jargon and industry terms as much as possible. When you do need to use jargon, always define it in a way your audience can relate to.

2) Be Human

This piggy-backs off of the whole jargon thing. Your content should feel like you’re having a conversation, not like you’re giving a report. Be conversational in your wording. Show some brand personality. Don’t be stiff or corporate. Educate your audience, but don’t bore them — you aren’t Ferris Bueller’s teacher.

 

Always remember that B2B marketing is really H2H — human to human. Your business is doing business with other businesses, but it’s all happening through people. And your human customers want to be treated as humans, not as organizations.

 

That means showing empathy in your content. Understand what your customers are feeling, thinking, and wrestling with. Give them content that meets them where they’re at and makes them feel known and understood.

3) Answer the Questions Your Customers Are Asking

This is a big one. Way too many companies churn out content that answers the questions they want customers to ask — not the questions customers are actually asking. Chances are, your competitors are doing this, which gives you a great opportunity.

 

Make sure you know what your customers are actually asking — not just when they’re ready to buy, but all along the buying process. They’re going to ask an entirely different set of questions when they first start trying to find a solution than when they’re pricing out your product.

 

How do you know what customers are asking? Good question! (See what I did there?) Here’s a few ideas:

Ask your sales and customer service teams about the most common questions they answer.

Survey your customers about their experience before buying from you.

Do some quick search engine research to discover common questions on Google. And speaking of which…

 

Related reading: Boost Your Marketing Results Without Busting Your Budget

4) Do Some Quick and Dirty Keyword Research

As long as you’re looking up commonly asked questions, you may as well stick around Google and do some quick and easy keyword research. Using good keywords can help you get found on Google and other search engines, but you probably don’t have the time, expertise, or inclination to do the kind of research that an SEO pro can do. No problem.

 

Here’s some easy tips to get you pointed generally in the right direction:

 

• Start typing some keywords into Google that you think customers would use, and notice the auto-complete suggestions.
• Check out the list of related search terms at the bottom of Google’s search results page.
• Use a free keyword research tool like Keyword Generator or Keyword Surfer.
• Use SimilarWeb to see what your competitors are doing.

5) Make Your Blog Easy to Look At

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but guess what: EVERYONE judges books by their covers. And, frankly, my own experience has been pretty spot-on with the judging of covers.

 

Either way, the point is this: if you want to attract eyeballs, keep eyeballs, and close deals with eyeballs, you’ve got to make your content easy on the eyes. Follow these simple guidelines:

 

• Break up content into short paragraphs. Long walls of text are mind numbing.
• Break up content into sections, with H2 headings.
• Break up content into bullet lists so that it’s more skimmable and easier for the brain to organize.
• Use high-quality featured images at the top of your article. If your article is very long, insert relevant images to keep the eyes interested.

6) Tell ‘Em What to Do Next

Your blog article isn’t any good to you if it doesn’t help nurture your readers through the marketing funnel towards a sale. If you don’t tell them what to do next, they won’t do anything. Worse yet, they might take the information you just gave them, start doing web searches to learn more, and find your competitors’ content instead of yours.

 

Think of your blog articles like a first date. You don’t have a relationship yet, so you’ll never get a second date unless you ask for one. Ask for that second date (which is NOT a wedding ceremony! You aren’t anywhere close to closing a deal yet.). In marketing, we call this a call to action (CTA).

 

I’ve written about CTA best practices before, so I won’t rehash the whole thing here. Suffice it to say, every blog article needs a CTA that leads to the next logical step in your customer’s journey towards a sale. Maybe it’s subscribing to your blog, or downloading a related case study or ebook. Maybe it’s watching an on-demand webinar.

 

Whatever you do, get that second date!

7) Don’t Always Try to Sell

Blogs are great for educating your audience. They build trust and help make your company likable — two critical elements in the buyer’s journey towards a sale. But they aren’t great for selling your product or service.

 

Your audience comes to your blog to get equipped to solve their problems. When they see that you’re a trustworthy source they like, they’ll get interested in trying you out. At that point, different types of content take the baton and lead your prospects further down the funnel.

 

Using a blog article to make a sale makes you look self-interested, and it feels icky. Just don’t do it.

BONUS: Promote Your Blog Posts

Remember that your marketing content isn’t the Field of Dreams. Nobody’s going to come to your site simply because you added a new article to your blog.

 

Don’t skimp on the promotion step! Post your article wherever your ideal customer spends their time: especially social media and email newsletters. Do more than one post the week that you publish — chances are, most of your audience won’t see it the first time.

 

You should also be promoting old blog articles on social media, since the content is evergreen material. It’s always in season, so don’t let oldie-but-goodie waste away.

Take Your B2B Blog — and Your Company — to the Next Level!

These are some simple tips to help your blog articles perform better, but the real difference is when you get to the next level: strategy. If you’re blogging here and there, without a plan or an understanding how it all fits into your overall marketing efforts, you’ll only scratch the surface of what’s possible.

 

Once you’ve adopted these best practices, it’s time to get your finger on the pulse of your overall marketing program. Fortunately, it’s even easier than you think! Just fill out a form, and I’ll send you a detailed Marketing Check-up Report. You’ll get insights into your company’s marketing strengths and find some great opportunities to take advantage of next.