Category: Search Engine Optimization

Given the intangible nature of B2B software services and products, the importance of how well you educate your target audience cannot be ignored. The people you are looking to connect with and sell to must have adequate knowledge of your service(s)/product(s) and its value(s). Creating quality content is important to your readers, therefore, becomes a no-brainer for your marketing strategy. It helps drive traffic to your B2B website and improves your visibility in your target market.

A blog can be used to identify challenges your prospective customers face, as well as diagnosing potential services/solutions to fill their needs, as a means of continuous education. Creating content to address your target audience’s requirements helps build brand recognition and helps your business gain their trust. 

Did you know those business-to-business companies that blog regularly generate 67% more leads? Now, who wouldn’t want that?

Don’t wait to get started, instead follow the following steps to launch your B2B blog effectively.

Step 1. Identify Your Target Audience

First, you need to understand who you are speaking to, or writing for. Begin with persona development to narrow down your audience into specific people and their interests. There are several areas that you need to research to determine who your potential customers are going to be, such as demographic, geographical location, interests, and more.

Make sure to utilize the right tools to identify your target. Google Analytics’ demographic reports can give valuable insight into the age and gender of your audience. You can even find their affinity under the ‘Interests’ category. Google Analytics’ various segments can help build powerful audience reports for you.

Another route you can take is to dig into the audience segment of your competitors. Know your direct and indirect competitors and identify who is engaging with their content. You can figure this out by tapping into their social networks and monitoring their content topics and engagement across platforms. The types and topics of content they create will give you an idea of who they are writing for and engagement is a clear way of observing the interested parties.

Step 2. B2B Blog Keyword Research

Now that you know who you are writing for, the next step is to figure out what your target audience is searching for. It is important to create content around the problems your potential customers are looking to resolve. Keywords are the focal point of search engine optimization; for a B2B blog to be relevant, addressing search queries becomes crucial.

How do you figure out what keywords are being used? There are several free and paid tools that can guide you: 

• Google Keyword Planner: is a simple and powerful tool to discover the average monthly searches, keyword difficulty, and cost bidding on the keyword (i.e. paid ads). You can even filter it down by specific industries to get more accurate metrics. 
• SEMrush: allows you to create keyword gap analysis reports that give you insights into underutilized keywords that you can use. 
• Ahrefs: is another useful one to have in your toolkit, you can even research specific competitor domains and look into all the organic keywords that they rank for. 
• Moz: is a great pick if you want to know more about ranking keywords and/or get keyword suggestions. 
• Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools: can help explore your site and manage keywords.

Step 3. B2B Marketing Content Calendar

You know your audience and you have a list of keywords ready, start planning your content! You do not want to bombard your audience with too much information all at once. It needs to be paced out at regular intervals for them to be able to absorb all that knowledge and garner interest for more.

You can also keep in mind current affairs, holidays, global events, and other big picture happenings that might influence your writing. It is always important to stay relevant to what is going on in your industry and how the taste and preferences of your audience are evolving over time. Some tools to help you maintain a calendar for social media posts are: HubSpot, Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. You can even maintain a spreadsheet to keep all your content ideas in one place.

Not to mention, all this planning will be a waste if you are not looking to churn out good quality content. For example, do not just pick any and every topic to write on just because a certain segment is talking about it. Always remember to see how important is it for your business and for your audience to know more about this topic. Quality content is not limited to what you write about but also included other aspects like the writing style. Determine the tone of voice you are going to follow throughout your content marketing journey and stick to it to build your brand image.

Step 4. Start Writing Your B2B Blog Now

If you have followed steps one to three, then you are ready to start that B2B blog! You are now equipped to begin some real content writing work. There are a few things you should be mindful of when creating your, primarily, make sure it is optimized for search engines. 

There are many content marketing guidelines for B2B companies, but here are some common ones that you must be aware of at all times: 

1. Keyword stuffing is a big no-no! Do not overdo it with keywords but ensure that it is included in the text periodically and is a part of your main heading and some subheadings as well. It is vital to be optimized for both short and long-tailed keywords. You can incorporate synonymous keywords and phrases to not sound repetitive and also widen your reach. But make sure you are optimizing your images and HTML elements (e.g. title tag, alt text, meta description) with the primary keyword.
2. Linking is another vital part, both internal in your B2B blog and external from your B2B blog. Tie your website or blog together by linking to and from other relevant information. You can link out to other resources that you have used to create your blog as well. Also, don’t overlook link optimization by including keywords in your critical URL tags!

Step 5. Don’t Forget B2B Content Promotion

Content promotion is not just about paid channels, you can even do it organically across your social media platforms and well-planned email campaigns. The route you choose totally depends on your marketing plan, so try and few different ways before deciding what works best for your business. 

Just writing blogs is not enough, it is all about making sure it reaches the right readers. Organic content promotion ensures that your work reaches those that are looking for it. 

Search engines also care about content promotion. You have the opportunity to expose your writing to new and old audiences online. If your blog is informative it is likely to drive engagement and be noticed further when shared via social platforms. You even earn links if you are promoting it correctly across the right platform.

Posting on online communities and groups is one good way to get your content noticed. By creating value for your customers through well-promoted content you even have the chance to improve your domain authority and ranking on search engines.   

Marketers who prioritized blogging received 13 times more ROI than companies that did not in 2019. This widening reach is how you can drive meaningful traffic to your website, which will leave to eventual conversion. Isn’t that the end goal of any marketing strategy? 

Distinct B2B Blogging Advantages

Throughout this blog, we have covered several ways in which a B2B blog can boost your B2B marketing strategy. Let’s take a quick overview of all the ways a blog can impact your B2B marketing strategy and give it the lift that it needs.

Creating good quality blogs and observing how readers engage with them helps you understand their interests and prepare future content around that. You get to know your audience better and plan whether you are creating content for the right audience and how to nurture their interests towards conversion. 

Utilizing content to present your expertise and showcasing involvement in the industry makes your content more engaging. If your content is truly informational, your blog can help you achieve that thought-leader status. Your target audience following can grow rapidly if your content adds concrete value. 

We have briefly touched upon conversion before, but it is no secret that turning leads into customers is what all businesses want. Your content can be a vital part of the nurturing in between. It is the bridge that helps readers know your services, capabilities, and brand well enough to actually invest in it and seek solutions. 

Do not underestimate the power of blogging!

If you need further guidance with starting your B2B blog, B2B marketing strategy, or just content promotion, get in touch with us. At Maven Collective Marketing, we work with several B2B software and B2B software services companies, including certified Microsoft Partners, to improve web traffic, lead generation, website performance, content marketing, email marketing, paid advertising, virtual events and much more.

Contact us to find out how we can deliver the expertise you can measure to add value to your B2B marketing with impactful steps.