Blogging has come a long way from the early days, when businesses started blogs solely because they knew they needed to and went about things without a documented strategy.
In 2017, business blogging requires grit. Freelance writers need work, and businesses need clicks. Today’s top blogging tactics are secured by those who network best.
Whether a business chooses to outsource content creation or uses in-house writing resources, it pays to have a solid strategy.
B2B blogging is a growing industry, and it’s scaling nicely. Below, we’re covering the top five blogging tactics used by today’s big-time marketers:
Stunning Visuals That Tell a Story
What? Pictures? That’s right: Multimedia or interactive is playing a major role in content creation.
Slide shows, YouTube vides and short to-the-point paragraphs sliced by stock photos are in—and they’re making a boom when used correctly.
A majority of bloggers use more than one image per post. Since last year, video’s usage has jumped by 15 percent.
Where social media used to be social, it’s a news resource with 62 percent of United States adults get their news from social media.
Whether it’s due to Facebook’s highly visual interface, its partnership with Instagram, or the ever-persistent shift towards quick, digestible content, pictures are getting hotter—and readers, now, expect them.
Social Media Promotions
Social media promotion has become the leading B2B blogging resource packing a 2% yearly growth rate.
SEO promotion lands about 58% of usage, whereas social media promotion accounts for a whopping 96%
Analytics Driven
We live in a data-centric world where if you can’t study the odds, you can’t beat them.
In the past, bloggers weren’t as concerned with analytics. Why should they be? Quality content prospers, right?
Well, Google’s many SEO-centric updates (Fred, anyone?) have changed the game. Keywords matter. More importantly: Effective keywords matter.
To get an A in analytics, bloggers are marrying effective keyword usage with high-quality content. Keyword stuffing is out, but search engine mapping has never been bigger.
Lower Frequencies
Ironically, the best way to stay visible is to be less visible. The number of those implementing a daily blogging strategy has gone down by 53 percent.
Meanwhile, weekly blogging has risen by about seven percent. What gives? Well, as it turns out, infrequency sells—on a day-to-day scale that is.
Rather, consistent weekly promotions are profiting from reliability. Don’t overwhelm your audience. Be stoic, be sincere, and funnel your quality into power-packed weekly roundups.
Short, Sweet and Sharp Content
80% of bloggers make posts under 1,000 words. Yeah, we know: People don’t like to read. Fortunately, they’ll read if it’s quick, digestible and—most importantly—interesting.
So, what’s the sweet spot? It’s normally between 300 and 550 words—or, about as long as this post.
If you can keep the content coming, stay interesting, and be reliable, you’re doing better than most. Analytics matter, sure, and social media marketing of course is a factor.
But there’s something to be said for personalized, high-quality content in 2017. If you’re sharp and if you know your audience, the other pieces fall snugly into place.
Robert G is a digital marketing freelance writer within the WriterAccess platform. See how hiring a freelance copywriter can help you propel your business in front of the eyes of your dream clients.
