Inbound Marketing Age

Your historic blog posts will often account for a large proportion of your traffic. These tend to be your posts that are evergreen in nature with highly shareable and valuable information, and a number of trustworthy backlinks.

But if these posts were written five years ago, are they still delivering what they need to? For your blog posts to make a real impact in a world of content saturation, they need to be as helpful, engaging and well-written as possible.

So identify your historic high-performing blog posts. Then to determine whether they need an update, ask yourself the following questions:

As a writer with oodles of interesting ideas and creative flair you might be tempted to explore your artistic side every now and then and create custom visual content that will complement your copy. So, if you're in the mood for some light experimentation, what tools are available to you, and how easy are they to pick up and give a go?

Here's a short guide to the best free assets for your visual content toolkit.

If you have ever trawled through a stock photography website in search of images to represent your business, you will already appreciate that it can be a bit of a minefield. On the one hand, stock image sites give you easy access to professional photography (or illustration) and save you valuable time and resources.

The flip side is, frankly, there is such an excess of naff material out there. It can take some effort to source images that truly reflect your brand.

Let’s rewind for a moment.

It’s 2008 and blogging is 'the thing to do' in business marketing. Helping to generate website traffic, improve SEO and promote your business, the concept slowly, yet gradually, starts to gain traction.

With little competition (at least back then), it was highly effective. Simply adding pages to your site while demonstrating a sound understanding of a subject and its keywords was enough to rank.

That was of course, before the activity evolved into what we know today. And the complexities and competition in blogging now make it far harder to rank by blogging alone.

The flicking cursor taunts your tired mind and you find yourself doing everything and anything to avoid writing. Another pointless email, a quick snack... oh go on, one more coffee - then I'll make a start.

Hours later, you return to your blank page and question whether this blogging malarky is really worth it.

Sound familiar?

We've all been there. Whether you blog for your own business, outsource to a professional writer, or rely on your employees to come up with streams of remarkable, relevant and consistently well-written blog posts, burnout doesn't discriminate. Even the most talented and experienced writers suffer the dreaded yet inevitable 'bleurgh'.

With the rise of Siri, Alexa, Amazon Echo and Google Home, voice search has been promising a revolution in our digital behaviour at home and work for some time now, but has it really happened?

What’s the story?

Voice recognition has come a long way since the early days.

Remember Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella’s excruciating Cortona demonstration, where he asked the voice assistant to retrieve some data and she thought he wanted to buy some milk?

55% of marketers say blog content creation is their top inbound marketing priority. But, in a world where companies are starting to think more like media publishers, are text-only blog posts still holding people’s attention?

According to one study, “91% of consumers now prefer interactive and visual content over traditional, text-based or static media.” Plus, 65% of the population are visual learners.

But this doesn’t mean we should be putting our pens down and aborting blogging altogether. And if you’re not convinced of this, I implore you to read this blog post.

It could be argued that marketing is all about telling a good story. And certainly, content marketing has storytelling at its heart.

Being able to engage the audience, bring them on board, educate them and end with a rousing call to action is effective content marketing in action.

We even live in an age where stories often seem to be more important than facts.

Given that stories are powerful tools for marketing, we should be using them in our content, but where do they come from? How can you find stories for your B2B content?

New research published last week by Backlinko has revealed some interesting insights into the types of blog posts that garner the most shares on social media.

Backlinko analysed 912 blog posts, looking at how things like content format, word count, and headlines correlate with social media shares.

We delved into the findings.

So, which types of blog posts are most shareable?

Editor's note: This post was originally written in 2014 and has since been updated for maximum relevance. 

I like to think of blog posts as arrows – powerful, accurate and effective – but only if they are targeted. In fact any weapon is only effective if properly targeted – and can cause huge damage if it’s pointing the wrong way.

Whilst forgiving the somewhat campaign/war like bent of this view, applying this analogy to a blog – you have to identify the overall nature of your enemy and then hit specific targets with your posts. So what you need is a brief and a targeting system.

So, I am making my New Year resolutions again, and one that I keep adding in is to blog smarter – blog better. It’s a great goal I’m sure you’ll agree, but where do we start?

What is the best practice? What works and what doesn’t work? If only someone published some useful stats that we could use? Oh, hang on…

 Well, wouldn’t you know it, Orbit Media Studios have published their 2018 survey of blogging statistics and trends – how helpful is that? (Check out the link for the full research).

One of the many advantages of working in an open-plan office is the opportunity to bounce around B2B blog ideas with fellow inbound content writers.

And a frequent topic of conversation is how to finesse our blog titles so they're pertinent, attention grabbing and search-engine friendly.

Why business blog titles matter

While the bulk of our creative efforts goes into constructing the blog post itself, it's surprising how much attention we also need to pay to those first few words that our potential customers are going to see - our headline.

There’s much more to blogging than just writing. Your post needs to be optimised for search and formatted in a way that’s easy for readers to digest.

The good news is that if you’re using HubSpot, their platform makes it easier for you to publish attractive and search-friendly blog posts. But it doesn’t do all the work for you. 

Well-crafted, purposeful and informative B2B blog posts are essential tools to help build your community and create the foundations for long-lasting relationships.

But in the midst of a demanding blogging schedule it can be easy to lose sight of why it is you're doing what you're doing; who you're doing it for and what it is you're looking to achieve.

In this blog post, we highlight five key questions that can help keep your content creation efforts on-task and on track.

Video continues to dominate the digital landscape - from its prevalence on company websites, social media and news sites to the popularity of online streaming services.

And according to research from Wyzowl in ‘The State of Video Marketing 2018,’ video has established itself as a highly-rated and successful medium for increasing traffic, engaging with B2B prospects and encouraging action.

Among the report’s key findings was the fact that eighty-one per cent of businesses have used video content as a marketing tool.

Of these, a substantial 97% of respondents said that video had helped them to increase user understanding of their product or service. And 76% confirmed that the use of video had helped them to increase sales.

Choosing suitable imagery is a pivotal - and sometimes painful - point in the B2B marketing blog process. But there are valid reasons why marketers spend so much valuable time and effort selecting the right visual content for their posts.

Stunning visuals capture attention, improve the memorability of your post, provide variety and inspire emotion.

Marketing campaigns can sink or swim on the back of images. They reinforce your message and provide readers with context. In addition to this, they vastly improve website traffic: studies on visual content marketing have shown that articles with images get 94 per cent more total views.

The rising popularity of mobile devices has changed the way consumers search for information online, and marketers are already adapting their search engine optimisation tactics in response.

In 2018, SEO needs to consider the prominence of AI-powered voice search too.

According to Google, 1 out of 5 searches come from voice queries. 50 percent of smartphone users use voice technology on their device, and 33 percent use it daily.

From navigation apps to personal assistants and chatbots - AI is here to stay. The artificial intelligence industry is booming - it has a predicted value of near $60 billion by 2025 and plays a role in software development that is nigh impossible to ignore.

It’s no surprise that savvy marketers are harnessing AI’s potential to improve their marketing metrics and hit vital business targets.

There is cut-throat competition for online attention, and high quality written content is a beacon for your company website. Here are some simple ways that artificial intelligence tools can help improve your blog posts.

It seems that every company has a blog these days. B2B businesses are even more likely to have a blog than B2C companies. In fact, the latest CMI report revealed that 79% of B2B marketers are now blogging.

There’s no escaping the fact that to keep pace and remain competitive, you need to be regularly creating content.

But in such a crowded online marketplace, how do you ensure your B2B blog gets heard above the noise?

Generating quality content, actively promoting it and keeping those creative juices flowing can be a challenge at the best of times.

The great news though is that your blogging strategy needn't feel like a chore if you keep a few simple and practical content creation ideas in mind.

Here are 12 strategies to help you produce relevant and engaging blog content that will delight your manufacturing prospects and keep them coming back for more

At the heart of a successful strategy for blogging for manufacturing is the ability to be able to write about often highly technical subjects in a way that communicates your expertise, but that remains fresh, accessible and enjoyable to read.

A key element of this process is to agree on a clear and consistent ‘tone of voice’ for your company or brand.

But what exactly is your tone of voice? 

And how can it help you to engage with your audience, increase rapport and better tell your story?

In an age of content fatigue, we’re becoming less tolerant of intrusive and interruptive marketing.

Cold calls, spam emails and TV ads can all be blocked at the click of a button, and the power is truly back in the hands of the consumer.

When we have a problem or a question, we set up our chosen device and begin the quest for content.

We flick from article to article, blog to blog, white paper to ebook, trying to find the answer we’re looking for.

We choose where to go next, and who to give our precious information to in exchange for more content. We're completely in control.

The internet is full of blog posts and articles suggesting the ‘perfect’ blog length and frequency; ‘To reach number one on Google, you should post X times a month’, ‘The most read blog posts are XXXX words long.’ 

Creating evergreen content is a proven strategy for upping your search rankings and driving traffic to your site. But what exactly is it? Why is it so useful? And how do we go about creating it?

In this blog post we explore what makes certain content “evergreen”, why it’s so worthwhile, what differentiates it from other types of online content and how we can harness its benefits for our content writing efforts.

What makes content evergreen?

Evergreen content, as its name suggests, is any form of online content that is long-lasting (eternal or sustainable,) that is not time-sensitive, that offers tangible value and that addresses the needs of your audience.

For the past four years, Orbit Media Studios have been compiling statistics on B2B blogging trends. This year's findings make very interesting reading indeed:

• The length of time taken to write a post has increased.
• The debate about ideal length is, and probably forever will be, unresolved.
• If you want to stand out from the crowd include audio.
• The use of paid social and search is on the rise.
• One in four bloggers is now using influencer outreach to amplify their content.
• Despite the increase in paid promotion, only 32.2% are vigilant about checking analytics.

Let's look at each of these in turn.

‘Content shock’ is real. And it’s happening faster than we think.

We’re reaching a point where the volume of online content is outweighing our human capacity to consume it. The rate at which content is being produced and published is doubling every nine to 24 months. And as a result, organic visibility is suffering.

Allegedly, 60% of content is dull and irrelevant to readers. And every content marketer is at risk of suffering from content fatigue if they fail to produce sturdy, sustainable content.

So what can you do to future-proof your content?

With over a million blog posts written every day, it’s crucial your blogging strategy does nothing but propel you to the front of the crowd.

Silly mistakes can have a negative impact on your online visibility.

If you’re frustrated that your blogging efforts are having little discernible effect on conversion rates, it’s worth checking you haven’t fallen into the trap of committing some of the biggest blogging mistakes.

Dedicated, targeted and consistent blogging can help immeasurably in building your company's authority and establishing you as a thought leader in your industry. But what’s the secret to coming up with consistently great ideas that will engage and delight your manufacturing prospects?

If your blogging for manufacturing is in a content creation rut, here’s a guide to 24 pain-free ways to generate a host of new blog post topics that will rejuvenate and enliven your efforts.

1) Consider the why

What’s the purpose of your blog? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Are you looking to drive conversions, increase subscribers, boost revenue, build authority, raise awareness or convey information? Or maybe it’s all of the above? Having a clearly defined goal will ensure your content creation efforts stay relevant and targeted.

Can you answer this question simple question?:

Why are you blogging?

• To increase brand awareness?
• To drive traffic to your site?
• Improve SEO?

Now think about that question again...how are you measuring this?

• Form submissions?
• Number of subscribers?
• Volume of downloaded content?

There's more to blogging that simply hitting the publish button and hoping for the best. To create a successful blog platform takes careful planning, consideration and strategy. But as content is the fuel of inbound marketing, it is essential you get it right. 

As Abraham Lincoln once said: "Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Look to B2C brands such as Innocent Drinks, Coca Cola, and Apple, and you’ll see tone of voice done right.

We know their voices like we know the unmistakable fonts and colours so akin to their identities.

Whether it’s with distinctive simplicity, phonetic vocabulary, or inspirational language, each has mastered the ability to connect with their audiences in a parallel voice that yields trust and brand loyalty.

Their values dictate every word choice, every message, and retains the recognisable personality that’s present in every packaging label, website page and social media post.