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May 24, 2016 By Hendrik-Jan Francke

How to Get More Traffic to Your Blog: Smarter Approaches to B2B Inbound Marketing

You've probably seen plenty of "how to get more traffic to your blog" stories, though you don't always see enough of them in relation to B2B. If you're running a B2B business, you already know how the industry evolved from being more buttoned-down to forming more personal customer relationships.

Just because you're catering to businesses, it doesn't mean you should avoiding using personality in marketing.

Inbound marketing can help B2B marketers in showing their personality and differentiating from competitors.

Blogging showcases your expertise and drives more traffic to your site

Your blog is an essential B2B inbound marketing tool. Developing useful content is the key to inbound marketing. Writing useful content on your blog helps you resonate with prosepects that need your advice.

Here are a few ways to get more traffic to your content on your blog.

Use Long-Tail Keywords For a Headline That Is Natural

Long Tail Keywords and Search Traffic - via MOZ

People search more often in long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords often convert better. Image via MOZ.

If you want to appear on the front page of search, you need to optimize your onsite SEO with basic SEO techniques. You don't need to be an SEO master to nail down a few SEO best practices.

Your first step is to create an original title for each blog post that includes long-tail keywords. Short tail keywords are things like "erp solutions", but long tail keywords add more context. "ERP solutions for nonprofits" would be a long-tail keyword. .

The specificity that long-tail keywords add is linked to the user's intent. Users that search using more long-tail keywords usually have a stronger idea of what they want and who they are.

Long-tail keywords might have a lower search volume, but they have a lower competition score as well. This increases you opportunity for ranking. And long-tail keywords often convert better.

Short tail keywords are more competitive. You stand less of a change against other B2B companies selling similar products.

Piggyback on B2B Industry Trends

It's always better to come up with original content on your blog. But that doesn't mean you have to reinvent the blogosphere.

Piggyback on topics that are picking up traffic already and give your orignial spin. We encourage clients to:

  • Do some competitive keyword research - find out what your competitors are ranking for and write blog posts around that topic
  • Search forums and groups - sites like Reddit and linkedin groups can be great sources for topics and natural variations on keywords
  • Put your own spin on a popular post - reinvent a popular blog topic from a thought leader you respect and add your own commentary your audience will find useful.

Going through online news services about the B2B industry can help with this and in finding angles. However, using blog analytics gives you some indication on what your readers are already gravitating to. Study those metrics carefully and keep writing what's getting the most page views.

Bring Entertainment With Educative Information

Statistics continually show most prospective business customers research educative data about B2B products before deciding to buy. In this regard, your blog is a valuable resource to educate them about what your products do and how it relates to industry trends.

Touching on pain points is a vital part of this, plus in how your products solve those problems. This doesn't mean your blog should be dry. You may already provide whitepapers and e-books separately on your site to give educational stats about the products you offer.

In your blog, you need to combine education with entertainment. Even if it means creating a video blog with an attention-getting narrative, don't hesitate. The B2B world needs more personality in marketing, so bring some fun storytelling to your blog while adding educational value.

Differentiate Yourself With Statistics

No doubt you're already aware of all the B2B companies selling basically the same products you do. Even so, your products may have slight differences from theirs. How do you prove it, though, without some proof?

You can add some comparison statistics to your blog to add more value power. If you happen to bring up your competitors in your blog, find some reliable statistics comparing how your products have better features over competing ones.

When the reader sees this evidence in black and white, it adds far more punch to reading time. Integrating this into an entertaining story with an original angle, and you have the perfect combination for getting found and having the content shared.

Sharing Your Blog on Social Media

Promotion! Spending hours on a blog post is worth nothing without promotion! Social media is a fast, easy, and free way to increase traffic to your blog via social sharing.

Do some research first on where your prospective business customers are most apt to hang out. By doing this, you eliminate wasted time posting your blog on every available social media channel.

On places like Twitter and Facebook, always attach a hashtag relational to the B2B subject matter you're writing about. Twitter gives you opportunity to search for a particular hashtag so you can see what people are already saying. Remember to use an existing hashtag with an established discussion rather than create a new hashtag with fewer readers.

Implement Intelligent Content Recommendations

Pop Ups don't have to be annoying. Implementing "polite pop-ups", on your blog that recommend related content can increase pageviews and increase traffic across your site.

There are intelligent content recommendation services that place pop-ups promoting your blog based on content users view. These aren't just blatant ads. They provided content intelligently targeted to what you audience wants to read..

Intelligent content recommendations aka pop ups drive traffic

Intelligent content recommendations that slide in the corder of your screen can help drive more traffic to your blog

Timing is everything on making this successful, and the pop-ups occur only after a visitor takes time to absorb what they're reading. Content recommendation pop-ups only occur when the timing is appropriate for the reader to take the next step.

It's proven to capture 125% more website leads as a result, which is as powerful (if not more powerful) than any blog marketing technique mentioned above.

Final Tip: Be Consistent

The best thing that you can do to increase traffic to your blog is to blog consistently. You should publish at least one post per week to maintain steady traffic. Ramp up to 2 posts per week to really increase traffic.

Optimizing the onsite SEO of your post and promoting on social media will help you boost traffic on a consistent basis.

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