With 45% of B2B organizations increasing the amount of content they publish, it’s more difficult than ever for your blogs to cut through the noise. Now, generative AI like ChatGPT makes it easier to put out written content that looks good but doesn’t add any real value to the reader or help you achieve your content goals.
The fact is, a high-performing blog post requires more than an interesting topic and well-written content (let’s pretend these are already given). There is a lot going on “under the hood” of a successful blog post that can help take your content to the next level. If you’re looking to improve the quality of your blog content, here are some important tips to consider:
Research Blog Topics
This may seem like an obvious step to a successful blog, but many organizations go about this process in the wrong way. There are two important aspects that need to come together to identify valuable blog topics:
- Research market leaders, audience pain points, and SEO
- Brainstorm with technical experts
Many content marketers focus on only one of these aspects. Identifying keyword-focused, analytics-driven content ideas is important, but it can create unoriginal, boring content. Listening to what your technical experts find most interesting offers thought-provoking ideas, but they may not have enough audience interest or be generating enough searches to move the needle.
Step #1: Data-driven Content Ideation
- Perform keyword research to learn the most common search terms and relevant keywords for your industry.
- Research market leaders to learn which of their content pieces receive the most traffic and engagement. YouTube videos and social media posts can be good sources because it is very easy to see the number of likes, shares, and comments an idea generates.
- Identify your audience’s pain points by talking with sales and doing market research. YouTube comments and industry forums are great sources for questions your target market is looking for answers to. On YouTube videos, you can even view a video’s engagement graph to see what parts of the video most people are watching and rewatching.
Step #2: Brainstorm with Subject Matter Experts
Once your research has identified the seed idea or questions your audience is asking, perform a brainstorming session with the relevant experts in those topics. Focus on new and original ideas and try to come up with a unique perspective on the topic.
This will prevent your article from getting lost in the sea of other articles that have approached this topic simply because their keyword research told them to. Coming up with ideas that your experts think are original and interesting will also make it more likely that your readers will find them interesting and want to share them.
Understand the Psychology of Persuasive Language
How you say something can be just as important as what you’re saying, especially when you’re trying to convince the reader of a new idea or get them to take a specific action. Our brains process information in subconscious ways that can lead to a lot of cognitive biases and present opportunities for others to influence the direction of our thoughts.
Countless books have been written about how to use psychological principles and neuro linguistic programming (NLP) to improve marketing and sales. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman are two great examples. Some key takeaways include:
- Cite Your Sources: According to experts like Robert Cialdini and Daniel Kahneman, our brains will put higher value and apply less critical thinking when an idea is presented as someone else’s instead of your own. Including a source grants your argument much more credibility and authority.
- Tell a Story: Similar to citing sources, our brains are much more likely to believe something if it is tied to a compelling narrative than if it is simply presented as a fact or statistic. Instead of simply stating that the way you present information is important, tell a story about how Steve Jobs found success through his presentation style and you’ll be much more persuasive.
- Pacing and Leading: If you’ve agreed with the last two points, you’re more likely to agree with this point too. Pacing and leading involves anchoring the idea you’d like someone to accept with other ideas they have already accepted as true. If you present a list of 5 things someone already agrees with, they’re much more likely to subconsciously agree with number 6.
- But vs And: There are countless examples of small word choices you can use to be more persuasive. For example, if you want someone to link two ideas together you can use the word “and.” If you want them to ignore the first statement and focus on the second, use the word “but.” This may seem obvious but it is a surprisingly powerful tool to make your writing more persuasive.
Create Dual Readership Paths
Only some of your visitors are going to read every single word of your blog post. Many others will skim the article to quickly get the most important information.
DID I JUST CATCH YOU SKIMMING?
Nothing wrong with skimmers! Make sure your blog takes both kinds of readers into account by writing with dual readership paths in mind. This means including:
- Bold or italicized text to highlight your most important points
- Bulleted or numbered lists
- Quotes and statistics
- Multiple levels of headings
- Images, Videos, and graphics
When including statistics, use “30%” instead of “thirty percent”. Numbers and symbols stand out more in a paragraph and will draw the skimmer’s eyes.
All of this serves to break up the content. Even visitors who plan on reading every word will appreciate it if your blog isn’t one big block of text and the ones who just want to skim will be able to easily pick out the vital information.
Aim for an Easier Readability Level
“If you care about being thought credible and intelligent, do not use complex language where simpler language will do.”
― Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
It can be tempting to fill a blog with big words and impressive technical jargon to establish yourself as an authority in your field. However, this can have a negative impact on blog performance.
According to SEMrush, the highest-performing blogs offer a standard or fairly easy reading experience. However, consider your audience and tailor your content according to their reading level. If you are speaking to a highly technical audience you can increase your use of jargon, but always aim to fall on the easier side of the readability scale.
Some good tools to measure and improve your readability are:
- Grammarly: This plugin provides recommendations for plain and simple writing. It also has readability scores and plagiarism detection.
- Hemingway App: This app provides a readability grade and highlights lengthy or complex sentences so you can simplify your writing.
Add Multimedia to Your Blog Posts
According to SEMRush, 33% of marketers enjoyed higher SERP performance by including rich media in blog posts. Whenever possible, include images, videos, graphs, and other media in your blog posts to break up the text, improve readability, and increase the blog performance.
Images are an easy way to boost a blog’s performance. Articles with 7+ images have 116% more organic traffic than those with none. Creating custom blog images can give your blog more authority and help reinforce your brand identity. In addition, you can also include stock images or third-party content.
Videos are also a great way to boost performance. Articles with at least one video received 83% more traffic. Like images, you can also embed other people’s videos in your blog, but the real authority comes from creating your own videos that relate to your blog content and expand on the ideas presented in your blog.
SEO and Link Building
I added this last because while keywords and link building are important, they often get way too much focus. Search engine optimization should be woven into every piece of content you create, but it shouldn’t be the main goal. If you’re creating content for search engines before people, you’re going to end up with unreadable, dull content that doesn’t inspire readers to share your content or continue to explore your site.
So write for people first. Having said that…you should also include:
- Relevant keywords: Aim to include your primary keyword in the first couple sentences of your blog, in the meta description, and in at least one header. Throughout your blog, aim to include primary and secondary keywords at a 1-2% keyword density (1-2 keywords per 100 words of text).
- Inbound and Outbound Links: Include a few links to your own web pages – either other relevant content or service pages – and a few outbound links to relevant sites. This improves your site’s SEO and also improves average time on site by getting readers to continue on to another piece of content.
- Alt Text and Meta Tags: All those great images and multimedia you include should have descriptive alt text that includes your keywords. This will help Google rank images.
Hopefully this blog has provided you with some new considerations for your next blog post (or some ideas for updating past blogs). If you’re looking for quality content with all these tips already accounted for, consider working with Monomyth Marketing. Our writers and content creators are experienced in developing persuasive, readable, engaging content that performs well for humans and search engines.
Check out our latest eBook, “Implementing a Multichannel Content Strategy for B2B Organizations,” to learn how to integrate your blogs into a larger content marketing strategy.
