Hello! So you’re interested in improving your company’s blog to drive better results for your business? Let me help you.
I’ve been doing marketing for about a decade, with a lot of that time spent guiding the direction of content that companies post on their blogs. I’ve probably written close to 1,000 blog posts specifically for businesses trying to increase traffic to their sites and improve the results they get from blogging.
This post gives you a look at what makes the best company blogs so great, and how they’ve gone about getting to that point.
The Best Company Blogs Include High-Value, High Converting CTAs
I’ve come across too many blogs to count that publish AMAZING blog content on their sites, but fail to convert their visitors into potential customers. For many of these companies, they just don’t include call-to-actions within their blog posts.
If you want your blog to drive valuable business for your company, you need to be using CTAs (and probably more than one) within your content.
Read More: How To Use a Blog to Promote Your Business [+Some Killer Examples👌]
Optimize Your CTAs by Testing
If you’re not testing different CTAs within your content you’re missing out on a big chunk of business.
As your blog grows and you start getting traffic to your posts, you should consistently swap out CTAs to see which resonate best with your readers, which get the most clicks, and which have the highest conversion rate.
Types of CTAs for Corporate Blogs
- Gated Content: While you’re going to attract the most users with content that is publicly accessible, gated content can allow you to capture users contact info. You can share a more in-depth, PDF version of a blog post and require users to share their email address to access it.
- Trial/Demo Sign Ups: If you offer a trial or demo version of your product or service, you can ask users to sign up directly from your blog page. If they are already reading about your service, they may be the perfect customer to get onboarded with a trial.
- Social Media Follow or Share: You can encourage visitors to share your content on social media. This not only can increase your readership and visitors, but also can help build credibility within your industry as more people see your site discussed on social media platforms.
- Subscribe to Blog or Newsletter: To keep users coming back again and again, you can ask users to subscribe to your blog or company newsletter. Typically you’ll do this by collecting their email address and sending them your content whenever you publish.
- Contact Us: If you convert a lot of business from your blog posts, you’ll want to make it as easy as possible for prospective customers to get in contact with you. You can add a “Get in Touch” CTA to your posts to streamline the process.
Corporate Blog CTA Examples
SEMRush Blog CTAs
Within this blog post about long-tail keywords, SEMrush shares a highly relevant and useful CTA. The call-to-action prompts users to try SEMRush for free to accomplish the exact thing discussed in the blog post.
LegalZoom Blog CTAs
This is a blog post from LegalZoom on how to set up an LLC. The call-to-action then prompts users to user LegalZoom’s services to help them get their LLC started.
HubSpot Blog CTAs
HubSpot’s blog has been an invaluable resource for me over the years. This post discusses how to put together a marketing plan. The call-to-actions provide a template to help you accomplish that more quickly. Because the CTA is so specific and related to the content of the post, it probably converts at a much higher rate than if it were more general.
Great Company Blogs Share Company Culture To Attract Better Talent
Many companies use their corporate blogs to document and share the “company culture” that they’ve developed. If your company has amazing happy hours, brings in great guest speakers, or provides great employee perks, you can document those on your blog.
When you’re interviewing candidates for open roles, your website is often the first place they go to learn more about your company. If they see that there are great benefits to working for you, the hiring process will be easier.
Sharing updates on why your company is a great place to work helps you control what future employees see. Otherwise, you’re essentially forcing them to look to other places for information about your company culture.
My first job was with a company called Spigot, Inc., and part of the reason I opted to interview and work for them was the awesome, fun company culture. And how did I find out about the culture? On Spigot’s blog!
Resources:
- 5 Secrets to Turning Your Blog into a Recruiting Machine – Smart Recruiters
- Blogging as a Recruiting Tool – Undercover Recruiter
- Using Blogs as a Strategic Recruiting Tool – ERE
Your Content Should Align with Your Business Functions to Help Achieve Your Company’s Goals
In my experience, many companies just post randomly on their blogs, based on what one marketing executive decides to share. Or companies will publish amazing resource content, but won’t consider how it translates into better results for their core business.
Publishing content for the sake of publishing content won’t help you drive more business. In fact, having a ton of worthless posts on your site could actually take users away from higher converting, more valuable pages.
When coming up with a content strategy for your corporate blog, you should consider the goal of each post and make sure it aligns with your company’s initiatives.
The Best Blog Posts Help Your Customers Learn About Your Business or Industry
If you’ve been in business for at least a few years, you have likely amassed a ton of valuable experience in your industry. By packaging up what you’ve learned in a way that is compelling to people who want to learn about your business (and how you can help them) – you can establish yourself as an authority in your industry.
A lot of companies focus on outbound selling, where they reach out to people who may potentially want to work with them.
What if you could get a steady stream of leads coming to your site on their own? Wouldn’t that make your life a lot easier?
Well, a blog can do just that. By creating content that answers people’s questions about your business and your industry you’ll start bringing new visitors to your website who may be the exact person you would have otherwise had to sell to.
Speak Directly To The Customers You Want
One mistake that businesses make all the time is that they speak to the wrong target audience.
If you are a financial services company and you want to work with high-net worth individuals, why would you consistently write content to educate financially illiterate teenagers?
When you write content for your blog you should tailor that content so that it resonates directly with the customers you want to serve. When you create resources for your *perfect customer* you’ll attract that audience to do business with you.
This will save your sales team time, because they won’t have to comb through hundreds of non-qualified leads. Creating the resources your target customer needs also creates more interactions between your business and that person, which raises the likelihood that they will become a customer.
The Most Successful Company Blogs Publish Consistently with a Rock Solid Content Strategy
When looking at the most popular and successful corporate blogs, I notice a couple of things.
First, these blogs publish consistently – typically once a week or more, and they’ve done so for years. If you publish content often, you’re giving people a reason to come back to your site to check for new posts.
Publishing consistently helps you build momentum, and each time you publish is another opportunity for a post to “go viral” by getting shared on social platforms, like LinkedIn or Twitter.
Second, these blogs adhere to a clear, defined content strategy. The best blogs on the internet use SEO to get traffic to their pages. This means that each post is targeting a specific keyword or phrase that their target audience is searching for.
Getting traffic from organic search (people searching on Google) can take months to get your first few visitors. But once you start ranking for keywords and moving your way up on the first page, that traffic can continue to grow even after you’ve stopped publishing consistently.
What Is The Strategy To Increase Business With Your Blog?
Not only should you consider how you’ll get users to your blog, but also how the blog will help drive revenue for your business.
- Capture Leads on Your Blog: A blog that is meant to capture leads is one that is focused on helping businesses grow their customer base. The key is to provide valuable and relevant information so that people will continue to read your content, however you want to makes sure that you are keeping you first priority as capturing leads.
- Create Demand for Your Product or Service: Educating customers on your business and how it works can actually create new demand. Use your blog to let customers know how your business can help them achieve their goals .
- Share Customer Success Stories and Use Cases: You can supplement your sales team’s efforts by sharing how your business helped specific customers improve their own business outcomes or how they used your solution to fix issues in their business.
- Promote Your Business over Competitors: Another great use for a blog is to compare your business with your competitors. If there are certain areas that you blow your competition out of the water, you can highlight those in comparisons of your business versus another.
Consider How You Will Distribute Your Blog Posts
Before publishing your next post, you may want to consider what you will use as the primary distribution of your content.
If your goal is to get clicks on social media, you’ll need a catchy headline and featured image. If you’re seeking traffic from SEO, you likely need to include your target keyword in your headline and write your post to align with search intent.
FAQs About Company Blogs
What is a Corporate Blog?
A corporate blog is a blog that you’ll find on a company or business website. Companies often use their corporate blog to share resources related to their product or service, company updates, or industry news.
The Goals of Your Corporate Blog:
- Increase conversions on your website
- Boost your company’s revenue
- Capture prospective customers and leads
- Educate your target audience
- Improve customer relationships
- Increase brand awareness
Why Do Consumers Read Your Company’s Blog?
Well, this is making an assumption: that people are actually reading your company’s blog. However, if you’re getting readers there are a number of reasons these people are coming to your site.
Here’s why people visit the best corporate blogs and read their posts:
- Learn how a company’s product or service works
- Read your company’s opinion on industry news
- To better understand what it’s like working with your company
- Check out company culture and employee updates
- To learn how to use your product
- To understand use cases and applications for your product
How Do You Build a Successful Corporate Blog?
- Develop a Content Strategy: A strategy can help keep you consistent with your posting and can make sure every post is contributing to your larger business goals.
- Stick to a Consistent Publishing Schedule: Publishing consistently shows people (and search engines) that you are a source for valuable, freshly updated content.
- Monitor Your Results: Analyze which posts are most successful and try to identify what works and what doesn’t. Lean into what’s working to accelerate your growth.
- Look at What’s Working For Your Competitors: You don’t need to copy your competitor’s strategy exactly, but it can be a good starting point to understand what types of content really resonate with your target customers.
- Scale Your Content Marketing Over Time: As you grow you can start to scale up your content marketing efforts. You can rely on freelancers or even your customers to create content for your blog.
- Set Goals and Work Towards Them: Setting goals for your blog, even if it’s just posting once a week for a year will help keep you on track and give you something to work towards.
- Test New Headlines, CTAs Often: To make your blog as lucrative as possible, test new headlines and calls-to-action constantly. This will make sure you’re capturing as much attention and potential leads as possible.
- Distribute Your Blog Posts: You can’t just publish your posts and expect tons of traffic to flow to your site. You need to distribute your content. You can use your company social media accounts, your email list, or influencers to expand your reach.
- Gather Feedback: If you can find customers or readers of your blog to give you feedback, this can help you align your content with their needs. If your team is getting the same questions over and over again, perhaps a blog post could help clear up some confusion.
- Outsource Your Content Needs: Finally, if you’re looking to ramp up your content production for your blog, you can begin to outsource the writing and strategy to a third-party. In fact, this is exactly what I do.
If your business needs help creating more content for your blog or identifying what type of content you need, I can help.
Christian Stewart 