It's 9pm, and you were meant to be back at home 3 hours ago.
You've just swallowed down your last coffee of the day, and you're ready to hit publish.
You've been blogging for months now, and it's become a real chore. You've got a lot on your plate as it is, and all this blogging you're doing doesn't seem to be attracting the traffic your company needs.
What's gone wrong?
It's probably pretty simple.
You're not writing for the right audience.
Think carefully about the posts you've written over the last few months -- what were they about?
When we look at the blogs of most B2B companies, there's an extremely common trend. You see titles like:
- Amazing ABC Interwebs Wins 2014 Best Runner-Up Internet Company
- ABC Interwebs Hires New Top Consultant
- ABC Interwebs First Internet Company to Offer Fibre Broadband in Glendarroch
- 5 Reasons You Should Buy ABC Interwebs Internet
And quite franky, who cares?
When you write blog posts like these, you're not writing for your target audience. You're writing for yourself.
Now sure, the odd post when you win an award is fine -- but if all your blog content is self promotional -- you've missed the point of blogging entirely.
If you want to drive targeted traffic with your blogging strategy, you need to stop thinking about promoting, and start thinking about helping.
What problems do your prospects have?
What challenges do they face in their day-to-day careers and lives?
How can you help them to overcome those problems and challenges with the knowledge your organisation has?
Your prospects are turning to Google, social networks and their professional networks to get answers to these questions, which means when you start blogging in this way, you'll start to notice amazing things:
- Your blog posts will get shared on social media.
- You'll attract search traffic, and rank for industry keywords.
- Other bloggers and websites will link to your posts.
- Influencers in your industry will reach out to you to collaborate.
- More people will trust your company, and therefore buy from you.
Over time your efforts will snowball, and you'll drive the long term business benefit your company needs from its blog.
Want to learn more about how to write for the people you want to attract? Check out my previous post on defining B2B buyer personas.
