How to Optimize your B2B Blog for More Leads

Even though your company might not have a strong social media presence, you can’t afford to not have a blog, especially when you belong to the B2B Segment. Over a period of time, many B2B marketing experts have recommended blogs as an important marketing tool for a business.

However, having a blog without a strategy won’t do any good for the company. So, let’s have a look at how to optimize a blog to generate business.

Set objectives:

Setting objectives is the most critical step in Business Blogging. Why are you blogging? To increase traffic? To develop relationships with your customers? To generate leads? Having a clearly defined objective will help the company to frame the content strategy and find appropriate contributors for the blog.

Identify a list of Keywords:

Most companies are focused on giving a creative name to their product and adding technical jargon to it, in order to stand out from their competitors. While naming the product is fine, the added specifications may not be accurate enough to attract your target customers.

The key to finding the right keywords often lies with how your target customer uses ‘Google’ to find a solution to his/her problem. It is very important to identify the list of problems that your target customer might face, and then write about the problems and solutions and embed them in the blog. Spend time with your existing customers to find out what kind of keywords they used to reach your blog.

You could also check your analytics report to find out which keywords brought users to your blog and how much time they spent. If the bounce rate is high, then it’s time to re-frame your keyword strategy. Make use of free resources like Google’s Keyword Tool to find the appropriate keywords.

Educate your customers:

Your website has all the information about your product and services. You need not repeat this in your blog. A user comes to a blog to find a solution to his/her problems, and not just for product information. Have a look at Marketo's blog, possibly one of the best business blogs, for an example.

All their blog articles are focused towards educating their customers rather than trying to push information about their products/services. By doing this, you build relationships with your target customers, position yourself as a thought leader in your industry and inspire trust.

When you educate your customers, you become their ‘top-of-mind’ recall when they face similar problems to which you have provided solutions through your blog.

Make your blog SEO-Friendly:

According to a report by Search Engine Journal, blogs are likely to be listed in the Top 10 of any Google Searches. Here are a few tips which could make your blog more SEO friendly:

• Page Title: Page title is the text which appears on top of the browser just above the URL tab. Many companies commit the mistake of having just their name and tag line in their page title. It is important to identify appropriate keywords (discussed above) and use them in your page titles for optimum organic search results.
• Use keywords: Make sure you use the keywords you would like to rank for, in your blog titles, blog URL, sub headings, image alt text and the content. Over-using keywords are also harmful for your search rankings. Have the right mix of keywords & content in appropriate places.
• Increase Inbound Links: These are links that could lead a user to your target page. Identify websites which are relevant to your business, engage in a healthy discussion, provide thoughtful information on topics discussed and try to redirect users to your target page. Avoid spamming, as it could dangerously affect your organic searches.
• Embed social plugins: Having social plugins of popular social networking websites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter & Pinterest embedded in your blog could encourage users to 'like' and share your articles. The greater the audience reach of your blog, the more the leads you generate.
• Blog Frequently: Design an editorial calendar with articles to be written. Write blogs in regular intervals. The more active your blog is, the greater the chances that you'll rank higher in Google searches. An inactive blog might cost you a lot more than you could imagine.

We are living in a socio-internet world, where companies can be judged based solely on their social media presence. A blog could bring in more visitors to your website, generate leads and could result in more business. While large companies spend more on internet marketing efforts, it is important for SMB’s to blog and establish their credibility to compete on a level playing field.

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