everything you need to know about b2b blogging in 45 minutes
TRANSCRIPT
Sean Work
Everything You Need To Know About B2B Blogging in Just 45 Minutes
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Sean Work - KISSmetrics - @seanvwork
Sean Work runs the blog at KISSmetrics.com. He’s been with the team since 2010. He loves working from Southern California, where he can surf, snowboard and camp under bright stars with no blankies.
1 Before You Ever Press “Publish”.
2 Ramping Up Readership.
3 Maintaining and Scaling.
What’s Going To Be Covered…
WATCH WEBINAR RECORDING NOW
1. The beginning of this webinar starts from day zero. I want to help those who are starting a business blog as well as those who are already years in.
2. Like all our webinars, our presentations are geared for SaaS, eCommerce and mobile businesses. However, if you’re in a different business, you’ll probably still get value from this webinar.
Before We Begin…
Before You Ever Press “Publish”
1
• Making the case: It’s a marketing channel you have total control of.
• Budget expectations: at first it can be “free” but a#er a while expect $5k/mo.
• The real trick might be ge!ing buy-in from your organization.
“Let’s start a blog!”
Blogging takes time. It takes time to see results, but it might be one of your best channels…
Get Buy-In from Your Organization
• Give yourself 6 months and then show all the traffic that arrived from blogging.
• Only have ONE call to action on your blog. Don’t clu!er!
• Keep track of social mentions.
How To Sell It
The Ideal Scenario = h!p://example.com/blog/
Where Should Your Blog Be Located?
However it’s not the end of the world if you can’t put your blog on example.com/blog/.
Where Should Your Blog Be Located?
Sometimes there are really good reasons not to have it on the same domain as your main site:
1. Security.
2. Maintenance.
3. Redundancy.
Where Should Your Blog Be Located?
Get a professional or in-house SEO to:
1. Block or make sure duplicate content issues don’t exist.
2. That there is only one H1 heading per page.
3. Come up with good category names.
Se!ing Up Your Blog For Max SEO Efficiency
Responsive design means: The site/blog layout changes depending on what device it’s being viewed on (e.g. phone, tablet or desktop computer).
Make Sure Your Blog Uses A Responsive Design!
If you can swing it, put your blog on h!ps.
Get Secure!
Part of the trust you build with your audience comes from the blog design.
• Does it look professional and clean?
• Is it designed to read well?
Check this blog post: h!ps://blog.kissmetrics.com/7-deadly-web-design-sins/ by Joseph Putnam.
Don’t Forget Design!
LOG IN WITH GOOGLE
Start Your Free KISSmetrics Trial
Ramping Up Readership
2
People who actually care about what you have to say are far more important than millions of hyperactive eyeballs.
Notice I didn’t say ramping up traffic…
1. Who are you writing for?
2. What’s your company’s area of expertise?
3. What can you write about to solve your prospects’ problems?
4. What’s important to your prospects and readers?
5. What’s your tone and brand voice going to be like?
6. How will it tie into your overall brand experience?
Take A Step Back & Ask These Questions:
• Look at customer support questions.
• What problems can you solve for your prospects in the form of a post?
• Run a survey. Ask your followers what they want to read.
• Try to nail down 20 initial headlines to seed your first blog posts.
Brainstorm & Come Up With A List Of Headlines
• A Google Doc spreadsheet works really well. All you really need to keep track of is: Headline, Dra# Date, Publishing Date, and Author.
• When you tell someone you’re pu!ing their post in the “Editorial Calendar”, there’s no backing out :)
• It just keeps you on track and organized.
Start An Editorial Calendar
• Is your content detailed?
• Can adding visuals help communicate be!er?
• Are you really creating value? Or are you simply glossing over a topic?
• Have 1,000 articles already been wri!en on the topic? And are you saying something new?
Make Sure Your Content Doesn’t Suck
Let’s say you run an image optimization site like Tiny PNG and you want to write an article called:
“When To Use The Right Image File Formats For Blog Posts”
Let’s Run Through An Example
• Writing is time consuming, you’ll burn out.
• Consider hiring contract writers.
• Allow for guest contributors who are experts.
One Person Can’t Write All The Content
Looking at your analytics and expecting massive traffic the day you publish can be disheartening. That’s why you need to understand the long tail.
A Word About Long Tail SEO Traffic
Building trust, credibility and authority in the topics you discuss move your blog from being a blog to a publication. This also makes your brand more trustworthy to do business with.
Trust, Authority, Credibility = Win!
1. Create an internal list of people at your company.
2. Opt-them into your internal post notification list.
3. Have them share your content on LinkedIn, Twi!er, Google Plus and Facebook.
A Li!le Distribution Hack
h!ps://blog.kissmetrics.com/science-of-social-timing-3/
The Science Of Blog Timing
Leads vs. Subscriber? Both?
What’s Your Blog’s Main CTA Going To Be?
• All your images should use ALT tags
• Use natural language to describe your ALT tags
• Questions make great title tags ;)
• Try not to “over-SEO” your blog content by worrying about keywords and trying to cram in things you think will help. Write a normal sounding article.
A Few SEO Tips As You Create Content
• With B2B Blogging, you’re probably going to need to do a few screenshots from time to time.
• On PC Alt + Print Screen
• On Mac Command + Shi# + 4
And Finally A Word About Screenshots..
You can see here that I move the right part of the image inwards to make the width smaller - and I didn’t have to scale.
A Li!le Screenshot Trick…
Before:
A#er:
Maintaining and Scaling
3
The number one issue you have worry about is hurting your quality. Everyone wants “more, more
MORE!” - but at what cost?
Be Careful About Being Too Quick To Scale
There’s nothing worse than losing all your content.
Be sure to backup your database and images.
Keep Your Blog Updated!
You can get a cached copy of all your content from Google (for a limited time).
Use the “Way Back Machine” - h!ps://archive.org/web/
MySQL or Database Export
What Do You Do If Your Content Get’s Destroyed?
Do you branch out and do:
More Blog Content?
Linkedin, Quora, Medium, Slideshare?
Videos, Podcasts?
Webinars, Infographics, Guides?
Scaling Decisions
YouTube vs. Self-Hosted?
• Youtube is another search engine.
• Self-hosted means videos stay on your property.
• You could just upload previews to Youtube and have people come to your blog for the full length video.
Video Blogging
“Hey readers! What do you want more of?”
Survey Your Readers
KISSmetrics allows you to see what marketing campaigns and channels are providing the best ROI.
Like Blogging!
How Does KISSmetrics Help With Blogging?
How Does KISSmetrics Help With Blogging?
grow.kissmetrics.com/optimization-demo
Would you like a demo of KISSmetrics?
THANK YOU
Sean Work @seanvwork