Why content marketing should be made a priority
According to the Content Marketing Institute, Content with infographics, photos, charts and other image content has seen a 56% increase in visits in the last four years. This is not surprising as visually interesting content is far more likely to be viewed and responded to than copy alone.
Did you know, blogs are one of the best forms of content generation?
In fact, research has shown that there are over 5 million blog posts written every day!
43 per cent of b2b companies, according to the Content Marketing Institute, say that blogging is the most important content that they produce. When you review website performance via Google Analytics and SEO tools it is easy to see why. A trend we have noticed with our clients is that blogs generate a large proportion of the traffic, in some cases around 35% - so, in other words, without the blog, you would potentially be losing out on around a third of your traffic. The Content Marketing Institute also revealed that 55 per cent of marketers said they want to focus on blog creation as their top marketing priority to generate more traffic to their websites.
Studies by the Content Marketing Institute also showed that nine times more sales leads were generated by using blogs than other content on websites. This could be because a well written blog is informative, interesting, often tackles topical issues and provides a solution, without being too salesy.
A well written blog should be subtly persuasive, show empathy with the audience and be aware of their specific needs and wants. It will lead them, through links, to relevant other sources of information and end with a direct call to action, which means showing potential customers how they should buy the goods or services.
Blogs that contain bullet points have been revealed as being most effective, as they make the information simple to understand and break it up clearly. Using sub-headers also helps to break up the blog and to make it easier to follow.
So, if blogs are so important, why do so few companies have them on their website?
Often it’s the case that companies simply think they don’t have enough subject matter to blog about, so rather than having a blog that’s only updated a few times a year, they’d rather forfeit having one at all. For other companies, they simply don’t have the time, resources – or the skills – to draft content in-house.
We’d always advocate if you’re going to have a blog, then update it with fresh content at least once every month, otherwise it can start to look outdated. When we manage content marketing and blog writing for clients, we create a content plan for the year ahead, which contains ideas for blogs and themes, which we agree with our clients in advance. It’s then up to us to come up with relevant, interesting, informative content that is shared on the blog on a regular basis. We ensure this is keyword-enriched, optimised for SEO and has the best chance of getting picked up by the search engines.
So the question should be, can we afford not to have a blog?
Dragonfly PR is a content marketing agency that specialises in writing blogs, media stories, case studies and thought leadership articles for business to business companies. We are based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire and offer a national and international content marketing service, specialising in construction, manufacturing and food.
In summary, here’s our top 5 tips for writing blogs:
- Make them interesting and engaging.
- Include keywords and phrases that your customers use when searching for the product and services you offer.
- Add a new blog at least once a month.
- Post links to your blogs via social media.
- Add a title that grabs attention, for example, it could be a question eg ‘How to choose the right type of insulation’.
For a free, no-obligation discussion with one of our PR & digital marketing team, please email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk or call 0114 349 5341.