How do I get more traffic for a B2B marketing blog?

Karen, is the blog interesting? I have to tell you that I follow 40 blogs and the one's I read and recommend are interesting to me. I stop reading those blogs that are one trick ponies and talk about the same exact topic week after week after week. As writers I think we owe it to our audience to be interesting and entertaining... does your friend fit into both those categories??

Hi Karen,

Craig's listed some great steps for your friend to consider. I think if he has the time he may want to try a video blog article. Consider for a minute the different learning styles that most of us have - some like to work with our hands, some are visual learners, while others prefer being taught in a classroom setting. Same thing goes for how we like to digest information. Some people would rather watch a two minute video than read a 500 word article. Just something to consider.

Good luck!

First of all, make sure you have a Twitter account that is associated with your marketing blog. Then make sure you have a LinkedIn account and that your Twitter account is linked to it. Tweet your own blog postings. Your Tweets will update your LinkedIn status. Now all of your LinkedIn network will know you have a blog and know that you have a Twitter account. Urge all of your LinkedIn contacts to follow your Twitter account and to also re-Tweet your posts if they find them useful. Secondly, use the Google keyword tool https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__u=1000000000&__c=1000000000... to find relevant key words that your can sprinkle throughout each blog entry to help with search engine optimization. Lastly, I highly recommend a hosted Wordpress blog site. Google loves Wordpress and the chances of your posts coming up in relevant searches should increase dramatically if you go with a hosted Worpdress solution. I hope this helps.

For me, a good blog consistently offers new ways of examining or solving a familiar problem. I also like ones that are edgy, take risks, or tackle topics that are not easy to tackle. They're simultaneously valuable and entertaining to read. Unless you have lots of time, a super imagination, or both, daily blogging is the enemy of that objective, as others have pointed out.

Achieving a dedicated following takes time. Maintaining a thematic thread that unites the blogs without being redundant is an ongoing challenge. Topics need to be sufficiently broad to attract a sizable group readers, but focused so that readers think of the blog when a specific chronic--or consequential--business problem arises.

Among the worst practices I've experienced is taking a fast track for "closing the deal." When blogs are weak on content, and embed multiple links for ordering e-books, podcasts, workshops, and other content, I don't go back.

First and foremost (and far and away the most important point) is to create compelling content - and to me that also means expressing a strong point of view.

Of course, you need to do more than that - so a few other tips:
* Syndicate - there are widely-read sites (including Focus.com) that are looking for interesting content and will often republish and/or feature portions of or entire posts. In return for your content they will often agree to link back.
* Promote - use social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.... - and involve your networks of others to re-promote. I've become especially fond of Amplify (amplify.com) for this purpose. By promoting others' worthy content, they will often reciprocate and promote yours.
* I am NOT a fan of guest blogging - as I mentioned earlier it's the POV that causes me to read - and why do you want to feature someone else's? It's the quality, not the quantity, that matters most.

Hi Karen,
I see there is a great collaboration of excellent tips listed to help your friends blog success. I would also add a few tips from an SEO (search engine optimization) & copy writing perspective. Which over time will help increase the ability for the search engines to figure out the blog/postings relevance and help with overall ranking in the SERPs (search engine results pages). If your friend is using the Wordpress platform for their blog which is the most popular platform, I would steer them to this page which is a great reference to help optimize the blog http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

I would also:

1. Consider who their audience is, and what the purpose of the blog is? Ensuring a good category choice & layout, and keeping focused on the overall goal and theme.

2. Research Keywords to determine where the traffic is using tools like :
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
and
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

3. Once you determine a handful of keywords or terms you want to target then integrate those terms into the Title of your blog post and a few times within the body of the post with at least one mention as close to the beginning of the post as possible. Remembering your writing for your visitors not the search engines.

4. Building a good base of Social Bookmarking will help the blog and posts overall as well. Make sure there is a plug-in or social bookmarking access for your visitors to easily spread the word to their favorite social sites on your blog.

5. Tracking the visitors to the blog will be essential, a good 80/20 mix is prime. (80% new visitors / 20% repeat visitors) Google Analytics is free and will help them determine whats working and what is not.

6. Having a focus on engaging with your visitors, with questions, calls to action etc.

7. Narcissism is a No, No! You do not want to self-focus, brag or over-sell...The blog should be not only used for lead generation, but also for providing valuable information to the visitor.

8. Writing compelling headlines & not being afraid to take it to the edge of the envelope to help the virility or buzz worthiness.

9. Link Building or requesting links from other colleagues, businesses from there website to your blog is definitely helpful. If possible using the targeted keyword as anchor text within the link.

10. Lastly, I would advise from my experience not only guest blogging on other blogs, but also inviting guest to blog on his blog. Remember, even though it might be a corporate type blog, you don't want it to be robotic. Give it some personality, even humor is OK in moderation. A little debatable content never hurt as well.

Hope this helped.

Hello Karen,
Being interesting is one thing (I agree with Trish, a very important one), but if no one can find him, that is quite another. I would recommend he focus on his key word strategy and usage.
Who is his content focused on and what will they be searching for? Once he has that defined, he will want to link those keywords back his website. This will make his blog much more visible to Google and other search engines, hopefully driving more awareness and traffic.
Guest blogging is also another good idea, but I have also had good luck with group blogging.
Hope this helps a bit. Good luck to you and your friend! :)

I can suggest a couple of things to help drive traffic for a blog:

1 - link the blog to other social sites, like Facebook and LinkedIn

2 - get involved in face to face networking, business clubs and read the blog content there. If it is of value to people, they will pass that on to their contacts

#3 and #4 from Craig's list (no pun intended) have worked well for me. The key to commenting is to add something to the conversation and not just say "great post," most professional bloggers will see through that. It’s okay to disagree with the poster if you can backup your position with solid reasoning.

I agree with the other commenters that a B2B blog doesn't necessarily need daily posts. Adding your own take on something familiar, using statistics from a case study you've done and/or curating content from well-known research studies in your industry can help with the problem that Andrew has mentioned, "Without being redundant is an ongoing challenge."

It isn’t easy to write a seed article that is timeless and will go viral. If you are a new blogger, it may be better to concentrate on posting quality content that are optimized as Chad has suggested for driving traffic and building your credibility.

The last thing you want to do on a B2B blog is to make it into a glorified promo piece for your company and its products and services. It is not about you, focus on what your readers care about if you want to convert them into fans, followers and ultimately customers.

Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad has written a terrific article, “19 Tips for Driving Traffic to Your Blog.” You can read it on SocialMedia Examiner at http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/19-tips-for-driving-traffic-to-your-blog/

The list that has been given is pretty extensive. A few tips that I would suggest are:
1. Make a short video about the latest blog post and then sydicate it out to multiple video sites that all contain a link back to the post. Use http://tubemogul.com to get the video out.
2. Use http://onlywire.com to syndicate the blog post our to multiple bookmarking sites.
3. Build a "tribe" of other like minded people or friends who share and comment on each others content. This will help to build relevancy within search engines. It's not good to just post your own content. You have to post others and in turn they will post yours. Craig Rosenberg touched on this.

In addition to being interesting and chock a block with the right keywords, the most effective B2B blogs are also informative, authoritative and actionable. That is, they give the reader validated information, instruction or insight that has obvious business value, not just random insouciant opinions on the business news of the day or topic of the week, as so many bad ones do.

One of the best ways to build traffic with business blogging in particular is to get people in your target zone (not just random family and friends!) passing the link to your blog along to their colleagues, posting it on their web pages, citing it in their blogs, and retweeting it to their followers. But, business blogging has been around long enough now for many people to have experienced doing, or seeing others do these things with content that sounded good but turned out to be inaccurate or complete BS. Nobody wants to look like a jerk with their boss or customers for passing along something that turns up on Snopes. If you burn folks in that way, in addition to never reading your blog again, they will probably say bad things about you in their blogs or tweets.

If you are presenting something as fact, do your homework and validate it with at least two good sources. If one of those sources is Wikipedia, make it three good sources. And, don't be afraid to cite source URLs. Doing so can only help your credibility/indemnification.

Decide on the purpose of your blog posting. Is it news, is it viewpoint, is it instruction, or some combination? Up front, tell readers what it is, so they will read it with the appropriate mindset and can pass it along to appropriate recipients even before they have read it completely themselves.

Above all else, a B2B blog should be fresh and useful. People will tolerate less-than-sparkling writing as long as they get something from it that is unique and actionable. If you are reporting or opining on an event, product, technique, or something else that is likely to already be widely known among your target readers, the blog should add something to the story in the form of additional facts, related news, novel views, or tips and tricks that are not already out there.

If all of this sounds like Journalism 101, it is because those principles have considerable bearing on good blogging - who, what, when, where, why, how, etc. But, blogging has attributes that conventional journalism does not, including that a good blog is a dialog - it invites elaboration, comment, and even correction, if need be. When a blog is all "broadcast", if it gets comments, they will likely be either rote agreement or perhaps strident criticism. When it poses questions and invites comments, responders are more likely to actually add new information and references, which only enhances its usefulness to readers and stickiness to search engines.

Hi Karen,
I summarized ideas into a simple acronym-B.L.O.G.

B- Blog interesting content. Trish and Bethany hit the mark on this. Your blogger needs to think about what content will "attract" readers. They should put themselves in the shoes of their readers. Readers respond well when people are sharing something that they cannot get elsewhere.

L- Links. Make use of the other social media applications to spread the word about your posts. Think of how you may repurpose the investment you have in the good content. Explore how Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn can help spread the word with an expanded audience. It is relatively easy with the "Publicize" tool in Wordpress. LinkedIn has an application to add your blog posts right to your profile. NetworkedBlogs is an application that makes it simple to post blog posts to your Facebook pages. You can also make links to other blogger’s blogs or your customers’ web-site. This is a method for subtle testimonials and reminds customers that you appreciate their business and gets them thinking about future work with you.

O- Others. The number one rule in social media is that you have to interact to have people interact with you. Use sites like Technorati or StumbleUpon to find blogs that you are interested or carry the readers you seek. Comment on other people’s blogs to increase the awareness of your blog. Another site to explore is CommentLuv.

G- GRAVATAR. A picture’s worth a thousand words. Increase your brand identity and awareness with your unique GRAVATAR, Globally Recognized AVATAR. The process is simple. Within Wordpress you can do this easily or you can go straight to http://www.gravatar.com and set up your unique image.

It's not about frequency of posts, nor should the goal be quantity of followers or readers. Of course, we like to quantity things to help us track "value" and return. But the real value of social media effort is in the quality of connections made, and that will be measured by relationships that lead to sales. And you'll know.

So how do you get there? By getting out there! Your friend has made a good start by committing to content creation and delivery, but the desired connections will come through two things - the value of the content's service appeal, and the benefit your friend can provide to others via their content.

To gain valuable relationships, you have to reach out. Comment on other blogs and provide value. Within your area of expertise - and through media like LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter - provide valuable service communication that will spread your name.

People will come to you if you go out to them and create relationship value.

Imagine you lived in a neighborhood on the edge of a forest, and you had a great chainsaw, better than anyone else's. But if you kept that chainsaw all to yourself, or only used it deep in the woods, noone would know. But if you offered this tool to all your neighbors, they'd appreciate the value of your relation.

For me it's all about focused, regular content that is search engine optimised.

All the above feedback has been helpful, but a few extra and expanded thoughts...

- Quality content: It's not just about posting content, the content needs to be targeted to the audience your friend is trying to reach, relevant to what they want to read about, and offer value.

- Take his blog articles and post them online (eg. ezinearticles.com) so that his content can serve as organic SEO.

- Definitely engaging in conversations on LinkedIn, Twitter and offering his blog content if it's valuable and relevant to the conversation.

- Asking friends to "like" or "re-tweet" his blog articles (which means he also needs a widget in his CSS that enables someone to actually share his blog article).

While it is good to blog consistently, it's more about the quality content, than the quantity. It also takes patience and time. If he just started a few months back, he needs to stay consistent and stick with it.

Viral marketing, while powerful, tends to be a slow burn - especially if other marketing vehicles are not used or are incorrectly used.