Research from Hubspot has shown that businesses
that blog get 67% more leads, and are 13x more likely to enjoy positive ROI,
than businesses that don’t blog.
It’s 2015, and it’s been established beyond
disputation that blogging, effectively, will always yield positive ROI for
businesses.
However, does that mean starting a blog will
automatically fix your content strategy and yield a positive ROI? No.
Without the right strategy, your blogging
efforts is just a time sink and another waste of time and/or money.
The type of content you publish on your blog
is a core part of your blogging strategy, and a solid blogging strategy can’t
do without the following three content types; each content type is accompanies
with personal examples to demonstrate their effectiveness.
1.
The
“Resource” Article
The resource article is perhaps the best type
of content for driving traffic and boosting your conversions.
In my experience, every instance of a resource
article I’ve published on my blog has resulted in at least 10,000% more views,
sometimes 30,000% more views, than the average article (that’s not an error).
On my new blog where the average article
barely gets 100 views, a resource article I published went on to get over
20,000 views in its first year.
On another blog, a series of resource articles
I published went on to average 100,000 views, with the first article getting as
much as 200,000 views in a span of 3 years.
I wrote a full case
study about this on the Digital Current blog, and you can read the case
study through the link below:
Why do “resource” articles
work?
Resource articles work because blogs are
oversaturated with the same recycled content; opinions, tips and lists.
There are at least 300 million blogs today according to Wikipedia,
and when it comes to getting tips, lists and opinion, there’s an abundance of
that. However, very few blogs give people practical resources that they can use
right away.
Instead of just giving tips, resource articles
offer actual resources; so instead of saying “here’s what you have to do to get
X results”, you’ll say “use X to achieve certain result”; with X listed in your
article so readers can make use of it.
As a result, people will bookmark your
content, tell their friends, link to it on their blogs, share it on their
favorite forums and come back to it regularly.
2.
Ultimate
Guides
Data has proven time and again that long,
comprehensive content will always outperform shorter content.
This was proven by
research by serpIQ, carefully analyzed by Neil Patel on his blog; the data revealed that, on
average, the top 10 results in Google have at least 2,000 words, with the
longer content usually ranking higher.
A similar analysis by Moz in 2012 revealed similar
findings, showing from an analysis of 500 articles on their blog that longer
content indeed gets more links, traffic and social shares.
This instantly shows why ultimate guides are
very good for traffic and conversions.
On my writing blog, the
most profitable article I’ve ever written is an ultimate guide to guest blogging, an article that has
been viewed over 20,000 times to date and that has been responsible for
mid-five figures in freelance writing income for me.
Ultimate guides are authoritative by nature,
and the fact that they usually include visuals, lots of examples, sometimes
multimedia, and lots of details ensure people bookmark, share and link to them.
If your aim is to get leads, traffic or
authoritative links to your blog, ultimate guides are one sure way to do that.
3.
Case
Studies
Data from Content Marketing Institute (in a
partnership with MarketingProfs) has shown that content marketers report a 70%
effectiveness rate for case studies as a part of their content marketing
strategy; case studies was reported to be the second most effective content
marketing strategy, second only to in-person events (at 78%), and tying with
webinars/webcasts (also at 70%) in effectiveness. In other words, case studies
is the only form of written content that can achieve similar impact to what is
obtainable only through live interaction; and that’s saying a lot!
Unlike resource
articles and ultimate guides, case studies might not necessarily generate
extraordinary traffic compared to the average article, but they serve an
entirely different purpose; increasing positive perception
in the mind of your readers about your ability to deliver.
At the end of the day, the purpose of your
blog is to generate more leads for your business and ultimately increase your
revenue; traffic alone won’t do this.
It’s easy to track traffic and conversions,
but it can be difficult to track positive perception in the mind of your
readers; besides directly leading to increased conversions, case studies are
also powerful for increasing your perception in the mind of your users and
letting them value your brand more.
I’ve noticed case studies to be most effective
in closing client deals for me, and helping overcome objections potential
clients may have; if they are having doubts about my services, I just point
them to a case study.
Which of The Three Content Types is Your Blog Missing?
The above are three powerful content types
every business that blog should be implementing; ensure they are included as a
core part of your content marketing strategy, and you’d be surprised to see how
powerful they can be.
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