Blog posts help drive leads and business. Companies selling B2B that post blogs regularly see an average of 67% more leads than those that don’t. So why do some business blogs fail to see those results?
You may have started a blog with high hopes, only to wonder why you’re not seeing much lead action from it. You might wonder, “Do blogs not work like everyone says they do or am I doing something wrong?”
There are some common mistakes that MSPs make with their business blogs that hurt marketing efforts. We’ll go through these below and tell you what you can do to course correct and drive more leads.
How to Improve Your Blogging Results to Drive More Sales
Let’s take a look at why companies post blogs in the first place.
First, they keep a site fresh and energized. Instead of becoming static with pages that never change, regular blog posts inject new content into a website. This keeps Google happy and gives site visitors a reason to come back.
Next, blog posts boost your site’s SEO. With the use of keywords and other best practices, your pages can gain more visibility in the search results, thus getting you lead traffic.
Last, but not least, is the fact that blog posts drive content marketing. They give you a cornerstone to your marketing that you can use to promote your services via social media channels, email, and more.
Here are some key statistics that tell the story of why it’s smart to have an IT business blog:
- 60% of people purchase a product or service after first reading a blog post about it
- Having a blog on your site increases your chances of better search rankings by 434%
- 71% of B2B buyers read blog content during the buyer journey
So why don’t all blogs get those stellar results? Because mistakes are made that get in the way.
Address what you may be doing wrong, and your blog will perform better, driving more leads and sales for your MSP business. Get started by learning these common mistakes (and solutions) below.
Not Focused on the Audience
Are your blog posts all about you and your services? Then you may end up with a blog that reads like one advertisement after another. This doesn’t keep your readers’ interest and can work against the point of using a blogging strategy in the first place.
People prefer to read content that is meaningful to them, and that will help them with a solution at home or for their business. While it’s okay to highlight the benefits of managed IT services from time to time, the majority of your blog topics should revolve around topics of interest to your audience.
For example, topics like “6 Tips for a Year-end Cybersecurity Assessment” or “How to Properly Secure a Doorbell Camera to Prevent Hacks.” Focus on the solutions and topics of interest to your target audience, rather than just making your blog all about you and what you sell.
At the end of your blog post is where you can add a call-to-action to contact you for a solution that is connected to the topic of the article. This way it’s not the entire focus and you can draw people in with topics of value, while still doing a “soft peddle” promotion of your offerings.
Getting Too Technical
People’s eyes can glaze over pretty fast if you start diving too deep into technical details they don’t fully understand. Remember your audience when writing blog posts (or having them written for you), and keep things understandable and straightforward.
The point of the article can be lost if you get too technical. Stick to the things important to your audience using terms they can understand. You can always invite them to learn more details by contacting you.
Blogging Too Sporadically
Nothing says, “Our company may be faltering” like a blog with old topics. If the most recent topic is 6 months old, people will start to wonder about the stability of your company.
This is the case even if business is booming and you’re just too busy to worry about your blog. Remember, the blog is a reflection of your organization. If it’s stagnant, it looks like your company is as well.
Plus, we all know that SEO takes time. You can’t put up a keyword-optimized blog post today and have it rank on page 1 of Google tomorrow. It can take a few months to make its way up. Gaps in your content creation could mean that you don’t have any new content ranking when you most need those leads.
Studies show a correlation between blogging frequency and marketing results. Posting 2-6 times per week raises the likelihood of strong results by 50%.
If you’re not posting regularly now, start with at least two blog posts per month to get your feet wet. Then, move into at least one blog post per week. Once you get on a regular schedule you can add more in as it works for your time and budget.
Not Promoting Their Blog Posts
If you let blog posts just sit on your website waiting for visitors to find them, you’re going to get the lowest results possible. A new blog article is an opportunity to send out various types of marketing, each one drawing leads to your website.
There are several ways you can bring in leads with an MSP business blog:
- Post on social media
- Create a video about its main points to post on YouTube
- Add to your email newsletter
- Add to an email nurture campaign
- Optimize with keywords to boost search visibility
- Post on your Google Business Profile page
This may seem like a lot of work, but once you have a system in place, it can be like clockwork. You post your blog article to the site, use a social media tool like Loomly or Hootsuite to post to all your social channels with a link to the article, and so on. You can even make your blog posts the main topic of a monthly email newsletter and link to each one that you’ve posted that month.
No Call to Action
Now, I know that I told you earlier not to make your blog posts an advertisement, but that doesn’t mean you can’t add a call to action at the end. This is important if you want to drive leads.
You can’t just assume that someone will read your great post about next year’s cybersecurity trends and of their own accord connect that with contacting you for a cybersecurity assessment.
Use the CTA at the end of your post to connect to the topic and how you can provide a solution. Such as “Contact Us to Schedule a Cybersecurity Assessment Today.”
Adding a CTA at the end doesn’t turn the post into an advertisement. It just provides some guidance as to the next step someone can take if they have a need related to the thing that they just read about.
Giving Up Too Soon
Content marketing takes time. You can’t expect to start a blog this month and suddenly have leads flowing in. SEO is a big part of the lead generation connected to blogs. It takes a few months for posts to make their way up in the rankings.
But once they do, you can generate leads for months or years from your rankings. Check out this top ranking for one of our MSP clients. They not only have the first position, but Google also gave them a featured snippet.
Any type of lead generation takes consistency. Consistency builds momentum. If you give up too soon, you’re stopping before you get to see any of the results. A great quote from Dwayne Johnson (aka “The Rock) is:
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency.” – Dwayne Johnson
Don’t give up on your blogging efforts too soon. You might be stopping right before you hit that content marketing tipping point.
Trying to Do It All In-House
You can read down the list of recommendations above and think, “That sounds great, but I don’t have the time to do all that!” That’s what content marketing services are for.
Services like Tech Blog Builder help companies put out a consistent blog, social, and video content each month based on their audiences. So, you don’t have to go it alone and put out content marketing only when you have time. Instead, get the help you need for marketing consistency, and you’ll see consistent results in the form of leads and sales
Adopt Best Blogging Practices & Reap the Results
Doing a little course correction for your company blog can make a huge difference in your results. Blogs are proven to work, sometimes it just takes a little adjustment in how you approach yours to experience the impact on sales that you’re looking for.
How many blog posts do you think are optimum to put out per month? Share your feedback in the comments!
