Is Your Business’s Blog Not Generating Leads? Try These 7 Tips
Many businesses choose to add blogs to their websites as part of a content marketing and SEO strategy, but there are ways in which blog posts can be used as more than just a supporting pillar in your marketing. They can help to actively grow your business and generate leads. Using blogs for lead generation might not be your first thought in terms of what might bring in more conversions, but as with most things in marketing, there are certain techniques that can make a serious impact.
If you want to make sure you’re getting the most value out of your blog posts, follow these 7 tips from marketing experts and discover how creative blog copy can work hugely to your advantage!
Blogging for lead generation
Lead generation can be done successfully using a variety of channels, but blogging could be your key to a sudden influx of conversion-ready prospects.
While blogging is a potentially fruitful strategy, there are of course things to keep in mind when you’re developing your blogs, both in terms of what they are offering to your audience and how they are being used to direct these prospects through the sales funnel. Across these 7 key tips, we’ll cover important factors such as buying intent, lead magnets, blog structure and funnel marketing — all of which could have a significant impact on how your blogs perform as lead generators.
- Choose timely, unique topics to help your prospects
Hundreds of thousands of businesses are writing blog posts, and no matter how niche your product or service offering, there are potentially millions of places online your prospects could be looking for the information they need. Considering how you can genuinely help your target audience through your blog topics is key — nobody wants to read the same article over and over again. Being unoriginal is a surefire way to increase your bounce rate and end up wasting hours producing content. While it might seem like more effort, it’s certainly worthwhile putting some research time aside before developing a blog strategy.
Write about unique topics in your industry, timely news events and influential people. Make sure your content is engaging, and offers relevant advice and tips where necessary. The more value you can give to your audience, the more likely they will be to trust you as a brand.
2. Offer lead magnets and other exclusive content
Your blogs don’t have to sit in one area of your website waiting to be read! A great way to generate leads through copy creation is to write exclusive content pieces that can, for example, only be accessed by prospects in your mailing lists. A ‘lead magnet’ is a term for a piece of content (for example, a long-form brochure in a PDF format, a selection of data insights or an interesting infographic) that sits behind a data wall — the lead magnet is exchanged for the prospects’ contact details. In most cases, businesses will use lead magnets as a way to collect emails, and continue pushing them through the sales funnel with email marketing. Lead magnets can be advertised on social media channels too, providing more reach and allowing more potential for data collection.
Of course, not everything can be an effective lead magnet — you have to make sure, once again, that you are providing value. Since lead magnets and other exclusive content won’t be available to everyone, there’s even more pressure to ensure you are offering something really special; information your target audience might not be able to find elsewhere.
3. Focus on your blog structure
While engaging copywriting is definitely a key element of a lead-driving blog post, structure can have just as much of an impact when it comes to how your blogs perform as lead generators. Make sure, when your post is live, that it includes the following:
- A clear CTA, preferably above the fold or in the sidebar, as well as at the end of your post
- Imagery to break up the text (avoid stock images where possible)
- Interesting data insights or other information that can be presented in a graphic format, again to break up the text
- Internal links to your key service pages (that relate to the blog topic of course) as well as your contact page
- Clear headers and subheaders throughout the post
- Links to other informative sources (as long as they’re not your competitors!)
Having an optimised blog structure will not only make your post easier on the eye, but will also help guide the users across your site and assist them in finding all the information they need about your services.
4. Consider your user’s intent
Most business owners will know that not all users are looking for the same thing when they reach your site — especially when they reach your blog. It’s recommended that you create blog posts that are specific to users at different stages of the marketing funnel.
For example, if users are at the ‘awareness’ stage, they may be more interested in blogs that are less specific on the service or product, and more about your brand or industry news. They will be looking for information around a problem they have (whether they’re aware of it yet or not) and will want to understand how your service relates back to them. Those at the ‘consideration’ stage will likely have a lot of questions concerning the potential solutions to their problems, so might want to see comparison guides or other such posts. At the ‘purchase’ or ‘decision’ stage, users will want to hear how your company specifically can help them solve their key issues. Therefore, having blogs explaining the details of your service offering might do the trick.
5. Support your key service pages
Blogs aren’t just about helping your potential customers — they also need to help your website. Conducting extensive keyword research will allow you to find specific long-tail terms that while still related to your key services, do not cannibalise any SEO efforts on your core pages. The addition of blogs into an SEO strategy can be a game changer when it comes to link building, but make sure you speak to an SEO specialist if you’re new to keyword research and mapping; it’s easy to get wrong!
6. Integrate with your social media strategy
If you aren’t sharing your blogs across your social media channels, you’re missing out on some great opportunities for lead generation. Give your posts more reach by setting up business profiles on the channels most relevant to your services and target customers. You could even set a boost budget to try and reach more prospects. Setting up a content calendar for your social channels is highly recommended to ensure you stay on top of regular posting and channel maintenance.
7. Get SEO, content marketing and blog production support
Making sure your blogs are working in tandem with your SEO, social media and overall marketing strategies is no mean feat, and for business owners in particular, can seem like an overwhelming challenge. Getting support from a professional digital marketing agency is vital if you want to accelerate your leads without the risk of making common errors along the way. SEO specialists will be able to help you choose relevant key terms, and strategists will be able to organise a lead-driving strategy for your blogs, optimising potential for engagement across your key channels. Copywriters can produce your blogs, lead magnets and social media posts, and before you know it you have a fully-fledged content and lead generation strategy in place. Leave yourself time to focus on the sales while the professionals boost your website performance!
Hopefully this post has given you some useful insights as to how you can use blogging and other forms of content creation to assist your lead generation. Be sure to get in touch with a full-service marketing agency if you need assistance with any of your online efforts.
