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Best Business Blogging Practices Include Posting Once a Week or More, Survey Says

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By Laurie Fullerton | Freelance Writer

January 7, 2016 | 3 min read

Despite evolving technology that will impact B2B marketing techniques in 2016, business blogging remains a consistent, core strategy for businesses. Creating a strong business blog is a good goal for 2016, says a report by the Boston-based software company Curata, who conducted a study of over 400 leading business bloggers and established some best practices for marketers to carry forward in the coming year.

Firstly, according to the survey, in order to produce an effective and well-read blog, 80 per cent of marketers surveyed said businesses must create a "center of excellence." The most successful business bloggers have a governance team for blogging activities within the company. The team’s primary task is to ensure that the actual content teams are getting the guidance, policies and promotion that will enable them to create high-quality, strategic content.

Secondly, successful business bloggers suggest that posting once a week or more is one of the most effective strategies in business blogging. In fact, 90 per cent of leading business bloggers surveyed agree that posting once a week or more is ideal while only 4 per cent agreed that posting quarterly was a good idea while only 17 per cent agreed posting monthly was a good strategy.

Boosting content marketing through curation means feeding your network a steady diet of good material, which adds value to the work or strategy. Curated content must be interactive and seek comments, while also crediting sources and answering questions. It must be well written and well presented. 90 per cent of marketers surveyed said that curated content will establish your company as a thought leader, will support lead generation and improve search engine optimization.

Another best practice is to outsource your blogs to external staff by lining up a team of ‘guest bloggers.’ In fact, 56 per cent of marketers surveyed say they use non-paid, volunteer guest bloggers while 24 per cent use paid freelancers. Only 14 per cent use paid writing agencies. Another key strategy is striving for high-quality, long form, blog posts. With 52 per cent of those surveyed recommending that blog posts average 500-words or more, there is a growing need for depth and quality in business blogging.

Get creative with the variety of channels available by working with social media teams and leverage paid media to promote the blog. In fact, 39 per cent of leading business bloggers recommends sending a newsletter with blog content every week or more. This strategy clearly aligns with the idea of repurposing blog content either through employees and advocates who will share content, or prominent influencers in your blog posts who will share with their networks and expand your reach. Finally, 42 per cent of marketers recommend that the team use blog metrics to measure impact on sales through both the initial sharing, engagement or retention of the blog post and then consider the long term impact on the sales and marketing pipeline.

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