This article was originally published in the Elevate Your Marketing newsletter and has been repurposed and republished here with the author’s permission. Here is the link to the original article.
In the previous article, we looked at the first 6 steps of getting started with your B2B business blog. If you haven’t read the article yet, I suggest you do it for better context and continuity. Given below is the link:
B2B content marketing 101 – getting started with your blog – Part 1
In today’s article, we will cover the remaining 7 steps in detail.
B2B blogging strategy – part 2
To refresh your memory, given below is the 13-step framework I put together to help you get started with your blogging efforts.
7. Content structure and planning in B2B blogging
Giving a structure and creating a plan for your article before you start writing is an excellent way to organize your thoughts. This involves the following steps:
- Creating the structure of the article. Here is a sample structure template that you can use for any topic. You can also consider dividing your content into introduction, body, and conclusion.
- Planning and conducting the necessary research required to build the content.
- Developing a sense of related content you have already written on similar topics/subtopics, which can be used for internal linking purposes.
- Choosing any content writing framework you wish to use and organize various sections of the article accordingly, Some of the most popular content/copywriting frameworks include PAS (Problem, Agitate, and Solution), AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action), Before-After-Bridge, etc.
Also read: B2B Content Marketing Strategy – 7 Mistakes To Avoid
8. Identifying design requirements
This can be seen as a subset of the previous step. Here you identify any graphic design or video editing-related tasks required for the article.
For example, if you plan to embed a video in the article, you need to get the content as well as the editing done for it. Similarly, if you need to include an infographic, you need to get that designed.
To make sure both text-based and graphical/video content are created in parallel, you need to plan for these design requirements in advance during the planning phase itself. It will also help the content writer put the right placeholders for these items in the article.
9. Creating the first draft
This doesn’t require any explanation. As many expert copy and content writers say, when you write content, just WRITE. Don’t write and try to edit simultaneously, That helps you have your creative juices flowing without any interruption.
A few other best practices while writing the first draft are:
- Keep your target audience in mind, and make sure you write in their language.
- Make sure to include all insights, ideas, perspectives, data points, etc., you found out during your research in the content structuring and planning phase.
- Use easy-to-understand language, keep sentences short, and use short paragraphs.
- Ensure you incorporate the keywords you identified in the relevant areas of your content.
10. Finalizing metatags and link tags
This step involves checking your content for relevant keywords and links. While there are many metatags that you need to get right in a webpage, from a content standpoint, you need to get the following right:
- Title.
- Description.
- Heading tags.
Please go through this ahrefs article to learn more about different types of metatags and their best practices. You could also check out the article The 5 SEO Basics You Need to Master (No Technical Experience Required) to develop a basic understanding of how SEO works.
It is also important to optimize your content for external and internal backlinks. While the former helps improve the authenticity and credibility of your content, the latter helps you share your expertise by linking to relevant articles (or any other form of content) that you have written related to the topic of discussion. Internal linking also helps give more context to search engines about the page you have linked to. This will eventually help those pages rank better over time.
To learn more about external and internal linking, please refer the following articles:
- Internal Links vs External Links | Differences Explained
- SEO Best Practices For Spreading Link Equity With Internal Links
11. Reviewing and publishing
As I mentioned earlier, content review has to be seen as a separate process. Writing once and editing the content later helps to identify mistakes better since you approach it with a fresh mind. If possible, also get the content reviewed by the content head/manager and/or any of your peers.
Once you have done the review and finetuning, it’s time to publish the content. If there is the liberty of time, you could also review the content on the beta/test site so that you can see and feel how the content looks on the actual webpage.
One more practice I would recommend – which is not followed by more than 90% of the content writers – is to go back and read your content even after publishing. Trust me, this might lead to you spotting errors that you missed during your review process. At the same time, don’t overdo it either.
12. Creating a content calendar
A content calendar is nothing but your content planning sheet. It could have items like the article title, keywords, writer name, expected completion time, and more.
The calendar helps plan your content creation well in advance. It also helps you attain consistency, meet deadlines, and measure your content KPIs faster and more effectively.
Here is a sample content calendar you can use to get started. Be sure to make changes depending on the nature of your business and the content you create.
Note: A content calendar is not just meant for blogs. They can also include other content types such as case studies, whitepapers, videos, webpages, etc.
13. Repeat, measure, and improve
The first 12 steps have helped you establish a process for building your blog. The next step is to repeat this for every single article, every single week, every month.
Once you travel far enough with your blogging efforts, start measuring the outcomes. List down the KPIs you identified in step #2 (Establishing the right goals and KPIs). Establish tracking mechanisms to measure these KPIs. These include tools, people, dashboards, etc.
Now, use the visualizations and dashboards to identify the areas where you can make improvements to content. Go back and implement necessary changes accordingly. This has to happen as a continuous process.
One thing to note here is that not everything in blogging or content marketing in general can be quantitatively measured. So have some space in your measurement system to gauge the content quality as well.
Skalegrow – B2B content marketing agency
With marketing getting tougher and tougher, every wrong foot you make might hamper your growth. What you need is the right guidance and a helping hand. This is where Skalegrow can make a sea of difference.
Skalegrow helps IT, tech, SaaS, and embedded systems companies leverage new-age marketing tactics to grow their business. Check out the below intro video to learn more about what Skalegrow brings to the table:
Content marketing is one of our focus areas and we are already helping some of our clients generate leads and improve brand awareness using high-quality content. Visit our content marketing services page to learn more about how we can help. You could also write to us at info@skalegrow.com.
About the author
Naseef KPO is the Founder and CEO of Skalegrow. He comes with rich experience across multiple areas of B2B marketing including content marketing, demand generation, SEO, account-based marketing, marketing analytics, revenue attribution, marketing technology, etc. He writes thought-provoking and relevant articles on The Skalegrow Blog and his weekly LinkedIn newsletter Elevate Your Marketing.
Prior to starting Skalegrow, Naseef led large marketing teams in multi-million dollar B2B organizations where he made significant contributions to the topline growth of the business. He has also appeared on numerous podcasts where he shared his thoughts on trending marketing topics such as the application of AI in marketing, startup marketing, ABM, and B2B content marketing, just to name a few. Being the founder of Skalegrow, he is currently focusing on helping its clients stay ahead of their competition by using innovative yet practical marketing tactics.
You can connect with Naseef KPO on LinkedIn.
