Determining what your customers want to read these days can be a real struggle for any business owner. It can feel like a guessing game as you brainstorm blog topics, publish your post online, and hope for the best.
What stings the most is publishing your best work, and the only feedback received is crickets chirping.
It’s not a fun place to be.
So, how exactly do you know what your customers want to read without having to spend hours on your business blogging strategy? The truth is that you do need to dedicate some time to strategy—blogging for business is becoming more competitive than ever, and you can’t afford to waste time with topics that don’t contribute to your bottom line.
However, there are general guidelines that you can use to ensure that you do choose blog post topics that can hit the mark—and these 6 business blog post examples can help keep your blogging strategy on track.
1.How-To Blog Posts
This business blog post example is so simple and effective that it’s almost a no-brainer. How-To posts are easy to read and digest if you format them properly, and customers appreciate it when you take the time to walk them through a task. Best of all, How-To posts don’t have to be complicated—a topic that might sound simple to you could be confusing to your reader, and lending a helpful post can score a new customer in the end.
The best way to format How-To post is by using a numbered list. Numbered lists should be used if instructions need to be followed in a specific way, such as:
How to Bake a Cake
Step 1: Take Out Mixing Bowl
Step 2: Combine Ingredients in Bowl
Step 3: Mix Ingredients Together
Of course, you’ll want your posts to be meatier, but list formatting and descriptive steps is key for the How-To blog post.
2. Pop Culture Blog Posts
Pop culture posts are popular because they’re timely. The idea here is to weave pop culture topics into a post that is relevant to your product or business. You don’t want to simply report on celebrity gossip and call it a day—this will make you lose all credibility on your company blog.
So, how can businesses effectively integrate pop culture into their blogging strategies? It can be tricky, but a bit of creative thinking can go a long way.
For example, Window Depot USA wrote a blog post about why basketball superstar LeBron James would love their Triple Pane Windows. They timed this post around the announcement when LeBron was leaving the Miami Heat and coming back to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This was huge news in the sports world, and a lot of people were willing to read content relating to LeBron James at the time.
Of course, you have to be careful with how you approach this method. The content needs to remain relevant to your business and your product. And to err on the side of caution, you might want to sample this blog post example with a small mention of a celebrity or TV show and see how your customers react. If they respond well, you can add more pop culture blog posts to your strategy down the line.
3. Numbered List Blog Posts
List posts are one of the most popular and commonly shared types of content. Your customers enjoy lists for a variety of reasons-—and just to demonstrate, here are 5 reasons why list posts are a hit for any blog (and a list just seems appropriate here):
- List posts are educative and informative
- They’re easy to skim and understand
- Customers enjoy sharing list posts
- List posts are specific and customers know what to expect
- They’re fairly quick to read, which is perfect for customers on a time crunch
As you can see, list posts are easy to whip up and fun to write. While nothing is guaranteed when you’re blogging for business, list posts are a pretty safe bet for entertaining and educating your customers. And if you need a real life blog post example for this category, you’re reading one right now!
4. Top Tips Blog Posts
Most people welcome free advice—especially if that advice is relevant, helpful, and coming from an industry expert. As someone who knows all about your business, you’re in the perfect position to offer tips to make your customers’ lives easier. And best of all, Top Tips post can be relevant for a variety of industries, such as:
- Real estate agent tips for negotiating the best deal on a new home
- Attorney tips on what to do if you’ve been in a car accident
- Contractor tips for DIY projects
- Dentist tips for keeping your teeth clean between visits
- Blogging tips for educating businesses on how to create compelling content that converts (like you’re reading now)
5.Checklist Blog Posts
Checklist blog posts are a great way to give your customers something valuable and helpful at the same time. If you’re savvy with the computer, you can create a PDF checklist document that your customers can print out and use at their leisure.
Checklists are different than How-To blog posts because they condense a lot of information into short, specific actions. It’s not a how-to tutorial—you’re simply providing guidelines for your customer to follow in order to achieve a desired result. This is a checklist blog post example that a cleaning company could use for their customers: The Ultimate Deep Cleaning Checklist That Will Make Your Home Sparkle.
From there, the cleaning company can provide action items to check off, such as:
- Wash bedding
- Wash pillows
- Clean window treatments
- Wipe down baseboards
- Etc.
Similar to numbered list blog posts, customers like checklist posts because they are easy to skim and are very helpful when readers are in need of some direction.
6. Blog Post Series
Blog post series are perfect for discussing in-depth topics that can’t be covered in a single post. If you can’t sum up your topic in around 2500 words, you should consider breaking your post into a series.
A series also encourages customers to return to your blog to check back for updates. As long as the blog series topic is compelling and somewhat ends on a cliffhanger, you won’t have a problem with customers returning for more information.
Have You Used Any Of These Business Blog Post Examples?
If so, what was the outcome? Along with strategizing your blog topics, testing the waters with your content is a worthwhile task. Sometimes the type of blog posts your audience responds to will surprise you, so it’s important to stay on top of your best-performing content. Your analysis will give clues as to what your audience will want to read, leaving you with less detective work and more time to write awesome copy.
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