2 SECRET Content Marketing & B2B Blogging Mistakes 95% of B2B Startups Make!
Updated: May 31
What are the most common b2b blogging mistakes b2b startups make?
Are you wondering why people don’t read your b2b blog or startup content?
Chances are your startup or agency is making one or both of these 'deadly' content marketing and SEO mistakes today.
Content is king! Content is king!!
I’m positive you’ve come across this phrase more times than you can count.
Everyone is aware that content is king but is it really king?
Yes! But there's more.
Content is king but why do other businesses and marketers fail at content marketing?
My short answer?
Content PLUS effective marketing or promotion is actually king!
You can have the best content but no one knows about it.
According to this report, the biggest challenges for content marketing are reportedly a lack of data and a lack of strategy (according to the same report).
2 SECRET Content Marketing & B2B Blogging Mistakes 95% of B2B Startups Make!
Let me tell you something.
I'm not a fan of "SEO hacks".
Well, it’s simply because it is the (true) cause of all other content marketing mistakes digital marketers still make today.
B2b content pieces don’t fail because you don’t have a strategy.
It’s also not because you can’t write great blog posts.
You do have a content plan, a content calendar, and a clear goal that you want your content marketing efforts to aim at.
You may or may not publish on your business websites regularly but your posts barely cut through.
Maybe your business gets a few shares, and retweets on social networks but are your blog posts doing as you hoped they would?
Are they converting?
The problem here is; focusing too much on "SEO hacks" actually creating and promoting good content.
Are your b2b content pieces converting visitors to subscribers, and customers?
How many customers came from your content last month?
Do you generate at least 10,000 organic visitors to your business website monthly through your blog posts?
Firstly, here’s why SEO is the reason online marketers make these deadly content mistakes they don’t even know.
It’s simple…
The hunger for Google search traffic causes 99 out of 100 marketers and SEOs to FOCUS on creating content for GOOGLE rather than creating content for their target customers!
Content writers stuff keywords (AKA “keyword stuffing“) into sentences and paragraphs within blog posts just to rank higher.
Some even teach black-hat SEO strategies to help content marketers trick search engines like Google.
Here’s what this has caused:
Switching content headlines to suit and please search engines.
Stuffing so many keywords into articles to try to trick search engines into crawling faster.
Writing your articles strictly based on keyword research insights and not what your customers want (Quora).
Content marketers and your SEO crave Google traffic so much, they are willing to break the rules for it. (Black-hat SEO).
I lost a ton of Google traffic a while back and fell for Google’s penalties. Just because I wanted quick backlinks (thankfully search engine crawlers are paying less and less attention to backlinks or backlinks profiles).
Here's how it happened;
In pursuit of quick backlinks, young me paid for a $10 SEO tool (that I came across on IG stories) and began running the backlink campaigns.
Within a few months, my website and blog dropped off Google, and my organic traffic which was around 5,000 monthly visits dropped to 100. It hurt my business so much, I had to relaunch the website with a different domain (ZAKUSimon.com).
Online business owners and marketers strongly believe Google is the blood they need in order to survive as a business.
You see, the 2 common content marketing mistakes to avoid at all costs.
Writing blog posts strictly for search engines. AND;
Not having a clear understanding of the structure of a healthy blog post designed to take your customers on a marketing or sales journey.
#1. B2B Blogging Mistakes to Avoid: “Writing Content Strictly for Search Engines & Not for Customers”.
Focusing on SEO during the first few months as a digital business or brand forces the team to skip out what I call the 3 Es of creating high-converting blog posts for every online business.
Every content your startup publishes must:
Entice your target audience to read.
Educate and enlighten them on a specific topic.
Excite them about your products or services.
Over the past 10 years in my content marketing career, I've worked with this strategy.
Every blog post that I write and publish for my clients must possess these 3 elements to succeed.
From my experience writing tens of thousands of words, I’ve found that most successful b2b blog posts have all 3 (or at least 2).
Content marketing is about getting people excited about a particular topic with the hopes of getting a return for your business or startup.
The power to entice your audience to be hungry for your content is key.
Each blog post must have a unique angle to lure readership to your blog. It could be using your headlines or within the main content.
Your blog posts can focus on educating each reader on a particular topic. You should be able to tell us the one problem or challenge each blog post will help your readers solve.
I try to answer this before and after writing every blog article here or for my content clients.
SEO plugins or Google tools can also stop content creators from hitting these key fundamentals for every blog content they write.
You find yourself writing content strictly based on keywords that Google keyword planner tells you to.
Your competitors are also doing the same.
They all have keyword planning tools and whatever plugins that you have too. Stuff keywords and phrases the same way your startup does.
Yoast (an SEO tool), tells you to "add 16 keywords appearances", your competitors also get the same recommendations too.
I used to write for a company sometime in 2018 and all I was told to do was to write a 1200-word article each week on different topics that I was given and ensure it was so perfect.
The owner of the agency then sent me weekly briefs on articles to write. These documents usually contained:
Number of words (usually 500 to 1300),
Target keywords (always more than one target keyword),
Number of appearances each keyword MUST have,
The number of each keyword per paragraph.
Come to think of it.
Are these articles helping your readers solve certain pain points or answer questions they ask daily?
After reading your most recent blog post, will readers be SUPER EXCITED to share these articles with their circle?
How about you begin answering real, organic questions your target customers are asking in group chats, forums, and communities?
During the early stages of working with 2 SaaS startups, we’ve had great successes and fails with content marketing, and here’s one thing I noticed with these;
Most content campaigns fail to perform when we focused our strengths on "SEO tricks" which, unfortunately, is a long-term game.
The SEO game has changed, content marketing has changed mightily and I see a continuous trend in this drastic change.
Google is no longer in the business of delivering up lots of answers. Instead, it’s in the business of delivering a single answer—without the need to click Mike Stelzner, founder Socialmediaexaminer.com
Content marketing is a fast-growing channel today – In fact, 84% of people expect brands to produce content that entertains, provides solutions, and produces experiences and events.
This has led to a high increase in the number of content put out by marketers, startups, and online business owners. There are over 5 million blog posts published daily.
And guess what?
Your competitors are creating these articles too.
Your online business is using the good, old SEO plugins your competitors are using. Making you use the same number of keywords, headline length, and similar SEO hacks to rank on generate traffic and rank high.
You optimize all your content pieces with the same keywords your competitors are optimizing for.
Don’t you already see the biggest mistake you’re making with your content marketing plan?
You’re doing the same thing every other online business or digital marketer out there is doing.
What makes your startup content unique?
Why should your readers click your headline (not your competitors) and read through it?
To create a better content marketing plan that works, you must think outside the box.
What are your goals for your digital business and how can you devise a unique strategy to reach these goals?
#2. B2B Blogging Mistakes to Avoid: Not having a clear understanding of the structure of a healthy b2b blog post.
If your b2b blog posts aren’t performing as you expected, then there’s a high possibility you’re writing your articles wrongly.
Do you know what a healthy b2b blog post looks like?
Well, every blog post you publish should focus on achieving a specific objective.
To cite an example, the objective of this blog post is to see that I create awareness of the 2 most common content mistakes and eventually help people avoid these mistakes.
With this goal, I created a list of possible questions that marketers ask that may concern this topic.
I use Quora and Google for this. This way, I understand what people want to learn and ensure my article answers it.
Understanding the structure of a healthy blog post is key to a successful blog for your business. Your blog posts should have a definite structure that works.
I have a special template you can use for each blog post you write.
The structure of a post defines how well it will perform. I’ve written tens of thousands of blog posts online using this same template and it works well – it has helped me rank dozens of blog posts on Google’s first page.
This structure will include every major detail of your blog posts. Starting from the blog post topic down to the conclusion of each post.
Doing this also helps you write faster and better.
Having a blog post outline before you begin writing any post simply ensures the post performs the way it should.
Every section of your blog post outline should have an objective and when writing, this objective must be kept in mind.
5 Actionable Steps to Creating an Effective B2B Blogging Strategy for Your Startup
How do you write an effective B2B blog strategy?
How do you create a defined content strategy so that you can join the 43% of B2B marketers who reported that “blogging” is the most important content they produce?
Step 1: Stop writing content for search engines and begin writing content for your customers.
All content pieces you publish should follow the 3 Es of writing useful content for your customers.
Step 2: Document 3 to 5 main, organic content distribution channels that every new piece you publish must go through.
To help guide you create the perfect distribution plan for your digital, start by answering these 3 questions;
Where do my customers gather to chat online?
Is it easy to reach them through these channels? If it’s easy (and everyone can do it), then it’s probably not a good channel to aim at.
Are these channels groups, forums, or other blogs or websites?
Powerful and actionable content marketing strategies:
Proper and rigorous email outreach to industry influencers (not easy because no one wants to do cold reach outs)
Podcast interviews and mentions (there’s a growing need in the audio content space).
Facebook Ads to promote your blog posts (most times, SaaS startups run ads that lead directly to free trials or sales. You can stand out by promoting content that educates and adds value to your customers.
Facebook groups reach outs (also not easy because it involves reach outs).
Step 3: Document all your plan down and schedule (or outsource) all tasks for the next 30-40 days. If you don’t have the luxury of time to write long-form blog posts yourself, you can hire me and my awesome team for these tasks.
Step 4: Begin implementation. After putting down a powerful content distribution plan for your business, implementation is the next step. Ideas or strategies without implementation are as good as not having made a plan at all.
Finally, Step 5: Frequently revisit your content marketing strategy. After the first 30-40 days, revisit the content marketing plan to check what has been implemented, what worked, what failed, and what needs improvement.
There’s no ‘one plan fits all’.
After the first 30-40 days of implementing my unique content marketing plan, avoid these common b2b blogging mistakes by online businesses, your startup website should expect to see tens of thousands of people consuming your content as content marketing is a long-term game that takes weeks, months, or even years to fully develop.
Let us know what you think using the comments section.
Looking for a professional freelance content marketing team for your startup or digital business? Be sure to contact me to see how I can help you create and market exceptional blog posts that grow your business and traffic.