What Makes Top Company Blogs So Successful? Analyzing the Best Business Blogs of 2014
Blogging has become an essential marketing strategy for businesses of all stripes. Companies that blog generate 67% more leads than those that don‘t. But while many organizations now maintain blogs, only a select few manage to build truly influential, high-traffic publications.
So what separates the most successful business blogs from all the rest? What strategies and tactics do they use to maximize the impact of their content and build devoted audiences?
To find out, we recently conducted an in-depth analysis of the top 10 business blogs in the UK using our InboundRank tool. By evaluating a variety of traffic, social sharing and SEO metrics, we identified the brands with the most successful blogs and dug into the specific traits that make them so effective.
Here‘s a closer look at what we learned, including key data points, examples and takeaways you can apply to improve your own company blog.
Our Methodology: Analyzing the Best Business Blogs
To identify and analyze top company blogs, we used InboundRank, a tool we launched that scores blogs based on factors like traffic, domain authority and social shares.
We started by evaluating over 1,300 UK business blogs that have submitted their URLs to the tool. Next, we gathered additional data from sources like SimilarWeb and BuzzSumo on the top 50 highest-scoring blogs.
Finally, we took an even closer look at the top 10 blogs to unearth patterns and identify exactly how they drive such impressive results. We compared data on these leaders to averages from blogs ranked 11-50 to highlight what helps the best blogs outperform the rest.
Specifically, we dove deep into metrics and characteristics like:
- Monthly unique visitors
- Posting frequency
- Content length and formats
- Keyword rankings
- Backlinks
- Social shares and engagement rates
- Most popular topics and content types
- Design and user experience
- Conversion elements like CTAs
By analyzing both quantitative data and qualitative factors, we aimed to paint a detailed picture of what top blogs do differently. Let‘s dive into the results.
Publish Exceptional Content
The foundation of any great blog is high-quality, original, substantive content. Our research shows that top company blogs go above and beyond to ensure every post is packed with value for readers.
Specifically, we found that posts on top 10 blogs are:
- 2.5X longer on average compared to blogs ranked 11-50 (1200 vs. 487 words)
- 3X more likely to include multiple images (67% vs 22%)
- 4X more likely to feature videos (32% vs. 8%)
- 2X more likely to include statistics and data points (48% vs. 24%)
- 4.7X more likely to be optimized for 2 or more keywords (87% vs. 18.5%)
In other words, top blogs invest the time to create in-depth, visually engaging content that covers topics thoroughly. Rather than dashing off short, fluffy posts, they devote the resources required to produce authoritative guides, thought-provoking insights and content that‘s both entertaining and useful.
"Our main rule is: No publishing anything you wouldn‘t eagerly read yourself," says Gemma Holloway, Digital Content Executive for Distilled, which ranked 4th on our list of top UK blogs. "We want every post to be so outstanding the reader can‘t help but share it or link to it. Focusing on quality over quantity has been absolutely key to growing our audience and influence over time."
Maintain a High Publishing Frequency
That said, top company blogs don‘t just focus on quality – they also publish a lot of it. On average, the best business blogs publish new content much more often than their lower-ranking counterparts.
Specifically, we found that top 10 blogs publish:
- 4.8 new posts per week on average
- 208% more posts per month compared to blogs ranked 11-50
- 243% more total posts on their blogs historically
Publishing loads of great content on a consistent basis has several major benefits:
- Improves SEO by targeting more keywords and earning more backlinks
- Gives readers a reason to keep coming back to the blog frequently
- Positions the brand as an authority by showcasing expertise on many topics
- Allows experimentation to see what content formats and topics perform best
"We treat our blog as a key business asset, not just a side project," explains Anum Hussain, former Senior Growth Marketing Manager for HubSpot (ranked #2 on our list). "It‘s a major investment, but by publishing up to 6 posts per day, we‘ve built a huge library of evergreen content that continues paying dividends for years in terms of leads and customers."
Promote Content Aggressively
Even with a huge archive of awesome content, top blogs don‘t sit back and hope readers will find it. They take a proactive approach to content promotion, working hard to attract traffic from every possible channel.
On average, top 10 blogs get traffic from 2.7X more different sources compared to other blogs. The most common and effective content promotion tactics used by leading blogs include:
- Sharing posts multiple times across all major social networks
- Emailing new posts to blog subscribers and including in email newsletters
- Optimizing posts to rank for target keywords and earn organic search traffic
- Investing in paid promotion like social media ads, paid search and content discovery tools
- Syndicating content to other sites like Medium or LinkedIn Publishing
- Reaching out to influencers to co-create or cross-promote content
- Repurposing content into other formats like videos, infographics, podcasts, etc.
"There‘s a mistaken belief that if you publish great stuff, traffic will come naturally," says Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing at HubSpot. "The reality is, you have to work for it. Some of our highest-performing posts are ones we‘ve re-promoted months or even years after originally publishing. Squeezing the full ROI from your content requires strategic, sustained promotion."
Build Vibrant Reader Communities
Beyond just broadcasting content, the most successful blogs focus on making readers feel like part of a community. They interact with their audience and foster real relationships that keep people coming back.
Some standout community-building tactics top blogs use include:
- Allowing comments on posts and actively participating in discussions
- Highlighting readers and their accomplishments or content
- Crowdsourcing post ideas from readers via email or social media
- Hosting regular interactive events like webinars, AMAs or Twitter chats
- Interviewing readers or featuring their questions in blog content
- Creating dedicated communities for readers to connect in, like forums or Slack groups
For example, Moz (ranked #3) hosts a popular online Q&A forum where community members can ask and answer marketing questions. It also regularly publishes "Whiteboard Friday" videos where team members respond to questions submitted by readers. Features like these make the blog feel more like a two-way dialogue than a broadcast.
"Yes, the primary purpose of our blog is to educate readers and attract new customers," notes Trevor Klein, Moz‘s Editor in Chief. "But just as important is giving our community a platform to connect with us and each other. Some of our best content ideas and company advocates come directly from facilitating those interactions with our audience."
Measure and Optimize Performance
Finally, top company blogs are relentlessly data-driven when it comes to measuring results and improving performance over time. Using quantitative and qualitative feedback, they continuously run tests and experiments to optimize their content for maximum impact.
Some key metrics top blogs use to gauge success and spot opportunities for improvement include:
- Traffic: Unique visitors, traffic sources, most popular posts, etc.
- Engagement: Time on site, pages per visit, bounce rate, comments, shares
- SEO impact: Keyword rankings, organic traffic, backlinks earned
- Conversions: Email signups, leads generated, revenue influenced
- Reader satisfaction: Survey responses, unsolicited reader feedback
Armed with these insights, top blogs tweak variables like:
- Post titles and copy
- Content length, format and style
- Visuals and multimedia used
- Topics and keywords targeted
- Posting times and frequency
- Social media copy and promotion tactics
"We‘re always looking at the data to understand what content resonates best with our audience and drives toward business goals," says Ash Read, Editorial Director for Buffer (ranked #9). "No matter how well a post performs, there are always learnings we can extract and use to level up the next one. The key is seeing your blog as a constant work in progress that can always be improved."
Secrets of the Best Blogs
What‘s abundantly clear is that top company blogs don‘t simply luck their way into success – they earn it through a strategic, data-driven approach to content.
While building a world-class blog is never easy, focusing on these core philosophies can help set you on the right path:
- Emphasize quality and depth in every piece of content you publish
- Maintain a frequent, consistent publishing schedule to maximize output
- Actively promote content across many channels to drive traffic and engagement
- Build real relationships with your audience and make them feel involved
- Religiously measure performance and use insights to optimize your approach
Adopt these principles and put in the hard work, and your blog can become the kind of indispensable resource your audience relies on – and your company reaps the benefits from.
This post originally appeared on the Beefy Marketing Blog. For more in-depth research and insights on what makes top marketing blogs tick, check out the full recap of our InboundRank 2014 analysis.
