How to Get Better Results from Your Business Blog: 9 Data-Backed Tips for 2024

I’m on a mission to help you get better results from your business blog!

And, one way to improve your blog’s performance is to see what actually is and isn’t working for real-life small business marketers and bloggers.

This type of first-hand insight and experience could make your job of content marketing much easier. You’d gain insider knowledge about the effectiveness of blogging for small businesses and what makes it successful.

And, you’d know which blogging tasks to invest in and which ones to skip or move to the “nice-to-have” wish list. As a small team or solo marketer, this is a big win for marketing productivity and your success, yippee!

So, where can you find this magical insight?

Thanks to Orbit Media, you can discover what’s working in small business blogging with their Annual Blogger Survey. (Queue the clouds disappearing and sunlight beaming down as a choir of angels sing!)

Let’s review some of the high level takeaways from the survey with my perspectives thrown in for good measure. If you need help making informed decisions when it comes to blogging for your business, then this article is for you!

About the Blogging Statistics Survey from Orbit Media

The survey tracks trends in blogging and content marketing. It also includes feedback from industry experts.

This year, they had 1,051 responses from individual bloggers (including me!). These are not companies, brands, or groups. The participants likely skew toward LinkedIn users, B2B marketers, and people in the US that are active in business blogging.

Hopefully, that pool of respondents means the feedback will be more useful and relevant to you as part of a small marketing team or a solo marketer.

Plus, the questions are better suited to what you’re doing as a small team trying to manage business blogging.

Finally, the survey is current. The responses were collected in July and August 2023, and the results were published in October 2023.

Blogging Is Not Dead: It is Still Effective

First off, is blogging a worthwhile marketing tactic in 2024? Yes!

Small business blogging still delivers results. So, breathe a sigh of relief: you won’t have to resort to dancing on Tik Tok after all! 🤣

A whopping 82% of respondents reported that blogging delivers results. About a quarter described strong marketing results from blogging.

Only 7% of respondents described blogging as delivering disappointing results.

When it comes to a blog that “delivers results,” what does that mean? Respondents identified the following as success metrics:

• website traffic,
• lead generation,
• brand awareness, and
• email list growth.

So, if one or more of those are blogging goals of yours, then you’re in luck!

Let’s dive into the survey data and how to get better results for your business blog.

1) Invest Time and Effort into In-Depth Content

While the average blog post takes almost four hours to write, the bloggers who spent 6+ hours per post reported stronger results.

And, whereas the average post is about 1,400 words, the bloggers who wrote 1,500 – 3,000+ got stronger results. In fact, the more in-depth and longer the post, the better the results!

Furthermore, publishing content daily continues to outperform all other publishing frequencies. So much for content overload!

Now it makes sense why blog posts take more time these days. It’s a case of “go big or go home.”

But, the data showed that long-form content and high frequency publishing are mutually exclusive content strategies. So, don’t be thinking you must publish 3,000+ word posts daily!

According to Orbit Media, there’s a steady decline in frequency, which—together with other trends—suggests a “professionalization of blogging where quality is prioritized over quantity.”

If you’re like 60% of the respondents who write 500 – 1,500 word posts, you may want to consider beefing up your content to make it more comprehensive and competitive. Assess your content marketing metrics to determine what makes sense for your business and your resources.

The good news here is that nowadays you can take advantage of AI (artificial intelligence) tools to support your blogging efforts. From generating ideas and outlines to writing drafts or more, AI tools can act as a content marketing assistant.

Whether you use AI tools or not, be sure to always start with a content strategy to guide your work. After all, it won’t matter how much time you spend on a post if your content isn’t optimized to reach your ideal target audience and support your business goals!

And, consider hiring help if you do decide to “go big.”

2) Use Gated Content for Lead Generation and List Building

Although educational and list content are the most popular formats, they are not the most effective.

Respondents reported that long-form guides, ebooks, and gated content get the best results. That’s no surprise since together these formats directly, positively impact email list growth and lead generation.

After all, guides and ebooks are popular formats for downloading, which typically goes along with “gating,” or asking for an email before giving a person access to content. In tandem, these types of content account for attracting leads and building an email list of subscribers, both of which are popular business blogging goals.

This is an old school lead generation tactic, but it remains a dependable one. And, it is a tactic that is especially perfect for blogging since blogging is a great medium to promote gated content.

However, you’ll get better results from your business blog if you combine lead generation with:

• targeted messaging,
• content strategy, and a
• sales funnel.

This is because you want to attract a targeted audience of warmer leads with your gated content and present them with a cohesive campaign of follow up content (eg. emails, videos, etc.).

People rarely buy immediately; they need continuous and consistent follow up. So, if your blogging is to be successful, the gated content is only one step in transforming a website visitor into a buyer.

3) Add Video and Audio

As the availability of content increases so does the competition. How will you stand out? By doing more of what others are doing less of—in this case, video and audio content.

While images are important for readability, comprehension, and SEO, they are more common and expected. They don’t necessarily help you move the needle when it comes to connecting with your audience and turning them into a lead.

Yet, video and audio content can be the difference. In fact, bloggers using video and audio to complement their text report strong results.

Since video and audio are good for emotionally connecting with people, you’ll get better results from your business blog by incorporating them into your posts.

Blog, video, and audio are types of Authority Content that work together to:

• establish your knowledge and expertise,
• build trust,
• position you as a trustworthy, relatable, and likable expert; and,
• increase brand visibility and reach.

That’s why a business blog on your website is the perfect place to house all of this content as part of your own Authority Hub.

I can already hear you voicing your frustration at having more content to create! But, you don’t have to publish a YouTube vlog or a regular podcast to incorporate both audio and video into your blog posts.

For example, you can embed video posts from social media into a blog post. Likewise, there are tools and plugins that let you add audio or video formats to your posts.

In general, though, blogging has become more of a time commitment than in previous years. So, while it’s possible to do content marketing on a budget, consider what it takes to succeed.

4) Include More Visuals

If you’re popping a couple of visuals into your post, then you’re like most other business bloggers doing the bare minimum. 74% of bloggers use 1-3 images per post.

The thing is, like the other characteristics of content success in this survey, more is better—and that includes visuals. In other words, more images and videos correlate with better performance.

Going that extra mile—even if it’s adding only a few additional visuals to your posts—noticeably boosts performance.

People love visual content. And, visuals in your content marketing help conversions as well as comprehension and attention spans.

According to Zipdo, visual content is:

• 40x more likely to be shared on social media;
• 43% more persuasive than text alone;
• as trusted as personal recommendations for 91% of consumers aged 18-34; and,
• important for 60% of consumers who are more likely to consider or to contact a business when they see an image in search results.

Also, Wyzowl research shows that video marketing helps to increase leads and generate leads.

So, to get better results from your business blog, think about adding more visual elements into the mix!

5) Hire an Editor

Having a formal editing process or hiring an editor for your blog may be something you haven’t considered…but you should.

The survey showed that bloggers who work with editors get better results. Surprised? Nearly 3x more bloggers work with an editor now than in 2014!

I’m a huge fan of having a formal editing process. In fact, I’ve shared my writing and editing tips in our podcast because well-written and well-edited blog posts convey a professional, experienced, and credible vibe. My rule is to edit at least twice!

Skeptical about whether your writing matters to your business results? Well, nowadays typos and bad grammar are a red flag to consumers who worry about fraud and untrustworthy websites.

According to research by Website Planet, businesses with bad grammar and spelling mistakes on their sites will lose almost double the amount of potential customers than those with typo-free sites!

At the very least, incorporate a more organized, structured editing process to strengthen your writing and make you a better communicator. One or two typos make you look human, but sloppiness is never a good look for your brand.

And, if you’re not great at SEO blog writing, consider hiring an experienced blog writer (like me!). A professional SEO writer will make your blog more competitive and successful while freeing up your time to focus on revenue generating tasks.

6) Update Old Blog Posts

If you’re not taking the time to go back and update your older posts, it’s time to consider this strategy!

According to the survey, bloggers who update their old posts are twice as likely to report success.

However, deep diving into the data revealed that many of these bloggers are “SEOs,” which means they specialize in driving traffic to websites and ranking higher in search engine results pages. As such, they know the value in updating older posts when it comes to ranking higher in search engines.

Over the 10 years of this survey, a greater percentage of bloggers report updating their older posts. And hopefully you have this task on your content calendar too!

Regularly updating old blog posts helps to keep your content fresh and relevant, which your audience will like and Google will reward.

For example, digital marketing expert Neil Patel experienced a 96% boost in clicks over a five month period after refreshing a post. And, his site went from 53 keywords in positions 1-3 to 83 keywords in positions 1-3.

Even a small website like mine benefits from content updating. Case in point, I rewrote my post on content marketing metrics in March 2023. The update took it from ZERO clicks (7/22 – 3/23) to 47 clicks (3/23 – 11/23).

This is a super competitive keyword that I’ve included more for my audience than for ranking on page one. However, the update did take my average position for that post from 76.9 to 60.8.

Anyway, you may choose not to update all posts based on your existing metrics and ranking. Be strategic about it!

7) Promote Content Beyond Social Media Platforms

As CMO and Co-Founder of Orbit Media Andy Crestodina wisely points out, “the best content doesn’t win, the best promoted content wins.” Because if no one consumes your content, then it will be difficult to get better results from your business blog, right? You need traffic (aka targeted website visitors).

So, what are the best promotional channels and strategies to get more eyes on your blog?

Social media is the most widely used method for promoting blog content. A whopping 92% of respondents use social media to drive traffic to their blog. However, it’s also the least effective.

Bloggers who use paid services and influencer outreach as traffic sources report stronger results, although these are the least used promotional avenues.

SEO and email marketing have become more popular promotional methods over the 10 years of the survey.

Personally, these are the two methods I use. My use of social media has dwindled considerably over the past few years. Here’s why:

1. Social platforms have become less effective for driving traffic since they de-prioritize any content that pushes users to other sites.
2. I prefer referrals to generate leads for my consulting business. Referrals are better qualified leads that convert more often than social, SEO, and email.

With that in mind, you may be wondering why blog? Because it supports my sales process and serves as an example of my expertise and experience. Blogging also helps me to keep subscribers and followers engaged. Plus, it provides me with oodles of content for other platforms and uses.

So, do what’s right for you and your business when it comes to marketing and promotion. However, I do recommend SEO and email as ways to drive traffic to your content and promote your offers.

8) Optimize for Search Engines

Speaking of SEO, the survey found that bloggers who “pay more attention to keywords more often are more likely to report success.”

In other words, search engine optimization and blogging are a powerful duo for achieving more successful content marketing.

As the survey noted, organic search is more “durable” as a source of traffic as compared to social media and email. And, even a few big SEO wins can drive a lot of traffic and brand visibility.

The caveat, of course, is to make sure that you’ve chosen the best blog topics and keywords so that your content attracts your target audience as opposed to everyone and anyone.

In other words, spend time on content research. Find the keywords and topics that align with your offers and interest warmer leads. Pay attention to search intent and what terms support your content strategy.

Content research and SEO are time consuming, especially if you’re not an experienced marketer or knowledgeable in this area.  If this isn’t your area of expertise, consider hire a content marketing consultant to get better results from your business blog.

For tips on making your posts perform better in search engines, check out this article on SEO blogging.

9) Measure Content Performance

I say it all the time…what isn’t inspected, isn’t respected. Always be assessing and improving! This includes measuring your content’s performance–whether you use Google Analytics or other tools to check your metrics.

“Data drives content strategy.” – Orbit Media

Understanding what’s working and what’s not means that you can respond accordingly to improve your content marketing. Blogging isn’t a “one and done” task. You’ll always be tweaking and improving, reiterating and updating to get better results from your business blog.

Over half of the respondents (62%) check analytics usually or always, which may seem low but is actually pretty good in my opinion and experience.

This is another instance where the extra work and effort pay off since analytics correlate with results. The bloggers who use Google Analytics consistently are more successful.

An interesting side note from the survey: more experienced bloggers are more likely to use analytics tools.

So, if you’ve been shy about diving into your own analytics, take the cue from experienced business bloggers and start looking at your metrics. Use the data to guide your content choices and help you to make better, more informed business decisions!

To Get Better Results from Your Business Blog, You May Need to Put in More Work

As the survey results show, the “greater effort leads to greater rewards.” That’s probably not what you wanted to hear!

On the bright side, at least doing more of the right things proves to pay off rather than being a waste of resources.

If you find that you don’t have time for greater effort, then you’ll either need to maintain the status quo to keep tasks manageable or hire help so that you can focus on what you do best.

After all, if your main business is unrelated to marketing or writing, perhaps it’s a good time to hand over the blogging and content marketing to a professional. Profitable content marketing for small businesses is not always something you want to tackle alone.

A great big thanks to the team at Orbit Media for doing the survey each year and sharing the results. Don’t forget to visit the survey for loads of additional insight as well as golden nuggets from content marketing experts, including:

• The areas of struggle/challenges for bloggers
• What elements are driving results
• Who to collaborate with to get better results from your business blog
• The case for building on “rented land” versus your own assets
• More about bloggers and AI

They even have a scorecard to grade yourself as well as a helpful graphic that sums up the results if you’re one of those TL;DR folks!

Now you’ve got a good handle on what successful business bloggers are doing. Go forth and conquer your marketing with confidence! But, if you feel like you need help, don’t hesitate to contact me.