Writing an engaging blog post doesn’t come naturally to all writers.
That task can be even more challenging when you’re writing technical topics for B2B blogs.
Luckily, when you know what elements make the content more engaging, the topics you write about don’t have to prevent you from keeping your readers’ attention.
If you want to learn how to turn any blog post into engaging content, keep reading—we have some great tips for you.
Table of Contents
Create a Writer Persona
When you have a B2B tech blog, you are not broadcasting to just anyone.
Your topics are aimed at a particular audience and, as a result, they can get very specific.
Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that; you have your readers and want to offer them some quality content that covers their needs and pain points.
However, that brings up another possible issue—your writing may get too technical and dry.
And according to Thomas Griffin, that can make engaging readers a challenging task.
Source: Fortis
The solution isn’t necessarily to come up with never-seen-before, fascinating B2B tech topics for each blog post; a more sustainable option is to really nail your writer’s persona.
In other words, you should find your voice, build an identity in your writing, and be consistent about it.
Keep in mind that just because topics might be highly technical and niche, that doesn’t mean that you can’t choose to write in a laid-back tone or even throw in a joke or two.
Of course, you can also choose to be edgy, stern, or employ any other writing style that you feel connects with your audience the best.
The important thing is to be authentic, making you stand out in the sea of tech bloggers.
Just think about what glimpses of your personality you could show through the written content, and what would be appropriate for your target audience.
You can establish your writer persona even with something small. For example, Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu often starts his articles in a particular way.
Source: blog.bhanuteja.dev
Here’s another example of his writing.
Source: blog.bhanuteja.dev
As you’ve probably noticed, he likes to start his posts with a quick “Hello world”.
That’s seemingly insignificant, but it accomplishes a number of things: it sets up a relaxed and friendly tone, serves as a signature intro, and brings up a sense of familiarity in readers when they see it.
Creating your own writing persona gives your readers something dependable and reliable to go back to. If you already have good content, that can be a welcome boost.
Improve User Experience
Your blog posts can be super interesting, filled to the brim with useful information, and yet, there’s one element that can determine how engaging your blog is—user experience.
If you don’t provide your readers with a pleasant reading experience, your effort to produce great content can be in vain; they’ll simply move on to other blogs that are easier to read.
So, what can you do to improve the user experience?
Let’s explore a few helpful options.
To kick things off, consider structuring your writing in short paragraphs—no more than three to four lines long.
Take a look at the two examples below. It’s immediately clear which one is more easy on the eye.
Source: Inter-web
Writing in shorter paragraphs will make reading easier, and immediately keep readers longer on the page.
Besides paragraph length, font size can also impact the user experience.
A font that is too small makes reading a chore. A blog post can have great content, but if the font is too small, you risk that some readers won’t even bother with it.
That means blog visitors might abandon your content, and look for another article on the same topic but with a more peasant reading experience.
The example below doesn’t have an ideal typeface solution:
Source: Usabilitygeek
So, how big should the font be?
Derek Halpern from Social Triggers recommends using a font size of at least 16 pixels.
It isn’t rare that some blogs use even bigger sizes; articles at Medium have a font size of 21px.
Our blog uses something in between—a font size of 18 px.
Source: Font Picker
The next thing you can consider is font style.
Some fonts are more readable, and some are less; it’s hard to point to just one as the best. There hasn’t been a clear consensus whether Serif or Sans Serif fonts are better for legibility.
Besides smaller paragraphs and the right typeface, try to also optimize the height between the lines of text, the width of your blog (narrow is always better), and the size of images used in blogs (horizontal are better than vertical).
All these small details add up and can make or break the experience readers have with your blog content.
To help you optimize the reading experience, you can use tools like the Golden Ratio Typography calculator.
It’s designed to provide a system that includes line height and width, spacing, font size, and other elements that can improve the user experience of your blog.
Source: grtcalculator
With the choice readers have today, they can quickly turn away from your blog if they conclude that reading it is too much of an effort.
Optimizing their reading experience can prevent that and pay off in the long run.
Feature Other Experts on Your Blog
Just because it’s your blog, it doesn’t mean that every piece of information you give your readers needs to come from your own mind or experience—on the contrary.
Featuring other industry experts on your blog can benefit your content in multiple ways.
First off, citing someone respected in their field in your blog post gives it more credibility.
People trust experts, and the data supports that. For instance, 85% of people seek expert and credible content when they want to make a purchase.
Source: Fortis
We can apply the same logic to writing blog posts—an expert sharing a few thoughts on the subject can make the content more engaging to the readers.
Another benefit is that other experts can help you reach more readers.
For example, if you reach out to someone to interview them for a blog post, that can result in engaging content for your readers, but also, your interviewee will usually share your blog post on their own social media.
Getting expert opinion for your blog post AND networking?
Sounds like a win-win to us!
Here’s an example.
Andréa Catel de Prates Soares, a social media specialist and marketing manager at DSI gave an interview to Vera Content and shared the article with an interview on her LinkedIn page.
Source: Linkedin
Interviews are great, but also time consuming. Luckily, they aren’t the only way to include expert thoughts in your blog content.
You can also enrich your post with expert opinion that’s already out there, in other sources.
You can find someone’s opinion relevant to the topic you’re writing about on their social media or quote interviews published in other blogs.—there are many possibilities.
Let us give you an example.
Say you’re writing about metrics for measuring the productivity of software developers.
First, you’ll need to find out who are the prominent thought leaders in this field who could be outspoken about this matter.
Once you find them (hint: Google “developer productivity influencers” or do a Twitter search for the topic.), you can quote them.
For example, you can include an opinion from a knowledgeable figure like Allen Holub.
He’s active on Twitter and likes to post about that topic.
Source: Twitter
You can use his opinion to support your argument in the article and make your content more engaging. Below is an example of how we did it for one of our clients.
Source: Shake
Bottom line, don’t be afraid to feature experts on the topic you’re writing on in your blog posts.
They can provide interesting insights that will engage your readers and bring more of them to your blog. Use that to your advantage!
Use Case Studies
Case studies add credibility and storytelling to your content, as they go in-depth about a time when a particular product or service solved some problem, which means they’ll make your content more relatable and engaging.
Here’s how Siobhán McGinty from Hubspot defines them:
Source: Fortis
Consumers trust case studies. Even in 2016, 73% of B2B buyers read a case study during their research.
Therefore, analytical content rich with data about a specific example incites the readers’ interest.
Whether you use your own case study where your product fulfilled a client’s need and write about it, or use someone else’s just to support your thesis, you’ll improve the engagement levels of your content.
Both works.
However, to make the most of the case study, use it while keeping the reader in mind.
That means you should put your reader’s needs in the center of your blog post. The point isn’t to rave about your business and show how great your product is.
Instead, you want to use it contextually and focus on the reader’s pain points. Try to make a story about it where the quality of your solution subtly shines through.
Mathew Stibbe, the CEO of Articulate Marketing, explains it like this:
Source: Fortis
A case study infused blog post that’s structured like that is more engaging than simply posting a bullet list about why your solution is great.
We can draw inspiration from Moz, for example. They feature people who use their SEO tools for their business. One example is the blog post Matthew Barby wrote for Moz.
He wrote a case study about how he used Moz tool to drive more traffic to his travel blog.
Source: Moz
He presented how Moz helped him, guiding the reader through every step he took. It’s an engaging story and a showcase for the product at the same time.
After all, if you can solve a problem, why not show that to your readers? We at Fortis also use case studies to demonstrate the outcomes of our content strategies.
In our article about content research, we used our own case study to back up a point we made about content skyscraper technique.
Source: Fortis
Case studies are mini stories about real companies, real problems, and real results. It’s no wonder they increase the engagement of your content.
Don’t miss out on a chance to use them.
Use Images, Videos and Other Visual Aids
Reading online is hard. Readers generally don’t find large blocks of uninterrupted text appealing to read. So we need to make reading easy.
A good way to do that and to make content more engaging is to use images and videos in your blogs.
But not just ANY images work. Those visuals should complement your text and not just be there for the sake of it.
Neil Patel explains it like this:
Source: Fortis
Using visuals can be beneficial in quickly drawing attention to your blog.
Let’s look at some data about that claim. For example, BuzzSumo analyzed blog posts with images.
It turned out that articles with one image per 75-100 words had double the shares of articles with fewer images. (This article has 23 images.)
Findings from Adobe’s Social Intelligence Report are even more in favor of visuals in articles; according to them, posts with images have a 650% higher engagement.
Source: Fortis
So, how to start with using engaging visuals in your blog posts?
Here’s a list of things you can do:
- Use a repeatable design style for featured/cover images.
- Turn any mentioned data into charts and graphs.
- Use screenshots to show, and not just tell.
Sure, you could use free online stock photo repositories like Pexels, Unsplash and Pixabay.
But stock photos aren’t very specific and they don’t convey much information. They are just optics, and often not educational enough.
It’s much better to use custom graphics and visuals that visually show what’s been written, and support your arguments.
For instance, if you have lots of data, percentages, and numbers in your blog post, you should consider supporting them with charts so your readers can digest them more easily.
Canva is great for that. It has many options to create unique images and build a distinctive visual style for your blog.
We at Fortis also use it. For example, we can create a chart in it, and then, we add it to the blog post to illustrate the statistic we’re mentioning.
Source: Shake
There are many possibilities with images, photos, videos, charts, etc. If you spice up your blog with them, the results will be noticeable.
Include Calls to Action
While blog content can bring a lot of attention to your brand, it doesn’t necessarily convert visitors into subscribers or buyers on its own. They need a little nudge.
A call to action is basically just that—an ask, or a prompt to readers to make a specific action.
CTA can take many forms:
- Sign up for our newsletter
- Sign up for a free trial
- Contact sales
- Download some gated content
- Book a demo
What you will choose, depends on the design of your sales funnel.
Perhaps you’ll guide blog readers toward a free trial for your SaaS, and perhaps you’ll guide them to your Youtube channel to warm them up first.
The best part of in-blog banners with CTAs is that they also serve as a visual aid that improves the user experience and breaks the monotony of reading.
So, make sure your CTA banners are also nicely designed. Here’s one basic example:
Source: Blog.hubspot
It addresses the readers’ need, in this case, an all-in-one marketing platform, and offers them a quick and easy way to take the next step towards it.
Some blogs opt for a CTA that follows readers as they scroll through the blog post. You can place it on the side or on the bottom of a page, like this one which tells readers to subscribe:
Source: Inter-web
Which CTA style you’ll use is up to your needs and preferences. However, don’t be shy to use them—they can engage your readers and turn them into loyal audiences and paying customers.
Conclusion
We hope that the tips we presented in this article showed you that content for B2B tech blogs can be more engaging.
You can take a seemingly dull and uninspiring topic and turn it into content that attracts readers.
For that, you need a good copy (of course), and knowledge of what makes blog content more engaging. After reading this article, you (at least) have the latter.
So go ahead: apply our tips to your next blog post, and watch the magic happen.
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