Did you know that there are bloggers out there who get most of their traffic from social media? You could achieve the same feat for your business, also, but to do that, you will have to be strategic, deliberate, and creative. Not everyone who has a following on social media is able to translate this into substantial traffic to their blog.

Is a blog a marketing tool or a sales tactic? The answer is yes. A blog that’s a forum for educational content that resonates with your target personas is both. Blogging has long been identified as a productive marketing tool. Blogging supports marketing’s objectives when its' content attracts new visitors to your website and helps convert those visitors to leads. However, if that’s the only function of your blog, then you’re missing out.      

Creating compelling B2B content is only half the battle when it comes to a solid content marketing strategy for your business. While your content must be grammatically correct, educational, formatted properly, and a good representation of your brand, it must also be strategically created following proven best practices that most inbound marketers follow. These tactics are what help ensure your content isn’t just interesting or nice to read, but ultimately driving prospects closer to doing business with you and taking some kind of action or next step.

“They” say a picture is worth 1,000 words. As a content manager with a marketing background, I started thinking about this. Who is “they,” and how do “they” know? Even more… if a picture REALLY is worth 1,000 words, then that picture is worth the investment, so why don’t more brands invest in great pictures?

By nature, humans are very visual. When processing visuals, we use 30% of our brains, and yet we only use 8% for touch and 3% for hearing. Research has found that after hearing information, people only remember 10% of it three days later, but they remember 65% of the information if a relevant image accompanies the information.

For a long time, we recommended hosting all your content on your own website — after all, you own your content, and you want people spending time on your website, not someone else's. But the way people consume content and look for information online is changing, and marketers need to change along with it.

Today more and more businesses are enhancing their online presence with a blog. Marketers are discovering that a blog is great way to keep their websites fresh, continually attract new visitors, and generate new sales leads. However, you probably won’t see a significant and sustained increase in traffic by just adding a blog to your website. And even if you do, the visitors that you attract may not necessarily be ideal prospects for your business. Blogging, in and of itself, is not the solution to all your marketing objectives. An effective blog requires a well-thought-out content strategy and disciplined execution. The subject matter of the content that you write and publish does matter. It’s the content that dictates the success of your blog. 

Many business leaders and marketing professionals have recognized that blogging is an ideal way to communicate their unique perspective to customers and prospects. People who are actively exploring purchasing a product or service may not be willing to schedule a meeting with a sales person, but they will educate themselves about potential solutions by reading relevant content they find online. 

Business blogging is a great tool that companies can use to demonstrate thought leadership and communicate their level of expertise. It’s an ideal way to attract prospects who are trying to decide what company to hire, because it helps to build trust even before the first conversation happens.

But although blogging is great, the real power comes when it’s integrated into an inbound marketing system. What if you were able to capture the contact information of the people visiting your blog? What if you were able to learn exactly what these people are interested in, so you would know what to write about? What if you had a way to lead them from reading your blog to making a purchase? Inbound marketing can do all these things.

As part of the LeadG2 series on "The 10 Commandments of Inbound Marketing," this post looks at the ninth of The 10 Commandments of Inbound Marketing is: "Thou shall not publish content for the sake of Google. Write for humans not Google." (Tweet This)

When it comes to blogging as part of your inbound marketing strategy, the world really is your oyster. I don’t ever like to say there is one type of post or content that is better than another. I personally believe, as with many aspects of marketing, it’s all about creating something of value and doing lots of testing, trial and error, and optimization. You’ll never know if one kind of blog post will work with your target persona unless you try—so why not mix it up?

To help you get the inspiration flowing, I’ve outlined five different types of blog posts that every writer and marketer should explore. These are some of the most common, and are proven to work. So, if you find yourself constantly sticking to one kind of blog post, review this list and give another one a shot. You might be surprised at the response you get!