Category Archives: Blogging

5 Research Strategies that Create Awesome Blog Posts

5 research strategies behind awesome blog posts

As a freelance content marketing writer, I’ve been tasked with writing about a lot of different industries over the years. But even though I’ve never worked as a cybersecurity specialist or a customer service agent, I’ve managed to write blog posts about those subjects (and many others) that speak to an audience of experts. 

How is it possible for a freelance writer to learn enough on a new topic to write knowledgeably?

The short answer is research.

But that word covers a lot of territory. Doing effective research can take a number of forms. 

First Things First: Onboarding Research

For each new client, this starts with onboarding research.

I ask clients to provide me with internal resources that help me get up to speed on their brand and industry, such as a style guide and buyer personas. I have an onboarding questionnaire I send that asks for information like target audience details, their top competitors, industry publications they like and trust, and examples of pieces they like the style of. I spend time reviewing their website to understand how they talk about the brand and product. And I read a number of their blog posts to get a feel for the typical writing style and the kinds of subjects they cover.

All of that happens before I start on research for the first blog post. Some writers have a minimum work requirement for new clients to account for how much time goes into onboarding research. (I don’t personally, but 100% understand why other writers do. The time commitment is a lot).

5 Smart Research Strategies for Better Blog Posts 

Once I have a strong bearing on the brand, product, and industry, I can get into the research needed for the first blog post itself. In my experience, there are five main research strategies that lead to high-quality blog posts. 

Strategy 1: Use a mix of online research and internal resources.

This is probably the most obvious research strategy available, and it’s the one I personally use the most often. But that doesn’t mean it’s always the easiest. 

You have to know how to find good resources in your research and avoid being taken in by bad ones that are either outdated, written by biased sources, or straight up inaccurate. For example, bad statistics are extremely easy to find online and, as such, get repeated over and over again in new blog posts. Writers that care about using accurate, trustworthy statistics in their work have to do a lot of work to find them. 

You also have to understand how to take what you learn from existing sources and turn it into something original. You can’t just repeat what other writers have said and call it your own work. That’s called plagiarism and is a surefire way to lose clients, tarnish your reputation, and potentially get sued. Instead, you want to take what you learn from existing sources, identify the most important points that are relevant for your audience, and rework the information into something new.

One benefit to this strategy is that you can handle the work independently—that’s why it’s the most common method I use. It means work doesn’t get held up while I’m waiting on others for information, at least not as much as with some other research strategies. But for some specialized topics, you may have a hard time finding good information to work from. And you have to be careful that you don’t end up just regurgitating the same content already out there. That just adds to the glut of low-quality content in the world. 

Some tips for using this strategy effectively:

  • Start with internal resources from your client.

See what blog posts, case studies, and other resources your client already has that are relevant to the topic. Seeing what they’ve already written on the subject helps you situate all the other information you learn within their particular brand story and tie it into their audience’s concerns. If the client provides a writing brief for each piece, advise them to include this information so you have it from the start. 

This step is especially important for any pieces where search engine optimization (SEO) is a priority. Seeing what pieces rank at the top of Google now for relevant keywords tells you what kind of information Google’s algorithm (and by extension, its users) like seeing on the topic. SERP research can help you determine important sections to include, how long the blog post should likely be, and any notable factors the top results have in common.

Reading over the information covered in those pieces will also provide some of the information you’ll need to write a knowledgeable blog post. But be careful not to assume that just because a piece of content is on page one of Google, all its information will be accurate or relevant to your audience. Be discerning as you review the information out there now, and look for ways to improve upon what you found in your own blog post.

  • Go beyond blog posts in your research.

Reading other blog posts on the subject is part of a good research process, but it’s not always enough. You also want to look for original research that backs up the points you make, examples that illustrate what you’re talking about, and any customer stories relevant to the topic. You may not need to include all of those in every post—a lot depends on the topic and blog post format. But going beyond what’s easy to find with surface-level research is how you elevate a blog post into something useful for the reader. 

  • Don’t be afraid to ask your client questions. 

Part of being a good researcher is knowing how to recognize what you don’t know. Cover as much territory in your own research as you can, but if you know there’s information you still lack or nuances you’re not sure you understand: ask. 

Your client will know the ins and outs of the industry better than you, and have easier access to internal experts. For any client worth having, admitting you want help understanding a topic will be a sign of your professionalism, especially if it’s obvious that you did the work to learn as much as you could on your own first. 

Strategy 2: Collect source quotes from experts.

When you’re not an expert in an industry or topic yourself, one of the best ways to ensure your post reflects real-world experience is to learn from people who are. One form this can take is reaching out to a number of different experts in the topic area you’re writing about to ask for their input. Then you can base sections of your blog post on what you learn, and weave their quotes in to add authority. 

You can employ a few different strategies to find relevant experts. To start, pay attention to the network you already have and work on building it up over time. Any time you interact with industry experts—at networking events, conferences, or even on social media platforms—make a note of it. If you keep a list of experts and influencers in the spaces you write about, you’ll always have people to turn to for a quote. 

If you’re active on social media, you may not even need to reach out to individuals directly. “I see a lot of success by putting call-outs for quotes/expertise on Twitter,” says freelance writer, Ashley Cummings. “The niche I write for is very active on Twitter, so it’s a great place to source quotes. I’d tell any writer to find where their experts live and spend time building relationships.” 

That, along with a list she’s developed of go-to experts in the spaces she writes about, helps her craft pieces packed with expert insights, like this one on product detail pages. 

If you haven’t built up much of a professional network or social media following yet, don’t worry. You can use websites designed specifically to match sources with writers, such as Help a Reporter Out (HARO). Some topic areas will net you more responses than others, and you’ll need to sift through the responses you get to weed out any that aren’t relevant or useful. But I’ve had good luck using HARO to craft posts full of actionable tips, like this one on promoting your content. 

Speaking of content promotion, featuring experts is a smart way to expand the reach of your pieces. When you mention someone in a blog post, they’re usually quick to share the post with their own networks. That can help your blog post reach an audience that wouldn’t have found it otherwise. 

This strategy also doubles as a good way to grow your network, and strengthen your connection with people already in it. Getting a mention (and ideally, a link) in a blog post benefits them too. And mutually beneficial relationships is what good networking is all about.

Strategy 3: Perform subject matter expert (SME) interviews.

When you want to feature several experts in one piece, getting quotes over email or social media makes sense. But you can go deeper with a particular SME or two by conducting interviews over the phone. This strategy is a great way to learn about a topic in detail from someone who knows the subject in and out. And it gives you the ability to ask followup questions that come up in the moment based on what they tell you. 

Performing interviews is a common research strategy for ghostwritten pieces. The goal of ghostwriting is generally to combine a writer’s skill with an expert’s thoughts and knowledge.  You can better ensure a ghostwritten post accurately reflects what an expert thinks and the way they talk about it when you’ve had a discussion with them. 

But blog posts based on source interviews are useful in other contexts as well. A conversation with an expert ensures you can approach a complicated topic with greater accuracy. And by weaving quotes from an expert into your piece, you give it more legitimacy. When I wrote about data privacy laws for a client, talking to a lawyer gave me confidence I wouldn’t get a complex legal topic wrong, while also giving readers confidence that the advice is legitimate. And when I covered accounting for freelancers for another client, talking to my personal CPA (who also happens to be my mom) meant all the advice included was backed by someone with decades of experience in the field. 

Some tips for getting the most out of an interview:

  • Do preliminary research.

While the interview may cover a lot of the information you need for the piece, preliminary research ensures you know enough to write smart questions. 

  • Write questions in advance.

Go into the interview with a list of questions in mind, so you’re prepared. While your preliminary research will ensure you have some topic knowledge going in, I still find it valuable to ask beginner-level questions in order to hear how a source covers basic information in their own words. And don’t be afraid to deviate from the list and ask followup questions based on what your source says during the conversation.  

  • Record the call.

Even if you’re great at taking notes, it’s easy to miss things in the moment. A recording enables you to revisit what the SME said as you write. And if you’ll be quoting the SME in your piece, a recording is crucial for making sure you get the quotes right. I use Otter to record calls. It creates a transcription for you, which I find much easier to work from than an audio recording.

  • As your last question, ask “is there anything we haven’t covered you feel would be useful for readers to know?”

This gives the SME a chance to elaborate on anything about the topic they think is important. In my experience, sometimes you’ll get the best insights or quotes from what they say in response to this question. 

Strategy 4: Use the content from webinars, events, or podcasts.

Savvy content marketers understand the value of repurposing content. Creating content from scratch every single time is hard, time consuming, and wasteful. But using content you’ve already created as the basis for new content? That’s just smart. 

The webinars, in-person talks, and podcasts a business participates in are packed full of valuable information. A good freelance content marketing writer can use the insights your experts shared in these formats and turn them into awesome blog posts.

If you’re already offering webinars for your audience that feature internal experts, capture that knowledge in blog posts. The presentations employees and executives give at industry events and conferences are also blog opportunities. Even if a freelance writer isn’t present for the talk itself, a recording or the PowerPoint and notes the speaker used may provide enough information to work from. And if your brand has launched a podcast, or your experts have been guests on one, that’s yet another good source for new blog posts. 

This research strategy for blog posts has some notable benefits. 

For one thing, it gives you the chance to make the work you already did creating the original piece of content go further. But it also serves as a great opportunity to do further promotion for the original content. A blog post that summarizes the top points covered in a podcast can encourage readers to listen and subscribe to the podcast itself.  A blog post that recaps a webinar can include a call to action (CTA) at the end to check out the webinar recording, and thus serve as a lead generation tool.  

For in-person events that already occurred, it’s too late to use the blog post to encourage attendance. But you can use it to draw more attention to the knowledge of the speaker, helping to further build up their thought leadership profile. And the blog post can become a tool to promote your future events by showing how valuable a previous one was. 

After Andi Robinson gave a talk at the Bay Area Content Marketing Meetup, Rochi Zalani used this tactic to create a blog post that highlighted some of the main takeaways for the Attention Retention blog. The blog post helps promote the meetup, the business that hosts the meetup, and the speaker all at once. And it provides more valuable content for readers of the Attention Retention blog. It’s a win for everyone involved.

5. Write pieces based on original research. 

Blog posts based on original research are a powerful tool for earning links and mentions around the web and building up your brand’s online profile. Performing original research isn’t easy. You have to be willing to launch a survey and promote it to enough people to get a decent sample set, or perform a useful analysis of data (not a skill everyone has). 

Generally speaking, performing the original research itself isn’t something most freelance writers will do for you. It requires a different skill set than writing. But once you’ve done the research, a good freelance writer can help turn the data into a story that makes it compelling for your audience.

Ashley used this strategy on her own website when she launched a survey on what freelance writers charge. By doing the work to compile meaningful data, and then craft that data into an easy-to-understand blog post, she created a powerful marketing tool for her own freelance writing business. 

Orbit Media’s known for creating this kind of content too. Every year they publish an in-depth blog post based on their annual blogging survey that tracks data useful to every freelance blogger and company with a blog alike. They’ve reported that the posts about their blogging surveys have earned backlinks from over 1,600 websites, and over 4,000 shares.

This strategy isn’t quite as common as the others, because it’s harder to do well. But if you can pull it off, blog posts based on original research get some of the best results of any type of content. 

Good Content Marketing Requires Good Research

Writing a strong piece of content marketing isn’t just about finding the right words. You have to understand the topic you’re covering before you can write well about it. To produce an awesome blog post, you have to start with good research. A strong research process is one of the main things that sets skilled freelance writers apart.

7 Good Reasons to Hire a Freelance Blog Writer

Updated October 2020

For almost any question you have or any product you decide to buy, you probably turn first to the internet. Google—and to a lesser degree Bing, Yahoo and social sites like Facebook—has become a huge part of how we learn new information and make purchasing decisions. For businesses, that means online visibility plays an important role in being the answer people find when they go looking for what you offer.

And business blogging is one of the best tools you have for achieving online visibility.

Business Blogging Isn’t Easy

If business blogging makes such a big difference, why isn’t every business doing it? Because to do it well (and it’s only worth doing if you do it well) requires a large commitment in time and resources. Orbit Media’s annual blogging survey found that, on average, it takes nearly four hours to write a blog post.

And as someone who writes multiple blog posts every week, I can tell you time is only one part of what makes it hard. Writing requires mental energy and creativity. Most people can’t sit down and write all day long—at some point your brain gets tapped out. And if you try to write too much for too long, you risk content writing burnout.

Blogging is hard work and many businesses fail to realize just how hard it is until they get started. The dead blogs you see from time to time on business websites—ones that haven’t been updated in months or years—are typically the result of overly ambitious businesses that failed to account for how hard creating blog content on a regular basis really is.

But even though it’s hard, business blogging is worth it. The results are impressive and doing it well is absolutely within your reach, you just may need to bring in some extra talent to help. For businesses struggling to keep up with the endless work a blog requires, hiring a freelance blog writer may be the solution you need.  

You Should Hire a Freelance Blog Writer If…

Here are some of the common challenges that hiring a freelance blogger will solve.

1. Your team is struggling to meet your content creation goals.

As already discussed, consistently creating good content is hard. And trying to do more than you can reasonably manage is bad for overall productivity, and can potentially even be bad for your health.

In the Content Marketing Institute’s 2020 research, 63% of marketers who reported low levels of success said content creation was one of their biggest challenges. If the main thing holding you back is the inability to keep up with the amount of content your strategy requires, a freelance blog writer can make all the difference.

2. You want to scale up how much content you produce to get better results.

While content marketing professionals often talk about the importance of quality over quantity in content, the fact is that blogging more tends to get better results. HubSpot found that companies posting over 16 posts a month got over 3.5 times the results of those who post 4 or less.

16 posts a month comes to around four posts a week. Unless you have a large team of content creators at your business devoted primarily to blogging, meeting that goal will be extremely difficult to manage without outside help. The easiest way to scale up is to outsource some of your blog writing needs to freelancers.

3. You lost an employee and need some help picking up the slack.

Talented employees are in high demand and, even if your company works hard to make it a great place to work, some of your workers will inevitably be lured away to other opportunities. When you lose one of your best employees, you need to find someone to fill in fast. A freelance blog writer (or a few) can often help you manage your content needs while you work on replacing your employee.

4. You need help, but don’t have room in the budget to bring on a full-time employee.

For many businesses, talent is the biggest expense you have. The cost of a good employee goes far beyond the amount they get in their paycheck. You have to factor benefits into the budget, including the cost of paid time off, health insurance, retirement benefits, and unemployment and social security taxes. You’re also responsible for the cost of any supplies they need to do the job, and for additional office space if they’re expected to come to an office every day.

For freelancers, you only pay the amount they bill for the work you hire them for. If you don’t have full-time needs, you can hire them for the specific amount of work you need, and you won’t have to pay for anything beyond that. The result is that marketing departments generally save money by hiring a couple of good freelancers versus finding a full-time employee to do the work.

5. Your level of need isn’t high enough for a full-time position.

If you just need help producing a few extra blog posts a month, then it probably doesn’t make sense financially to bring on a new full-time employee. Freelancers work with a number of clients, so they don’t expect to be assigned or paid for 40 hours a week from you.

If you only need work that amounts to a few hours a week—say somewhere from one to ten blog posts a month—then finding a freelance blogger is more practical than going through the hiring process for an employee.

6. You worry you’re getting rusty and need help with fresh ideas.

When you spend your days mired in the same industry, at some point it becomes impossible to see it with fresh eyes. Freelancers are good for bringing new ideas to the table. And crucially, they can often help you see things the way consumers—who don’t spend all day, every day working in the industry—do. That’s valuable for writing content that speaks to the people you most want to reach.   

7. You’ve got great ideas, but struggle with turning them into well written blog posts.

This is the opposite issue, but a common one many people face. If you’re just brimming with ideas, but find the process of turning them into strong blog posts that are organized well for readability and optimized for SEO insurmountable, that’s exactly the skill good freelance blog writers bring to the table.

The ability to create a good content marketing strategy that includes a list of blog topics is a valuable skill to have, but it only pays off if you can execute on the strategy. If that’s the part you struggle with, outsource it to someone who excels at getting the writing done.

Hire a Freelance Blog Writer

If you’ve confirmed that it’s time to hire a freelancer to help out with your blog, the next step is finding a freelance writer that’s a good fit.

Or since you’re on a freelance blogger’s website right now. you can check out my writing samples and learn a little about how I work to see if we might be a good fit.

And even when I’m not a fit for a client, I often try to help point them in the right direction to find another writer, so feel free to get in touch with the details of what you need.  

8 Ways to Make Business Blogging Go Further

Business blogging has become one of the most essential methods for connecting with customers and building your website’s SEO authority. And a number of studies have confirmed the value of business blogging: it results in 55% more traffic, 97% more inbound links, and 67% more leads.  

business blogging traffic
business blogging leads

By pretty much every measure businesses use to determine website success, having a business blog is one of the best paths to improved results.

But consistently maintaining a business blog is time consuming and costly—especially one where you only publish blog posts that provide real value to your audience. And if you’re not doing that, what’s the point?

If you’re going to invest in a blog for your business, you need it to get results. And that requires the right approach. Here are a few good ways to make your business blogging go further.

1.     Start with a business blogging strategy.

You know you’re supposed to blog, so it can be tempting to just start getting blog posts up to check that box. But if you want your business blog to help you accomplish anything substantial, you need a business blogging strategy.

This should involve a few main steps:

  • Define your goals.

You’re investing time and money into your business blog because you want it to do something tangible for your business. In order to build your strategy around the things you want to accomplish, you need to clarify what your goals are. Write your goals down and, as much as possible, figure out specific metrics you can track to measure your progress. Measuring a goal like “establishing thought leadership” will be trickier than something like “increasing traffic,” but do your best.

And make sure you stay realistic here. If your goal is a number one ranking for every target keyword, or publishing a blog post every day with a team of two people—you’re setting up yourself up for failure. Keep your goals within reason.

  • Do audience research.

Your blog isn’t for you. And while it is for your business—in the sense that it’s meant to help you forward your business goals—you’re better off thinking about it as something you do for your audience first and foremost. To deliver content that your audience will value and appreciate, you need to take some time to understand who they are.

Audience research can involve a mix of data analysis—both of demographic data and marketing analytics—as well as getting more direct input from your audience using surveys or interviews.

  • Do keyword research.

Keyword research is valuable on a number of levels.. It helps you get a read on the topics your audience is talking about and the language they use. It can be a fruitful source for coming up with topics to cover on your blog. And it’s an important part of any SEO strategy, so you know what keywords to optimize each piece of content for.

You’re not starting from scratch here. If you already have a blog, analyze your most successful posts to gain a better understanding of what works well for you now. Even if you’re just starting a new blog, you can look to examples of successful blogs in your topic area to see what your audience responds well to. By taking the time to research successful business blogging examples, you’ll take some of the guesswork out of building your strategy.

2.     Keep SEO top of mind.

One of the best things about business blogging is the bump it can give to your SEO rankings. It gives you more opportunities to cover relevant keywords and topic areas, so you show up for more searches. If you provide valuable information in your posts, it gives other websites more reasons to link back to you. And some of the on-site ranking factors Google values, like time spent on site, are helped by having blogs that keep people around.

Just by having a business blog, you’re vastly improving your SEO chances. But you can help your blog posts do better in the search engines by taking a few extra steps to give your blog posts an extra SEO edge:

  • Do SERP research.

Before every blog you write or assign, take a minute to do a Google search for the keyword you’re hoping to rank for. See what type of content has made the first page for this topic. Seeing the current results offers insights into what works for that term in the search engines. Are the top results short and to the point, or are they long and comprehensive? And most importantly, what opportunities can you see to improve upon the information provided in those top posts?

  • Consider featured snippets.

A natural consequence to doing SERP research is starting to see when and how Google uses featured snippets in the results. When the search includes an answer box, write your blog post in a way that optimizes your chances for taking that answer box. The best way to do that will depend on the type of featured snippet that shows up in the search: a list snippet, a chart, or a brief text answer. Pay attention to the type of rich results on the SERP for your target term so you can create content more likely to win position zero.

business blogging answer box example

  • Strategically use headings.

Dividing your blog posts into sections with headings is good for both readability and SEO. It makes it easier for your visitors to skim to find the information they need, and it gives you more chances to signal to Google what your content is about. Use your target keywords in your headings where it’s relevant to do so (but don’t overdo it—it still has to be useful for your human readers).

Customize all relevant fields.

This is a simple step that can make a big difference in SEO. Make sure you customize your page URL, title tag, meta description, and alt image text to include your target keyword for a blog post. It’s a small but important way to emphasize what your post is about in a way the search algorithms recognize. If you use WordPress, any good SEO plugin you download will make this easy to do.

3.     Use your blog to answer common questions.

One of the best sources for coming up with blog topics your audience will find useful is going straight to the source. What are the questions your your customers and prospects most often come to you with? Review old emails and talk to your sales and customer service representatives to work up a list of the most frequent questions you get.

When you write blog posts that answer common questions, you accomplish two things at once. First, you write content that you know, without a doubt, your customers are interested in. And second, you make the lives of your sales and customer support teams easier, since they’ll now have handy resources they can share each time they get those questions in the future.

Your blog becomes a sales enablement and customer service tool, as well as a marketing one.

4.     Commit time to quality.

I know. This one is hard. You’re busy. Your team is probably already overwhelmed. And blogging brings the pressure of publishing a lot of content. A higher frequency of posts tends to mean better results in terms of traffic and lead gen. But rushing your content means you risk publishing stuff that’s not very good. And none of the benefits of business blogging come into play if your content sucks.

Make sure you’re willing to commit the time and resources needed to make every blog post worth it. And if you’re not sure your current team is up for the task, hire a good freelance blog writer to help pick up the slack.

5.     Create a plan for promotion.

Publishing an amazing blog post isn’t good enough. The internet is simply too saturated for your audience to find you on their own. You need to do everything you can to get your awesome blog posts in front of them.

As part of your blog strategy, create a plan for promoting your blog posts. This can include:

  • Sharing the links on social media.
  • Nurturing relationships on social media (so your feeds aren’t just promotional).
  • Writing guest posts on relevant blogs that link back to your best posts.
  • Collaborating with influencers on your blog posts, so they’re more likely to share them with their networks.
  • Paid distribution methods, such as search and social ads.

Investing in content promotion is as important as investing in high-quality content creation. If you want your business blogging to go further, you can’t skip this step,

6.     Regularly review your analytics.

The first step to doing better is understanding how you’re doing now. With business blogging, that means making it a habit to check your website analytics regularly to gauge the success of your blog posts. Google Analytics provides extensive data on how many people are viewing your blog posts, how people are finding them, and what they do once they’re on the page.

When you combine Google Analytics with the data from other sources, like your email marketing software and customer data, you can also track the role your blog posts play in driving visitors to the actions you want them to take, like signing up for your email list or making a purchase.

Use that data to regularly analyze the success of your blog posts and determine which types of blogging tactics and styles are helping you achieve your primary goals. The more you know what works, the more you can shape your blog strategy to get the results you seek.

7.     Perform content audits (at least) annually.

Businesses often get swept up in the flurry of work required to consistently create new content for a blog, but it’s just as important to take a step back and look for ways to get more out of the content you already have. At least once a year, perform a content audit to find opportunities to make your old blog posts better.

You’ll find blog posts that can be updated or strengthened, internal linking opportunities that can drive more visits to other posts, and spot any errors or broken links that need to be fixed. Content audits can help you get more traction from old posts, spur ideas for new posts you can create, and help you ensure every piece on your blog represents your brand at the level you want it to.

8.     Make a habit out of updating and repurposing.

The longer you have a blog, the more content you’ll have that falls out of date or becomes forgotten. The work you did on a great blog post five years ago will cease to matter if you stop there. Instead, make sure you revisit your old content regularly to find ways to update it and make it better.

In addition, you can make the work you did in the past go further by repurposing your most successful blog posts into new formats. Your top blog post could become a highly valuable video series or webinar. You already know your audience values the information you provided, so give them more ways to interact with it in the format of their choice.

Build a Better Business Blog

Your business blog is only valuable if your audience finds it, reads it, and comes to care about your brand because of it. Without the right strategy and approach, your blog posts will just be one more thing crowding the web without purpose.

If you struggle to consistently create business blog posts that your audience cares about, a good freelance blogger can help. Get in touch to see if we’re a fit.

7 Good Business Blogging Examples

Blogging has become one of the most valuable marketing tools that businesses have for improving SEO, building an email list, and connecting more directly with customers and leads. When done well, blogging can do a lot of good for your business.

But blogging isn’t easy to do well. It requires a lot of ongoing work to produce regular content, and making sure the content you publish is useful and entertaining to your audience is a constant challenge on top of that.

If your company struggles with business blogging and could use some inspiration, I’ve brought together a few good examples of businesses* that consistently produce solid blog content for their audiences.

1.    Care/of

business blogging example care/of

Care/of is a vitamin subscription service that customizes the vitamins they send to each customer based on their particular lifestyle and needs. The company’s blog includes articles that directly discuss the benefits of the supplements they sell, summarizing and referencing research studies that back up their claims. But they also publish posts less directly related to their products that address health-related topics that their target audience is likely to care about.

Some good posts that demonstrate this are:

  • Spice of Life: A Closer Look at the Benefits of All-Powerful Turmeric

    Turmeric is one of the supplements they sell, so this post is directly touting the benefits of a product, but the post manages not to feel overly promotional. It gets into the history of how turmeric has been used as both as a spice and a medicinal aid and references a number of research studies that have found evidence of its health benefits.

  • 5 Ways to De-Stress Over the Holidays

    During the holiday season, people get overwhelmed and stress becomes a big part of many people’s lives. This post covers a number of strategies that can help people reduce stress, including (but not limited to) taking some of the supplements the company provides. It’s another good example of a post that provides value first, but mentions their products where it’s relevant.

  • 7 Healthy Living Blogs You Need to Follow Now

    I call this a sharing-the-love post. It can feel unnatural to write a blog post that sends your readers to other blogs similar to yours, but people have room in their lives for more than one blog about a topic!

    By highlighting other blogs that cover health-related topics (most of them more about recipes or exercise rather than supplements, so not direct competitors to Care/of), this post provides something valuable to readers while also potentially starting positive relationships with influencers in the space.

2.    Media Bistro

business blogging example mediabistro Media Bistro helps play matchmaker for hiring managers in the media industry and the talented professionals they hire. Since the company has two equally important audiences, they produce two blogs: one for employers and one that offers career advice to media professionals.

The blog for employers is a good mix of posts that cover news relevant to hiring managers, answers to questions their readers are likely to have and general advice. Some recent examples worth checking out include:

  • Congress Weighs Massive Changes to 401(k) Contributions

    Employee benefits are something every hiring manager has on their minds, the benefits they offer and how competitive they are can make a big difference in the caliber of talent they attract. So when the government considers legislative changes that could affect the value of a common employee benefit like the 401(k), it’s something the Media Bistro audience needs to hear about. This post explains the proposed changes and what it would mean for the blog’s readers

  • Can You Hire or Fire Based on Political Beliefs?

    In the divisive atmosphere that’s followed the last presidential election, this is a question probably on the mind of more than a few hiring managers. This blog post provides both the technical answer (legally, yes, at least in most states), while also getting into the bigger question of whether or not you should factor politics into your personnel decisions.

    The career advice blog regularly publishes roundups of top jobs available in different cities – something that’s definitely valuable to readers looking for a job – along with posts that offer general career advice and answers to common questions. A few good examples to look at are:

  • 6 Ways to Track Down a Magazine Editor

    For many professional writers, figuring out the right person to pitch is a big part of the job. This post provides specific steps writers can take to discover the editors at publications they want to pitch. It’s a useful piece that solves a common problem readers have.

  • How to Land Higher Paying Assignments

    No matter the industry, any blog about careers should address the issue of money. It’s one of the biggest topics readers are thinking about. Media Bistro tackles the topic in this post, which provides specific advice on how to start making more money and backs it up with anecdotes from expert sources.

3.    Priceonomics

business blogging example priceonomics

Priceonomics has a business model based on data: tracking it effectively and putting it to good use. And they use their blog to effectively demonstrate the kind of good use their clients can put it to. Their blog posts all use data to answer common questions – or at least as often, questions you didn’t even know you had, but find yourself really interested in learning the answer to.

A lot of the content on their own blog serves as an example of collaborations with their clients. By showing the ways their customers use data to create great content, they make a case for their products, while also entertaining their readers.

Their posts are a mix of fun, useful, and just interesting information. Here are a few good examples:

  • Is There a Connection Between Bad Grammar and Bad Reviews?

    This post is a good example of a collaboration with a client, Datafiniti, a company that has a large database of products and their reviews. Once you hear the question, you probably think back to the large number of badly written negative reviews you’ve read – many of them with lots of unnecessary capital letters or confusing typos. It’s a good example of the kind of question you didn’t know you had until you heard it, and now you kind of want to know the answer, don’t you?

    The post not only answers this question (the answer is yes, if you’re wondering), but also includes a lot of interesting insights on the average length of reviews (apparently one-word reviews are quite common) and how length and spelling errors both correlate to whether a review is positive or negative. It’s a thorough and interesting analysis that does a good job of demonstrating the value Priceonomics provides to customers.

  • Ranking the Most (and Least) Nutritious Meals for Your Dollar

    This is a good example of a really useful post. If you’re someone who cares about your health (most of us) and also cares about spending your money well (also most of us), then this is the kind of information you need to make better decisions when choosing your meals. This is another collaboration with a customer – this time a company with software that helps people plan and track healthy eating.

    It tests the common supposition that healthy eating costs more (spoiler: it does). But it follows up that depressing finding with a list of healthy foods and recipes people can eat that pack a lot of nutrition for the cost. In short, it’s super useful.

4.    Grammarly

business blogging example grammarly

Grammarly sells subscription software that automatically checks customers’ writing against a number of rules and best practices to help them improve. Obviously, their audience is anyone that writes often – from students, to professional writers, to professionals who want to write better emails. Their blog posts therefore often delve into common problems and questions writers have, but they also sometimes explore fun history or weird information that curious learners (something most writers are likely to be) will find interesting.

Some good examples to check out include:

  • Want to Stop Procrastinating at Work and Get Stuff Done? Here’s How

    If I wasn’t currently hard at work on this blog post as I type, I might feel personally called out by this post. Like a lot of creative professionals and well, probably everybody else, writers often deal with procrastination. Staring at a blank Word document has a way of reminding writers about other things we could be doing.

    This post therefore addresses an issue that Grammarly’s target audience definitely cares about. It provides actionable advice that can really make a difference for a common problem.

  • Mexican Novels to Help You Celebrate Cinco de Mayo

    You know something all good writers like to do? Read! In fact, I’ve long considered reading one of the most essential tips for being a good writer. This post makes use of a timely reference (it went up on May 5) to provide Grammarly’s audience with information they’re likely to care about: recommendations for good books.

    This post technically doesn’t have anything to do with the company’s product, but that doesn’t matter. It keeps their target audience interested in the blog and more likely to come back for more.

5.    Threadless

threadless

Threadless mostly sells t-shirts, along with home décor, art, and accessories. People can buy t-shirts anywhere, so what makes Threadless really stand out is the hip and artsy personality they pack into their products. The blog continues that branding with posts that are fun, interesting, and highlight original art (including the art they put on their t-shirts and other products).

Here are a few posts that will give you a good taste of the fun personality they present:

  • No Context Needed: Overheard at Threadless

    This is a funny post that says a lot about the brand as it mixes design (each of the quotes are displayed with original illustrations) and humor. The quotes from employees around the office show the kind of light and goofy atmosphere that defines the company’s work culture and make it easy for readers to feel a connection to the brand.

  • The Cute Meets Creepy Creations of Comic Artist, Maria Ahokoivu

    This post features one of the artists whose work shows up on Threadless products. It humanizes the artist behind the work – she talks about favorite movies and pizza toppings, along with her work as an artist. And the post includes examples of her work, along with some links to specific Threadless products readers can buy. With artist interviews like this, they’ve found a human, personal way to sell.

  • 6 Tips for Making it as an Artist (And Making Money)

    Some of the people most likely to love and buy the products Threadless sells are other struggling artists trying to figure out how to get their own designs out in the world. This post provides advice for how to start profiting off your art and includes quotes from artists that have actually pulled it off. It’s valuable advice that speaks to a common struggle of the kind of people who follow and buy from Threadless.

  1. Intercom

intercom2

Intercom sells customer management software that helps businesses better organize and improve their relationship with customers and leads. As a result, they have three main audiences: marketers, sales reps, and customer support professionals. Their blog addresses topics relevant to each audience, as well as tackling issues important to anyone helping run an SaaS company. They often use their own experiences working at Intercom to provide useful advice to readers likely to face similar challenges.

Here are a couple of good examples of how they do that:

  • Motivate Your Star Performers with Meaningful Career Conversations

    For all three of the main audiences Intercom targets – sales, marketing, and customer support – one of the most important parts of success is finding and keeping good employees. This post provides specific steps that companies can take to make sure good employees want to stick around and uses examples of how Intercom does things to illustrate how the recommended process works and why it’s valuable.

  • Why Your Privacy Ecosystem is Crucial in the Age of GDPR

    This post addresses head on the biggest issue many tech companies are worried about right now: GDPR legislation. It provides useful advice on how to approach your own product and those it integrates with in order to better protect your customers’ privacy and stay on the right side of GDPR.

  1. HelpScout

good business blogging example helpscout

To promote their customer support software, the HelpScout blog provides a lot of information on providing great customer service, along with posts that more generally address how to run a business well. They regularly publish fairly long posts that include helpful tips coupled with examples that help illustrate the tips.

For an idea of what their posts often look like, here are a couple of good ones to read:

  • 22 Customer Retention Strategies that Work

    One of the many good reasons to provide great customer service is that it convinces happy customers to keep coming back – which is good for your bottom line. This post provides a lengthy list of good ways to keep customers happy once you’ve earned that first sale and backs up the recommended strategies with research and statistics.

  • Writing Support Emails: A Style Guide

    Style guides are a valuable tool for businesses that want to be consistent in the way they communicate across different channels, but they’re not commonly associated with support emails. This post provides a corrective to that. It gives specific and useful advice on how to structure emails to better provide your customers with what they need and accomplish your support goals. And it uses specific examples to illustrate the suggestions throughout.

Hopefully spending some time with good examples of business blog posts will give you the inspiration you need to get fired up writing for your own blog. Even though blogging requires a lot of work, it really can be worth it if you keep up with it and make sure you provide great blog posts that are helpful to your audience.

If you’re struggling with staying on top of all the writing that a blog requires, it’s ok to ask for help. Writing blog posts for businesses is a big part of what I do. I can take some of the load off for you. Just contact me to see if we might be a good fit.

 

*While I think all the blogs I write for are pretty great examples of good business blogging as well, I left them off the list here to avoid personal bias. Lucky for you, that means you can see even more examples of good business blogging over on my writing samples page. Enjoy.

 

How to Give Good Content Writing Feedback

content writing feedback

Updated May 2022

We’ve all had the experience before. Someone delivers information in a way that makes clear they think you’ll know exactly what they mean, but you’re stumped. You are just not following what they’re saying to you at all.

This is one of the quirks of communication that everyone deals with at some point. Something can be so clear and obvious in your own head that you think expressing it to the person in front of you (or on the other side of that email) is easy, but what’s clear to you is confusing and muddy to them.

Freelance writers know the feeling of being on the other end of that email well. Most of us have had multiple experiences of hearing feedback from clients that doesn’t tell us what we need to hear in order to understand what the client means.

It’s tricky providing feedback well, but having a good relationship with any writer you hire depends on it. And giving good feedback early on in the relationship will help them learn what you’re looking for, so you won’t have to do as much work later on.

To help you effectively get what you’re wanting from a content writer’s work, here are some tips on how to give good content writing feedback.

1. Read the whole thing.

To start, you want to make sure your feedback is accurate and that means taking the time to read over the entire piece of content they’ve submitted. And really read here—don’t skim.

It’s embarrassing for you and awkward for the writer if they have to point out that you’ve asked them to add a section that actually already exists further down the page or with a heading you didn’t recognize. On top of being awkward, it wastes everyone’s time and you both have better things to do.

2. Get to it quickly.

I know you’re busy, but if you sit on a blog post or white paper for weeks, or worse, months before sending your feedback, that particular piece won’t be fresh in you content writer’s memory. It’s both harder and less efficient to make good updates if they barely remember the piece and the research they did for it anymore by that point. And some freelance content writers (this one included) put feedback deadlines in the contract, so you may miss your chance to get updates altogether if you wait too long.

So give yourself a deadline. Commit to reading over the piece and sending your feedback within a week or two of receiving it. And get it on your to-do list even sooner, if possible.

A note here: any reasonable person you work with will understand that life sometimes gets in the way. So if you your kid gets sick or you have a plumbing emergency that takes over your life for a few days, take the time you need! Your writer should understand. Just try not to make a habit out of slow response times.

3. Be specific.

While it’s obvious to you why the wording in that third paragraph just doesn’t sound right, or the overall tone of the piece doesn’t work—your content writer can’t see into your head. You have to explain it in terms that clearly communicate how to make the changes you want.

A few tips to help you do that:

Avoid general language.

Feedback like “this section doesn’t really work” or “this isn’t clicking” only tells someone that you don’t like what you’re looking at. It doesn’t tell them why. Sure, your writer could re-write that section to be all new wording. But if they don’t understand what you don’t like about it, there’s a good chance they’ll end up repeating whatever issue wasn’t working for you the first time.

Saying something instead like “the tone in this section is too formal” or “this sentence is too long, which makes it hard to follow” actually gives them something to work with when making changes.

Make notes and changes in the text itself.

Microsoft Word and Google Docs both provide features for tracking changes and adding comments within a document. This makes it possible for you to comment directly on specific wording or sections that demonstrate the issue you’re addressing. If you think some of the wording is muddy or confusing, point out specifically where you see that happening rather than expecting the writer to be able to figure it out. If you think there are claims in the piece that need to be better backed up with sources, point out which ones.

Matching your feedback to the particular pieces of the content it applies to will help the writer see clearly what you mean. They’ll learn both what sort of changes you’re looking for now, and how to avoid making those same mistakes in the future.

Provide examples of what you’re looking for.

Particularly when it comes to issues of tone and style, it can be hard to communicate exactly what you want using descriptive terms. If you can point to other blog posts or content pieces—whether on your own website or elsewhere—that illustrate what you’re looking for, it can help a writer figure out the right approach to take.

Pro tip: Even better, provide a style guide upfront that covers this territory. A good style guide increases the chances a writer will get things right on the first try, saving you both time in the editing process.

4. Be respectful.

Clarity is a big part of the good feedback equation, but respect is just as important. When you hire a professional content writer, treat them with professionalism.

What that means, in practice:

Negative feedback is ok, but tone matters.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to provide criticisms. Anyone working in a creative field should have enough of a thick skin to take (respectful) criticism of their work.

Hopefully, the line between constructive criticism and being insulting or mean is clear to you. If it’s not, let someone else in your company be in charge of providing feedback for now and maybe consider therapy or communication classes to learn the difference, because it’s a pretty important life skill to have. I don’t mean that in a snide way, but as genuine advice.

Saying “this writing is awful” or “don’t you know anything?” isn’t helpful, but saying “this piece could really use some more work, could you take some time to do a little more research and find some data or case studies to back up your points?” is perfectly reasonable.

Keep things professional.

This relates to tone, but is worth saying on its own. Don’t yell at a content writer because you don’t like their work. Don’t insult their intelligence or use vulgar language to describe what you think of it. For the love of all that matters in this world, do NOT use racist, sexist, or ableist slurs in your response.

Every content writer you hire, whether they’re a freelancer or employee, is someone with a career and their own professional contacts. Know that if you’re the client or boss from hell, it will hurt your reputation.

Remember: writing is subjective.

One of the really cool things about language is that there are a lot of right ways to say the same thing. Someone can have a writing style that doesn’t work for you, but is still perfectly good writing. Remember that your opinion on this subject is not the objectively correct opinion.

When you’re paying for someone to write for you, you’re allowed to have an opinion on the writing—of course you are. But don’t frame your feedback as though you know the right way to say things and your writer is clearly wrong for not choosing the wording you would have. If you do, you’ll come off as arrogant and patronizing.

Instead, approach your feedback as an exercise in helping your writer understand how to come around to your preferences for style and tone—or better yet, the preferences you believe your audience has for style and tone. After all, you may be the client, but they’re not actually writing for you.

Final Words

A good working relationship with a freelance content writer can be extremely beneficial to your company and your content marketing program. Good feedback is an important part of being able to keep the writers you hire for the long term and get them to a place where they know how to deliver the kind of content you’re looking for. It’s worth spending time, especially early in the relationship, providing specific and respectful feedback to any writer you work with.