When you’re blogging for your business, the hardest challenge isn’t doing writing, it’s knowing what to write about so what should a B2B blog about?
Unlike more consumer focused content where entertainment, catching the eye and – dare we say – challenging your audience into a reaction is key, a B2B blog needs to be relevant, valuable and educational to your specific audience. This takes us back to the original question … what should a B2B blog about?
First off, the answer is neither “just your product” nor “whatever is trending.” The most effective B2B blog strategies are built around solving real problems, demonstrating expertise and guiding potential customers positively through their decision-making process.
A great place to start is with your audience’s problems.
A successful B2B blog has to rely on a deep understanding of your audience. Who are they? What challenges do they face? What are they trying to achieve? Your blogs should focus on answering these questions in context and with some ideas they will probably either not thought about or need to reassurance to try.
So, instead of asking “what do we want to say?” shift to “what does our audience need to know?”
For example, if you sell HR software, your B2B blog might cover topics like how to improve employee retention, common hiring mistakes or best practices for onboarding. These are real problems your audience is actively trying to solve and if you give them what they need in a digestible way (i.e. conversationally, clearly and straightforwardly not jargon heavily, condescendingly or self-satisfactorily), they will naturally connect back to you to find out more.
A strong B2B blog doesn’t just target one stage of the sales process. It supports readers all the way from introduction and initial awareness through to decision-making and, ultimately, buying.
A nice (and, to be fair, fairly well established) way to look at this is to picture a funnel.
The top of the funnel is awareness. At this stage, your B2B blog should focus on education and discovery. Topics might include:
The goal here is to attract a wider audience and build start building trust.
In the middle of the funnel is consideration. This is the basically the selling part.
Now your readers are evaluating potential ways to address the current opportunities and threats you’ve outlined, your B2B blog can dive deeper into:
At this stage, your B2B blog’s objective is to help your readers make their choice in your direction. There are a lot of formats you can use to do this as well as ‘straight’ prose. You can use case studies, product comparisons or ROI breakdowns based on the performance/adoption of similar businesses.
The key here is to provide clarity and confidence without at any point being overtly sales-driven.
At the bottom of the funnel is conversion, the people you’ve pushed from awareness to interest to action (i.e. purchase).
This is where many B2B blogs fall short; it’s not because the content isn’t strong, but because they don’t clearly signpost what the reader has to do next. And signpost is the right word. They don’t need more information. What they need now is direction and this is where calls to action come in.
A good CTA isn’t generic, it’s aligned to both the content and it’s purpose. If someone’s reading a case study or ROI breakdown, suggest a demo or conversation. If they’ve engaged with a guide, offer a deeper resource or consultation. The next step should feel like a natural, easy and obvious continuation, not a hard sell.
One of the biggest advantages of a B2B blog is it’s a fairly soft way to share your expertise and insights. A B2B audience isn’t looking for generic advice. They want insights from people who understand them, their industry and the challenges they’re facing or trying to capitalise on.
Use your B2B blog to share:
This type of content not only builds credibility but also differentiates you from competitors who rely on surface-level information.
A massive amount of the most successful B2B blog posts are built around specific search queries, the practical questions your audience is typing into Google.
By targeting these queries, your blog will attract consistent organic traffic while providing immediate value to the reader (which in turn will make them keep coming back to your blog).
Just as importantly, make sure your content always answers these questions clearly and directly. Don’t bury the answers under unnecessary waffle and don’t make your readers work hard to find what they need.
However, while practical content is essential, your blog should also aspire to elevating you to thought leadership. Though leadership pieces will help position your brand as a forward-thinking voice in your industry by openly providing:
Thought leadership content might not always drive immediate conversions, but will play a key role in building your long-term brand authority.
One of the easiest ways to work out generate ideas for a B2B blog is to look at your existing conversations and, more specifically, how you can repurpose those conversations as blog posts.
The theory is simple. If customers are constantly asking you certain questions, potential customers will be searching for the same answers. Answering these pre-emptively online instantly improves your chances of being found.
A common mistake in when working out what a B2B should blog about is focusing too much on the product. While your offering should of course be part of the conversation, it should be a backdrop to the post – a subtle reminder why you’re qualified to write about what you’re writing about – rather than dominating every post.
Above all else, your primary goal is to educate and help, not sell directly. If every article feels like a pitch, readers will lose trust and stop engaging. Instead, let your expertise and insights do the selling for you.
In the same vein, you need to make sure your consistent. A good B2B blog isn’t about publishing random articles. It is about building a coherent content strategy over time.
When working out what your B2B should be blogging about, choose a set of core topics that align your business with your audience, then create content consistently around those themes. This will help your B2B blog build up a name around your core topics which over time will make it much more likely to rank in the right searches search and gain that all-important trusted status as an industry resource.
When you’re working out what to blog about, the answer comes down to one word … value.
A great B2B blog focuses on solving problems, answering questions and sharing expertise in a way that’s genuinely useful to its audience.
By covering the full buyer journey, addressing real challenges and maintaining a consistent direction, your B2B blog will become more than just a marketing channel. It’ll become a trusted window into exactly what you offer and deliver for your customers.
Do you need help producing content? We can help! Get in touch to arrange a free initial chat.
