It is an inconvenient truth for marketers that we are living in an age of distraction. Researchers and commentators regularly bemoan the fact that people have lost the capacity to concentrate due to the distracting technology available. In 2015, a survey of Canadian media consumption by Microsoft concluded that the widespread usage of smartphones has led to the deterioration of attention spans from 12 seconds in the year 2000 to eight seconds today.
Chances are you’re either reading this on your phone, near your phone, or have reflexively already reached for your phone.
That means the other inconvenient truth faced by marketers is that blog content needs to be extremely high quality if it’s going to hold a reader’s attention.
Choosing a timely and relevant topic isn’t enough – marketers also need to choose the most suitable format for their blog content to make it stand out.
So let’s cut to the chase: what is the best performing blog post format if your aim is to attract and convert the most readers possible?
Steady on there. The bad news is there’s no ‘best’ format. Many blogs, like this one, will actually be a culmination of different formats.
The good news is that by coming to grips with the three main formats, you can establish the best choice for your readers. You don’t even have to poll them about their preferences. You can simply dig into your performance metrics.
That’s what I did. I dug into the hard data of my agency Struto’s blog on 7 Wildly Popular Blog Post Formats and used it to construct my own list based on B2B business growth goals.
Without further ado, here are the top three best performing blog post formats for B2B marketing.
1. The opinion post
You’ve probably heard about the HubSpot report which reveals that 60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers. So how can you be sure that your blog attracts the kind of visitors who will convert into the customers you need? Well, you publish the kind of content that will bring in that niche market for you.
Opinion posts, thought leader advice, curated posts – however you want to refer to them – involve solid insights from an industry professional. Opinion pieces offer real facts, practical insights and relatable advice from a trustworthy source. In a nutshell, they are less like blog posts and more like expert newspaper articles. They are personal, informative, and make readers think critically about a topic.
One of the main reasons opinion posts are a top-performing blog post format is that they’re one of the more difficult formats to master. Not everyone can succinctly express their opinion on a complicated topic so competition for opinion pieces is low. But when you get it right, it’s precisely the sort of hard-hitting content inspired by personal experience that resonates with readers and drives meaningful engagement.
Readers benefit by getting to formulate their own critical responses to your topic, and you benefit by enjoying a spike in traffic and aligning yourself with popular industry thought-leaders on topical issues. The results for opinion pieces speak for themselves: 13.6% times more traffic with a 1.1% conversion rate.
Generally, opinion pieces need to be well-planned and can’t be put together at the drop of a hat. That’s because they’re most often responding to a trending matter in your specific niche or industry, or an exposition of a train of thought that’s related to a controversial topic. They need to be backed by research, driven by data, and written critically.
Some quick and handy tips for writing in the opinion blog post format are:
- Start with a story, state your argument, play devil’s advocate, offer a solution and conclude with a reference to the same story you started with.
- Keep focused on the issue, idea or agenda, and avoid making sweeping statements.
- Explain which research or firsthand experiences your opinion is based on. If it’s based on a personal experience, make sure you acknowledge the limitations of your information and/or any personal biases.
- Let your personality shine through, otherwise, you can…
