When it comes time to create your own business blog, deciding how it should look can be overwhelming. We looked at the best examples of business blogs on the internet and identified the eight most essential components that every successful business blog requires in order to provide you with a solid foundation from which to build. We know a lot about what makes a high-performing business blog because we are a content marketing company with over 100 employees that works with enterprise clients like Instacart, QuickBooks, Norton, and others. So, let’s dig into some of our favorite blog examples.
1. Tushy: Well-Defined Audience
The best content doesn’t have to be appealing to everyone, as a smart content strategist knows. When content is too general, it loses its impact and becomes vague, making it difficult to stand out to your audience. Strong SEO content must be written specifically for a specific audience. Ask yourself: What is my business’s target demographic? Common demographic indicators include:
Age
Gender
Academic level Family or marriage status
Career industry
Important concerns experiences shared You will need to define three to five distinct demographic “identities” that fit into your larger audience population because audiences typically consist of multiple types of people. A great example of a business with a well-defined blog audience comprising multiple target identities is the e-commerce bidet retailer Tushy.
Tushy identified key product selling points and used them to target its blog (cleverly named “The Posterior”) to audiences that value them the most. Its benefits to users’ health and contribution to a zero-waste lifestyle are among its selling points. Its blog covers topics directly related to its product, like gut health and sexual wellness, as well as tangential topics like physical activity and relationships.
We can also see how Tushy’s visual design targets younger people who live less traditional lives and have some money left over. It combines clean, elegant design with a tongue-in-cheek brand voice to capture an upscale but approachable style. We’ll talk more about design elements below.
2. Tommy John:
Proven Expertise in the Field Once you’ve defined your audience, you’ll want to find content topics that match your audience’s interests. However, your blog might not be a good fit for every subject that might pique the interest of your potential readers. You’ll need to select subjects that are interesting to your audience and areas of authority for your brand.
One brand whose blog demonstrates this concept well is luxury leisure wear brand Tommy John.
Tommy John clothing is relatively upscale, so the brand’s target audience consists of higher-income people who are willing to pay more for quality products. As a result, it is safe to assume that people who are interested in luxury experiences and products are among the blog’s target audience. However, Tommy John sells leisure wear, so it would be off-brand for their blog to include posts about evening gowns or luxury jewelry. The Tommy John’s brand lacks authority in that area, despite the fact that their audience includes individuals who are interested in those subjects. Instead, the content of the blog straddles the line between high-end lifestyle and laid-back casual recreation, serving its audience while remaining within the brand’s expertise.
3. BarkBox: Strong Content Pillars
You’ll want to show off your clear, specific content topics with impressive content organization after you’ve identified them. Blogs with well-organized content pillars and topic clusters communicate to the reader that they are relevant, authoritative, and professional. It gives the blog a messy, chaotic feel when the content feels random or the user has to look around to find what they’re interested in. BarkBox, a subscription service for dog owners, is one brand that excels in site navigation.
BarkPost, the brand’s blog, has seven main content pillars, each of which is broken down into smaller sections. Some blogs can work with a few topic pillars without subdividing any further. But when you have a lot of content, it can be a struggle to find an organizational format that works well. Between the pillars and clusters of BarkPost, the blog manages to accommodate a remarkable number of content types and subjects without overwhelming the user.
A solid information infrastructure is one of the strongest authority signals that Google incorporates into its ranking algorithm, so clearly defining content pillars has SEO value as well.
4. The Visible Navigation of Squarespace:
Content pillars that are well-organized are only useful if they are easily accessible on every page of the website. That means you need a well-designed, easy-to-use site navigation bar or menu.
Take, for instance, the Making It blog on Squarespace: Squarespace’s pillar structure is simple, with just a handful of sections titled “On Trend,” “Makers,” “Know,” and “Product Updates.” The navigation bar stays in the same place on every page when you click into each section, making it simple for users to use to navigate the blog. Some blogs take it a step further by incorporating a floating element for their menu, allowing it to travel down the page as the user scrolls.
Most importantly, Squarespace’s main navigation bar remains visible on every blog page, allowing visitors to quickly access a product page at any point in their visit. Many businesses host their blogs on a site subfolder, and don’t incorporate links to the primary website on any of the blog’s pillar or post pages. Making product pages more accessible increases the likelihood of a conversion.
5. Casper: Unified Brand Style
Just like all your content should be well-organized topically, your entire blog should also tie together visually. By beginning with a style guide, you can ensure that every page and post uses the same fonts, brand colors, and illustration styles to create a cohesive feel for your content. At the same time, you don’t want all of your content to look the same! That’s why your brand guide needs to offer enough options and pairings to give your designs some variability while also establishing visual throughlines that tie each piece together.
Casper, an online mattress retailer, is an illustration of a brand with a well-established but dynamic style. All of Casper’s blog content adheres to the brand’s design guide, but within that overarching design theme, individual posts have completely different visual styles.
Here are a few resources you can use to define your visual brand guidelines:
Coolors: an intelligent palette generator Canva: design layout platform with brand guideline document templates
Google Fonts: open-source font library
Unsplash: free stock photo library
We suggest compiling all of your guidelines and resources into a single, simple document that can be distributed to your team and any contractors with whom you collaborate. As your business expands, it becomes simpler to develop well-branded designs, CTAs, and content.
6. CreditRepair.com: Diverse CTAs
One advantage of a well-structured blog is that it keeps the user on the brand’s website longer. The longer a user remains on the company’s website, the more likely it is they’ll convert to a paying customer. That’s why each blog post should encourage the reader to click onto another post, check out a product page, or learn more about the company.
To increase the likelihood that a reader will remain on your site after reading a post, it’s important to diversify the possible paths they may take from the current page. You should include “soft” conversion paths for users who aren’t quite interested in becoming customers but want to continue learning about your product. Not all of your CTAs should point directly to a product page. A post with the title “Three Main Types of Credit” can be found here from the credit repair company CreditRepair.com. This is a top-funnel, informational topic, so it’s likely that a good portion of readers aren’t yet interested in credit repair services, which is why the brand is smart to incorporate internal links to other middle- and bottom-funnel topics that bridge the gap between the current post and their actual service.
Additionally, adding too many product-oriented CTAs to a page will make your blog feel “sales-y,” which diminishes its authority with readers and Google. Get creative when mapping potential navigation paths around your site — lateral movements between blog pages may not feel like they contribute to conversion rate, but anything that keeps your users engaged longer will help in the long run.
7. Expertise, Authority, and Trust at Annuity.org:
Though the majority of your blog’s authority will come from shrewd topic choices, there are a few key details you can add to demonstrate your trustworthiness to the reader. This is especially crucial for blogs that cover SEO topics like “Your Money, Your Life,” which are held to a higher standard of accountability by Google’s algorithm. Because their content addresses investment and retirement planning topics, Annuity.org incorporates a few straightforward verification factors that exponentially increase the trustworthiness of their posts. First, each blog post includes an author bio. Despite the fact that this may not appear to be much, many business blogs skip this step and assign posts to a larger “team” or brand entity. Readers are reassured by the brand’s accountability when a real person’s name is included in each post. Additionally, Annuity.org’s posts also feature a named editor, so not only are readers reassured of the writer’s expertise, but they can also see that the brand has had the content vetted for accuracy.
Most importantly, each post not only links out to reputable sources but also cites each reference with authors, publications, and links at the foot of the page. For the bare minimum, links to reputable sources should be.
