Tired of posting the same old 500-word articles on your business blog? These 5 business blog ideas will keep your content fresh, and keep your readers engaged!

5. Infographics

Infographics offer a visual alternative to standard blog posts. Instead of writing a 500-word post for your business blog, you can try visualizing the information in an illustrated chart or diagram. Unsurprisingly, it’s easier to define an infographic with an example:

The emphasis is on short bullet point information and illustrative images. This particular example uses a flow diagram to explain how blogging generates traffic and sales for a business. When used properly, infographics can have a staggering impact on business blog traffic – as the following quote from Neil Patel of QuickSprout attests to:

47 pretty pictures generating 2.5 million visits. Unbelievable. This happens because visual information is easier to process, easier to share and relatively lacking in the business blog world. By creating an informative and genuinely useful infographic, you can keep your business blog fresh and create a powerful surge in traffic. To get the most out of your infographic, ensure it’s properly branded and include a HTML embed link, to encourage other business bloggers and content marketers to share it themselves!

4. Statistic Posts

People love statistics. They help businesses back up their claims, and guide the direction of their business strategies. If you have the resources, you can research and compile your own list of industry statistics – or you can simply consolidate existing stats. We put together a list of 50 content marketing statistics, and added extra value by analyzing the importance of each.

These posts require very little effort on your part, and they offer you a chance to show-off your industry-leading expertise. You can also increase the value of each post by creating graphs to help explain the importance and meaning of your statistics.

3. Expert Quotes

Quotes are also hugely popular with readers from all parts of the business blogosphere. As well as compiling existing quotes into an authoritative list, you can take this business blog format one step further. Reach out to industry-leaders and experts on Twitter, and ask for a short quote on a topical industry issue.

For example, in the content marketing industry, you could approach the likes of Ann Handley, Dharmesh Shah, Robert Rose, Joe Pullizi and Rand Fishkin. Cast your net wide, and expect many of your requests to be declined – but with even 5 quotes from popular figureheads, you can create a powerful and unique post for your business blog. No other business blog with have those quotes, and by allowing other websites to reference your content, you can increase the reach of your post exponentially.

2. Slideshares

Slideshare done right by Moz

Slideshare allows users to share powerpoint and .pdf documents with the web, and it’s growing hugely in popularity. It offers an excellent chance for businesses to re-purpose their existing presentations, and create all-new content to reach Slideshare’s global audience. These posts offer the best of both visual content and written content – combining eye-catching visuals with bullet-point information, statistics and quotes.

It’s important to create content that will appeal to your target audience – and sticking a dull and irrelavant in-house presentation on Slideshare will do nothing but damage your business. For an example of Slideshare working beautifully, check out this example from Moz’s own Rand Fishkin.

1. Top List Posts

Business blogs everywhere are stuffed full of list posts, for two reasons:

• They’re incredibly popular

Lists posts are clear, concise and extremely easy to read. They’re perfect for browsing through, and with a host of tips, resources and information in each post, they’re helpful to a lot of people. This results in lots of shares, and lots of traffic.

• They’re incredibly easy to make

Any business blogger can throw together a list of ‘7 Business Blogging Resources’ in a matter of minutes. They can require virtually no research, and often clock in at less than 300 words.

…and that means that most of them are terrible. You may think that an over-saturated market means that list posts are a bad idea – but far from it. It’s the perfect opportunity to capitalize on a popular format, and create the best damn list post imaginable. By spending a bit of time researching your list, and looking at similar existing posts, you can create an ultimate list post – one that expands on all the existing list posts, and improves upon their information.
There are two ways to make market-beating list posts for your business blog:

1. Add more value

Instead of listing 20 different business blogs and calling it quits, provide information about each one. What does it do well? Why should your readers visit it? Maybe link to one of their best posts, or divide up your list into relevant categories. The more detail the better, because most list posts offer virtually no information about their picks – and that helps no-one!

2. Be more comprehensive

If there are lots of ‘Top 10′ lists similar to yours, write a ‘Top 25′, ‘Top 50′ or even a ‘Top 100′. Find the most comprehensive list post around, and try and beat it. Include as many different points as possible, and make sure that your list post is the biggest and best available.

This is exactly what we did our most popular blog post to date – our list of the Top 100 Marketing Blogs. We tried to add value by categorizing each blog, and offering a short bit of background information. We also knew that there were lots of other ‘Top Marketing Blog’ posts around – but no-one had dared to aim for 100. The closest rival was a 75 blog list from Unbounce, so we stuck 25 on and went for the full century.

Which of these blog post ideas do you use on your business blog? Which works the best? Let us know in the comments below!

Check out these other great blogging posts:

• The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page
• 5 Small Business Blog Myths: Busted!
• How to Steal Good Blog Ideas

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