River Pools and Spas
publishes the most popular blog in the pool industry and is the number one pool company in the United States that specializes in fiberglass pools. The company started blogging in 2008, and to date, it has 760 blog subscribers.
This company is a great example of an organization that uses business blogging and organic search to its benefit. But what were the decisions that RPS made that set themselves up as successful business bloggers ?
10 Things River Pools and Spas Did Right While Blogging
1) Got rid of PPC and decided to focus on earned traffic through blogging. In the early days--when pool companies weren't using PPC --the cost-effectiveness was relatively high. As more competitors utilized paid search, pool-related keywords became more and more expensive. For River Pools and Spas, this meant it was time to focus on organic content and traffic.
2) Used its blog to educate many potential customers at once.
Before blogging, many people would call the company simply to ask for pool information. Without knowing if these people had any intention of buying, these one-on-one conversations were not leading to sales. By educating many potential customers at once through the blog, RPS could now funnel people through the sales cycle.
3) Blogged consistently, writing two posts per week.
This consistency held subscribers’ interests and engaged new subscribers. By having an ongoing stream of published content, it also increased the probability the company would get found online.
4) Used questions from prospects and customers as fodder for blog posts.
The company prioritized the questions it received most frequently and considered often-used keywords in prominent components of the blog article--like the headline!
5) Optimized for long-tail keywords.
River Pools knew it was best to target easier keywords when just getting started, and very specific words--or long-tail keywords--worked best. For example, 'vinyl liner pools' was a long-tail term the company targeted.
6) Made sure its blog was on the same domain as its website.
River Pools blogged on the domain that also hosted its company website so that all inbound links to blog articles also gave SEO credit to the primary domain. That way, non-blog website pages could rank well too.
7) Shared blogging responsibility throughout a team.
RPS understood that blogging is hard work. Team members compiled a list of topics or questions they could answer and rotated who would publish what article next.
8) Answered questions publicly that its competitors were afraid to talk about.
For example, competitors never published information regarding pricing for others to see, but RPS broke the mold and published market prices of pool material on its blog. The post called "
Fiberglass Pool Prices: How Much is My Pool Really Going to Cost?
", received 20,359 page views and 84 inbound links, the highest numbers for both categories in River Pools' blogging history.
9) Encouraged conversation by responding to all comments--even negative ones.
Subscribers noticed the frequency that RPS responded and felt welcome to share their ideas too, creating a collaborative environment.
10) Added calls-to-action on all blog content that led to conversion forms.
These CTAs are what helped River Pools' blog subscribers eventually
filter down the sales funnel
by giving readers an opportunity to raise their hand and potentially engage in business!
These factors combined helped River Pools and Spas. Have you had similar success? Get any new ideas that you might start implementing on your blog?
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Kyle 3:19 PM on June 27, 2011
Blogging is one of the most consistent forms of creating SEO long term SEO value.
We post 10 blogs a month and make sure to include at least one of our keywords linked back to our website and just recently ranked in the top 20 for the term "SEO Service" using this technique.
If you can't keep up with your posts it doesn't hurt to hire a blog writing service like htt://www.watermyblog.com.
Staying consistent is one of the keys to rising in the ranks.
Thanks for the post and the reassurance!
Kyle
Ashley 3:33 PM on June 27, 2011
This is great for consumer businesses, but what about B2B blogs? Are blogs as important?
We're a B2B company and I know management is really discouraging of publishing content for fear our competitors will get our information...is this a valid fear?
Kipp Bodnar 3:37 PM on June 27, 2011
Ashley,
HubSpot is a B2B company and we have had huge success with our blog. We also have some great data around blogging. Check out HubSpot.com/Charts and the Science of Blogging. Giving information away to competitors is not a valid fear. The leads and revenues that a good business blog generates will out way almost any fear.
Kyle 3:43 PM on June 27, 2011
Ashley,
I second Kipp's remarks. In most cases blogging is about spreading knowledge or providing value to your potential clients, not about discussing inside secrets or internal gossip.
This post is a perfect example of providing value to people Hubspot feels are potential clients. This information is useful to us and we are happy to spread it in return, or better yet... Sign up.
SpareFoot 3:50 PM on June 27, 2011
Ashley,
Sometimes, being the most informative is your competitive advantage. Obviously you want to avoid posting company secrets or confidential material, but if you want to have an informative blog, you're going to have to post some "pre-sales" information that could potentially be interesting to your competitors. The price of being a thought leader is increased transparency (not to mention a good amount of time and effort).
Tikyd 4:09 PM on June 27, 2011
Thanks for listing all of these tips. The tip 7 makes me think about Mailchimp's blog. This tactic of completely leaving PPC for organic traffic by blogging seems to have worked.
Andrew Dymski 4:35 PM on June 27, 2011
Thanks for the post and the great tips! It is great to see this as a case study; these tactics really work! Like the idea of targeting long tailed keywords to get off the ground; good advice.
Jon-Mikel Bailey 5:29 PM on June 27, 2011
I think this is going to become more and more common especially now that the Panda dust has settled. We have been telling our clients to be experts online just like they are in real life. Great example of someone doing things right, thanks for sharing this!
Deb McAlister-Holland 6:24 PM on June 27, 2011
We're a B2B company, too, and our blog has gotten thousands of readers by using almost exactly the same strategies outlined here. The only difference is that our blog is not (yet) on our website -- we wanted to build SEO traction, and redesign our website, before making the move. We've only had it up since March, but consistent messages, promotion, and pro-active social media have resulted in very high readership.
Cristina 8:23 PM on June 27, 2011
Great post. Does anyone have any tips on how to set up a blog that is attached to your domain? Maybe a basic how to or can someone point me to some good books or other resources?
Scarlet 10:06 AM on June 28, 2011
Nice post! I love concrete information and examples like those you provided.
Kipp Bodnar 10:20 AM on June 28, 2011
@Christina - the basics of setting up a blog on your site depends on the software you are using like HubSpot or WordPress.
This ebook offers some great info for business blogging.
http://www.hubspot.com/ebooks/better-business-blogging-in-2011
Thank you!
Kipp
Ryo Yamaguchi 3:27 PM on June 29, 2011
Thanks Rebecca, this is such a comprehensive SEO case study. Point 4 on crowdsourcing content (and keywords!) from customers and prospectives is so huge, and I don't think enough companies do this sort of thing. Or on point 8 and Ashley's concern here in the comments on exposing trade secrets. Examples like this are slowly helping businesses understand that we frankly live in different times--people, customers, audiences all demand a higher level of transparency; to me, it's the natural outcome of the information age. I totally agree with @SpareFoot's comment and think it well said, "The price of being a thought leader is increased transparency." @ryoatcision
Deb Krier 10:42 AM on June 30, 2011
All great tips! #6 caught my attention as I still see businesses using the "free" blogging platforms. I belong to a major chamber of commerce in my area and they still use Wordpress.com. Unfortunately, their blog comes across as unprofessional. Sad, especially as it's so easy to incorporate a blog into a website.
eve 3:07 AM on July 05, 2011
thank you for the blogging tips