Lead Generation through Content: How to Write Blog Posts That Sell
Discover how to craft blog posts that drive leads and sales.
If you create blog posts—either for your own or third-party websites—with the aim of driving traffic and boosting sales, the most effective content targets those at the bottom of the sales funnel. In other words, those who already know they need what you offer and are looking for where to buy it.
How to attract these people?
Identify the right topics for articles;
Choose a platform for publishing the article;
Write the article and publish it;
Promote your article.
Let’s break down each step in detail.
1. Identify the right topics for articles
The most effective topics for lead generation are often comprehensive reviews or lists of the best products available in a particular category.
Let’s suppose we are looking for leads for Semrush (a tool for digital marketers). The topics for our articles could be the following:
Best SEO tools;
Best keyword research tools;
Best competitor analysis tools, etc.
In these articles, we discuss the best tools available, their functions, advantages and disadvantages, costs, and more. You can enhance the article with helpful tips, frequently asked questions, and your own insights and opinions. Of course, we want to prioritise our service in the list because positioning it first tends to generate the most impressions, clicks, and leads.
Sometimes, owners express concerns about promoting competitors; they prefer to focus exclusively on their products. However, from the readers’ perspective — and consequently that of search engines — a comparative review of multiple products is generally more valuable than a purely promotional piece about a single product. Such blog posts attract search engine traffic and generate leads.
If you choose to write solely about your own products, you avoid promoting competitors, but you also miss out on potential gains. So, which approach is more advantageous?
Unfortunately, such topics quickly run out, so you need to look for new ones.
Our next topics could be questions that directly point to the problems that our product solves. For our example, they might be:
How to find keywords for blog posts;
How to conduct a competitive analysis;
How to check a website’s backlinks.
In these articles, we aim to provide detailed and clear instructions and answer any questions our readers may have. Of course, we also demonstrate how our products solve the tasks we are discussing.
An example of such an article: https://ahrefs.com/blog/keywords-for-blog/
This type of blog post might generate fewer leads, as readers might continue their search for additional tools. However, it still proves effective for lead generation.
Once you’ve thoroughly covered all such topics for your product, it’s logical to broaden your reach by moving up the sales funnel to engage a wider audience.
2. Choose a platform for publishing the article
The first and most straightforward option is a blog on your own website. However, there’s a critical consideration: the keywords you wish to rank for in search engines might be highly competitive. If your site lacks sufficient ‘authority’ (or Domain Rank, DR), even the best optimized articles may not achieve top rankings or attract significant traffic.
Even if this is the case, I recommend starting and promoting your own blog. However, if you don’t want to wait year(s) with no guarantees of high rankings, consider publishing articles on third-party platforms.
There are two options: free blogging platforms and paid publication on major media websites or private blogs.
You can publish your articles for free on platforms like Medium, LinkedIn or Substack. These sites have high Domain Rank (DR) and offer a good chance of attracting search traffic. Ensure your articles are well-optimized and indexed by Google — and a bit of luck wouldn’t hurt.
Alternatively, a potentially more effective strategy is paid publication on major media sites or blogs. While you might try to negotiate free publication, it’s unlikely to be successful.
It can be quite costly — often thousands of dollars per article or more — and there’s no guarantee that your article will be published on your chosen site. However, if you have the budget and can secure a deal, it could prove to be your most effective marketing investment. High-authority sites like Forbes or USAToday or similar ones rank well on Google for nearly any keyword.
Once you’ve identified the topics and platforms for publication, the next step is simply to write the articles and post them.
There’s ample guidance available on crafting a well-optimized blog post (I recommend this one: SEO Writing at Ahrefs), so I won’t delve into that here.
I will only briefly outline the preparation process:
Keyword research: I utilize SEMrush for this, along with competitor and SERP analysis.
Competitor analysis: Focus on the selected keywords.
Outline creation: Draft an outline for the blog post.
Data collection: Gather necessary data and information necessary to write your post.
Content writing: Write the post and its meta-tags.
Internal linking: Add internal links (if possible).
4. Promote your article
If the article is well-optimized and posted on a high-authority website, it may rank high on Google quickly and start attracting traffic.
To further increase its chances of success, you can:
Share it on social media platforms.
Acquire or purchase backlinks.
Key takeaways
To effectively generate leads from blog posts, consider the following steps:
1. Topic selection. Not all topics will engage potential buyers immediately. If the goal is to rapidly increase lead generation, choose topics and keywords strategically for your blog posts.
2. Platform selection. If your own website has high authority, publish there. If not, posting on third-party websites can be more effective. Combining both approaches may enhance traffic and lead generation.
3. SEO writing. Produce and publish SEO-optimised articles.
4. Boost rankings. Support your blog posts with external and internal links.