Block based corporate blog for IOT: 8 of the 10 top clicked pages are blog posts

IOT is an optical retail group running several brands on Magnolia. Like almost any company with a blog, it had published articles and the sense that they returned little relative to the work of writing them.

When a blog underperforms, the usual reaction is to publish more, and that is rarely the problem: what fails first is the content model each article is built on.

A fixed template has to be filled in, and an article that fills in a template reads like one.

• Rigid structure: every post had to fit a mold instead of being built around what it had to say.
• No optimization at the base: content shipped without the structure supporting what makes a page visible.
• Volume as the answer: the only remaining move was publishing more, the most expensive one and the least likely to work.

The cost does not show up in the blog but across the whole site: the cheapest traffic channel stays switched off.

We implemented a fully flexible blog item, assembled from blocks, and worked on optimizing the posts so performance would come from structure rather than volume.

The technical piece is simple to describe and it is what changes the outcome: each article is composed rather than completed.

An article you assemble, not one you fill in

• Add as many blocks as needed, with no cap on count and no imposed order.
• Several block types to choose from, so each post's shape follows its content.
• The content team publishes without requesting a new template variant every time.

Optimization on the structure

• Posts were worked so hierarchy and markup match what the reader is looking for.
• The blog is still in production and in use today, on the same model it shipped with.

The same model powers the Resources Hub

• The group publishes more than 30 downloadable resources on its own, including white papers, documents and PDFs.
• End users get them by filling in a form, with no dependency on anyone to add a new one.

Architecture and technology

• Magnolia CMS with a block based blog item, unlimited count and combinable types.
• Resources Hub on the same content model, with an embedded HubSpot form.

Learn more about Magnolia CMS.

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The blog stopped being an annex to the site and became the part of the site that brings in the most organic traffic.

Starting point

• Blog on a fixed structure, published without optimization at the base.
• Organic traffic concentrated on institutional pages.

Results

• Eight of the ten top clicked pages on the site are blog posts, measured in Search Console on iotlenses.com.
• Those eight posts add up to 2,223 clicks in the month, against 758 for the home page.
• The top post draws 924 clicks and 118,486 impressions in the month.
• More than 30 downloadable resources published by the team itself in the Resources Hub.

Strategic impact

• Performance is tied to the content model, so it holds without increasing publishing volume.
• The content team no longer depends on a development cycle to change an article's shape.