We all know the challenges of B2B blogging: Finding a good business reason to start one (besides the fact that everyone else is doing it), finding an authentic "voice" for it, and then keeping it fresh and updated once it's up and running.

But the biggest challenge of all: Finding and sustaining an audience!

In a recent post at Daily Blog Tips, Gregory Ciotti offers three practical tips for boosting B2B blog readership and reader response:

Remove poor-performing social buttons. It may seem self-defeating to limit your blog's social outreach, but social media buttons "are awful for page-load speed," Ciotti says. Plus, focusing your choice of social links is critical for B2B bloggers, he says. Why? Because "you need to worry about quality traffic, not mass amounts of traffic," he explains. "Know your customers and the networks that they use." Keep those links—and ditch the others.

Use Slideshare. According to Ciotti, Slideshare is "the greatest B2B platform" of all. The key to winning on it? Get featured on its homepage, preferably in the top three listings of the day. His strategies for achieving that position:

• Create data-intensive content that SlideShare's professional audience loves.
• Get your slideshows embedded on other sites.
• Focus on great design. A good place to start: Try a template from GraphicRiver.

Host webinars with other B2B players. Invite a couple of other pros (with their own audiences, BTW) to idea-share with you, and sign up any attendees who want to opt-in to your blog's mailing list. Instant audience growth! Then host your webinar slides on Slideshare to spread your outreach even farther.

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