You read the headline, so let’s get down to business. Here are the most-read stories of 2019 on Fleet Equipment’s website (by pageviews, 1/1/19-12/11/19, for you analytics nerds).

1. Truck air suspension ride height measurement procedure tips (2014)
2. Detailing diesel truck engine programmers: An FAQ (2014)
3. Air line thawing tips (2009)
4. What you need to know about air disc brakes as they increase in popularity (2018)
5. Understanding truck tires and air pressure (2016)
6. The pros and cons of truck driver-facing cameras (2018)
7. Electric vehicles are being readied for vocational operations (2019)
8. The great debate: aluminum vs. steel wheels (2017)
9. Navistar CEO Troy Clarke on market strategy, new truck technology and meeting customer needs (2019)
10. Temperature control: What you need to know about reefer trailers (2017)

Why is this happening?!

Search. It’s that simple. Generally, 50% of website traffic is driven by search; 51.47% in Fleet Equipment’s case (with 36.51% coming directly to our site). So look at that top 10 again, and it starts to make sense.

• The top three are problem-solving posts.

• Four (No. 4, 6, 8, 10) are equipment-decision related.

• The two 2019 stories just happened to capture the industry zeitgeist: Vocational electric trucks was lightning in a bottle, and the Navistar executive interview was Fleet Equipment’s January cover story and had more time online than any other executive cover story (and Navistar has built industry momentum since the launch of its LT Series and A26 engine).

What does this mean to me as a content marketer?

First: Solve a problem.

Great solutions stick around. Readers turn to search to find answers.

Consider that Air Line Thawing Tips was provided by Bendix more than 10 years ago, well before content marketing was a thing. It still gets read—and will continue to do so as the temperature continues to drop this winter. Now imagine being able to interact with those readers through direct marketing—serving a pop-up that might direct them to a solution that will stop their freezing airlines for good.

Now stop imagining it and give me a call, because we can do that.

Second: Explain the details.

Both the air disc brake and in-cab camera stories detail the nuances of the technology, the benefits, and the applications they serve. They also deal with the challenges—air disc brakes have a larger up-front cost, but, according to sources, offer reduced maintenance to provide ROI value; whereas in-cab cameras can potentially impact fleets’ driver relationships who view it as Big Brother in the truck. Show both sides, but clearly state where you see the value.

Third: Know that your content has value well after it’s posted.

Thanks to Babcox’s BIG investment in our audience platform, what’s old is new again. Old great content begets new great readers. You don’t have to reinvent your content marketing wheel, you just have to come up with the next line in the conversation when you approach the engaged readership through a custom email or content-related interstitial website ad. And we’re here to help.

Bonus analytics for data nerds!

Let’s dive deeper into the data.

• Fun fact about the air disc brake story: An air disc brake story has been in Fleet Equipment’s Top 10 stories of the year since 2013. Before the 2018 story listed above, the story in the Top 10 was: “The skinny on air disc brakes” (2012). Within a year of posting, the updated story overtook “Skinny”—knocking it down to No. 230 overall for the year.

• Of all the Top 10 most-read stories of 2019, the 2019-posted No. 7 “Electric vehicles are being readied for vocational operations” and No. 9 Navistar Executive Interview were the only ones in which search traffic was not the primary driver. They were driven by direct traffic.

• Here is a rundown of the Top 10 most-read stories of 2019 posted in 2019 (out of 878 posted to date):

1. Electric vehicles are being readied for vocational operations
2. Navistar CEO Troy Clarke on market strategy, new truck technology and meeting customer needs
3. Ford introduces new F-600 Super Duty, updates commercial vehicle lineup
4. Detroit Assurance 5.0: The FAQ—everything you need to know about the new safety system suite
5. Watch: Dealing with parasitic loads in your trucks
6. Navistar moves to settle class action lawsuits, Troy Clarke sets sights on future
7. The four pillars of your true tire costs
8. A guide to today’s aftertreatment systems: How they’re improving and how to maintain them
9. Watch: Driver-facing cameras—a complicated issue
10. CanDo adds DPF resets, regen for International MaxxForce Engines to its HD Code II, HD Mobile

Dean Martin was named publisher of Fleet Equipment in 2013. Previously, Martin served as regional sales manager for Babcox Media, covering territories in the southeast and south central U.S. Martin joined Babcox in 1996 as associate group publisher for the company’s automotive service publications.

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