Content marketing has consistently shown to be a proven way to increase the amount of leads for your business. Not only can publishing relevant information to your website help individuals gain information about your industry, but with the right strategy, it can introduce them to your brand and the services it offers. By creating and implementing content marketing, customers are able to acquire information and potentially inquire about what your brand offers them. Of course, implementing a full scale content marketing campaign is never easy.
Effective Content Marketing Tips
There are multiple factors to consider when developing your content, as well as disseminating it online. With that in mind, here are some of the best content marketing tips available that are sure to guide your content marketing strategy in 2019.
1. Choose Your Target Audience
The very first step of your content marketing strategy should be to establish your preferred audience. It is crucial to determine the audience that you believe is most likely to convert into business. For example, if you are running a dental practice and plan to increase your book of patients, it would not make sense to publish content for individuals who are experiencing hip pain – unless that hip pain is caused by a tooth infection (unlikely). This holds true in every industry – you must identify the type of individual you believe is most likely to purchase your product or schedule your services, then create content specifically for that type of individual.
2. Conduct Extensive Keyword Research
Once you have identified the target audience you plan to produce content for, you must perform keyword research based on the search terms used by that audience to search for industry-relevant information. Implementing the words or phrases that are frequently searched by your preferred audience into your content is essential. This will increase the likelihood that your content shows up in the search engine results page after a potential customer searches for content containing those keywords. This allows web users to easily find your content (and by extension, your brand and services) online. Therefore, it is imperative that you center your content marketing efforts around extensive keyword research that is focused on your target-audience’s needs and goals.
3. Provide Industry-Specific Information
What good is a content marketing strategy which features poorly written content? Obviously, for your content marketing to be effective, you must write engaging content that is both specific to your industry and your customer actually find informative. If web users come across your site and are unable to find reliable (or entertaining) information, they are likely to click away in favor of another site that provides better information. Having bad content can also negatively impact your pages’ ranks in the search engine results pages (SERPs) thus, making it all the more pertinent that you provide information that is relevant to the title, interesting, and most important, tailored for your target audience.
4. Publish Your Content to Social Media
Social media marketing can play a vital role in sharing your content with your desired audience. As not everyone uses search engine to find content or services, publishing your content directly to your business’ social media pages allows an otherwise untapped audience to discover it and interact with your brand. If they believe the content or services are relevant to them and their needs, they may become your customers. If they like their experience, they may even share your content (or website) with friends or family who may also be interested in your products or services. Thus, popularizing your content on social media platforms, in addition to optimizing your content to rank in the SERPs, can dramatically help increase the amount of users who come across your website and convert into loyal customers. All without spending any money on traditional marketing methods such as advertising.
5. Produce Evergreen Content
One of the biggest content marketing tips available is to produce evergreen content. What does that mean? The answer is simple: content that is relevant and never becomes dated or loses its significance is considered “evergreen,” (just like how evergreen trees retain their leaves all year around). That said, most of the content on your website should be considered evergreen. That way, potential customers can have access to relevant, timely, and ‘always-fresh’ information when they stumble upon your website. Moreover, because it lasts forever (unlike trendy topics that fade over time) producing evergreen content is a worthwhile investment. While it may be important to keep up with trends in your content in the short term, creating content that will always attract users to your site is a far-better long-term strategy.
6. Improve Your Stale or Outdated Content
Going along the lines of producing evergreen content, it is also recommended that you improve or “refresh” the current content that is already on your site that may no longer be performing well. Whether due to a change in a trend or the end of a year (or a decade) content that is not relevant will slowly lose customer interest, making it essentially dead-weight for search engines and web users alike. Moreover, because web users are more likely to read a blog published in current year as opposed to an archived post, simply updating your content (along with the date it was posted) to make it ‘appear’ up to date can improve your results. This can increase the likelihood that a user will click on or share that content in the future, both of which can also improve your search engine results rankings overall.
7. Allow Industry Leaders to Post as a Guest on Your Site
Guest posting is a great strategy for building relationships and increasing traffic to your website. By allowing a leader in your market or industry to post content on your site and vice-versa, both your audience and theirs’ will get the opportunity to learn about your services and product offerings. This can encourage similar-minded readers to explore your business’ website to see what you are all about and potentially purchase your services.
In addition to increasing your online exposure, guest posting has many other additional benefits. Perhaps the most valuable, posting on other industry-related websites allows you to create backlinks (hyperlinks that ‘link-back’ to your website). From a technical SEO perspective, backlinks are the digital equivalent of an endorsement from a high-ranking official in your industry. These recommendations allow search engines to quickly determine the relevancy of your website and content, making backlinks an incredibly effective way to increase your SERP rankings. Furthermore, featuring well-known individuals on your website (and vice-versa) helps foster a relationship between your brand and their’s, which can help your business establish credibility and popularity in your industry.
8. Implement Strong Calls to Action
Say you’ve made content that is heavily key-word researched and targeted for your audience, ranks high in the search engines, and contains perhaps the best prose ever written. How can you possibly improve on that? It turns out that content is pretty hard to convert on it’s own. If your readers get to the end of the post and don’t have a signal for what to do next, it is hard to direct their behavior to convert.
Strong Calls To Action (CTA’s), in contrast, that encourage your web viewers to take a next step in acquiring your services after reading about them can be a huge determining factor in getting the conversions you are seeking. Offering a ‘no-risk reward’ for your users such as a free trial or consultation will likely prompt them to sign up. Even something as simple as a button that says “Register Now” or “Sign Up For Our Newsletter Today” can be visually appealing enough to catch the user’s attention and encourage them to subscribe. Just remember not to force it…the more natural your CTA is (and more relevant it is to the copy that precedes it) the more likely your users will follow their lead.
Seek Help From An Experienced Digital Marketing Agency
While we hope these content marketing tips have helped you gain insight about publishing strong content, it may be difficult implementing these strategies on your own. On top of running a business (or starting one) content marketing may seem like a time-consuming hassle. That’s why outsourcing your digital marketing can be extremely beneficial. Fortunately for you, the experienced digital marketers at 321 Web Marketing have the answer – and the experience – to solve all of your marketing issues in no time!
Our team of expert marketers has years of experience creating and managing highly effective content marketing campaigns, helping clients rank at the top of SERPs and win a consistent stream of new clients in 6 months or less. For more information about the featured content marketing tips, or to start your own content marketing campaign, contact 321 Web Marketing today!