By now, most firms know about the importance of content marketing. Content marketing helps to attract authoritative backlinks and generate traffic through organic search. Research suggests that companies with active blogs receive double the quantity of inbound links and 50 per cent more traffic than those that don’t.
The tricky part, however, is developing a strategy to come up with informative, helpful and relevant content in the first place. It’s not always obvious the direction in which a firm’s content marketing should go. What are the appropriate keywords to target? Which topics interest customers? What websites should a company target for guest posting?
The good news is that with a little research and the help of this guide, you can quickly learn how to implement effective content marketing at your firm. Take a look at the following.
Update Your Old Content
It can sometimes be difficult for companies to come up with new, product-related blog posts, week after week, year after year. After all, there are only so many ways you can slice a subject until you’ve hit it from every possible angle. But the good news is that you might not have to. If you’ve got an established blog with dozens of articles, you can go back through your old posts and look for content which could be updated and modified to be useful for a contemporary audience. For instance, suppose you wrote a post about the current state of regulations in your industry way back in 2014. Chances are, things have moved on since then (so you could write about that). But even if they haven’t, you can still update your content to the present year, telling your readers that your current information is up to date. You can also reinvigorate old content in other ways too. One popular method right now is to run a series of posts which build on each other. You could host a yearly update on a critical aspect of your product or industry to generate interest year after year.
The bottom line is that you don’t have to create new content every time you post on your blog. Recycling old stuff and bringing it up to date is often a beneficial and useful strategy.
Create Content That Will Never Grow Old
News articles have, by their nature, a limited shelf life. Most news-related posts will be relevant for perhaps a week, but then lose their value over time as the news cycle moves on. Although some firms have had success basing their content on current media buzz, any surge in the popularity of a particular topic is likely fleeting. If you can avoid it, try to create content that will never grow old. The best posts are those which maintain their appeal through time, and they can also be updated with new content that becomes current.
Here are some examples of the type of posts that don’t grow old with time:
- Tips Posts. Helpful tips and strategies never get old, whether it’s how to apply makeup products, service a machine, or achieve better business performance. Just remember, the tips need to be genuinely insightful and original, not merely copied from your competitors.
- FAQ Posts. If they can help it, most customers would prefer to consult an FAQ page than go to the effort of contacting a customer service rep. FAQ posts about your product (or something related) give customers immediate value and last for an entire product development cycle.
- Photo Posts. As social media networks like Instagram prove, pictures don’t get old.
- Tutorial Posts. Providing step-by-step instructions or “how-to” articles gives customers immediate value without running the risk of going out of date.
Start Using Infographics
Psychologists discovered many years ago that people find big walls of text threatening and challenging to interpret. Infographics (the combination of small chunks of text with graphics) help to break up text and add pictures to enhance understanding, create interest, and better communicate critical concepts.
The great thing about today’s infographics is that they can go viral. A person can find your infographic on a social media page and then share it with their friends who then, in turn, share it with theirs, creating a virtuous cycle. A well put together infographic could potentially reach thousands of people, representing a fabulous ROI.
Start Blogging On Relevant Websites
Guest blogging – or posting an article on another website – can boost your content marketing in several important ways. Firstly, by creating content for another website, you get access to a new audience who may be interested in what you have to sell. Second, many guest blogging sites will allow you to create a link to your website and credentials at the end of the post, providing an essential backlink to your site. And finally, blogging on other sites can be a massive bonus for your SEO, especially if you can get your content onto an authority site.
Ideally, you want any external website to be related to yours in some way. There’s no point a roofing contractor posting about their services on a beauty blog. But if you can find a relevant website, then you can create valuable synergies to enhance your web presence.
Use Community Interactions Develop Content
Social media isn’t just an excellent tool for outreach; it’s also useful for creating timely, relevant content that is hot right now in the community. Keep stock of chat interactions, status updates and conversations on competitor pages to see what is creating the most interest for customers right now. Then, craft blogs in response.
Collect Data On Your Content
Just because you’re faithfully following the above tips doesn’t necessarily mean that your content will be a hit. Sometimes you can spend hours crafting articles, videos and embedded animations only to find that they aren’t generating the kind of traffic that you’d hoped for.
Collecting data on the performance of your marketing content is, therefore, essential. By doing so, you’ll gain insights into what works and what doesn’t and be able to make adjustments where appropriate. Data gives you the ability to change your approach, find out which topics are creating the most shares, and which articles generate the most dwell time.
Content Curation and Linking Out
Content Curation is the act of discovering, gathering, and presenting third party digital content that surrounds specific subject matter. Reviewing excellent content and industry leading experts and including referring links to these websites is a good way to gain more traffic.
Summary
Content Marketing is critical for any company wanting to do well in search engines. Only by establishing yourself as an authoritative expert in Google, can you rank on the most competitive search terms in Google. Content marketing is a mix of skills from writing to topical expertise. Success is about having a high enough quantity of quality of content!
