Focusing on content marketing is extremely important in order to attract a large number of visitors to your websites or blogs. While many do understand the basics of content marketing, most business owners are confused when it comes to implementing content marketing.
Well, in this post, we list out 12 content marketing tips that you should keep in mind while developing and deploying an effective digital marketing strategy
Quality Vs Quantity
One of the first things you should understand before you start any type of content marketing activity is the difference between focusing on quantity and quality of articles. Many newbies make the mistake of assuming that they need to publish several articles per day on their website in order to attract consistent traffic. This is true only to an extent. Much more than quantity, the focus should be on the quality of the articles. If you post content which is extremely useful to the readers, then your website will eventually attract visitors. However, if the content you publish is something that is already available on the net and is not particularly useful for the readers, then such posts are less likely to generate traffic. In fact, just one top-notch article can actually get you far more traffic than publishing ten substandard articles.
Write Guest Posts
Just as it is easier for you to attract attention when associating with famous people, your website too will attract visitors if it can associate with other, more famous websites. Just having a link back from high authority websites to your website can easily attract a ton of new visitors. A good way to do this will be to sign up as a guest writer at such high authority websites. If the editors think that you have the knowledge and writing ability to be featured on their website, then they will gladly accept your guest posts. Once approved, you will be able to add a link to your website at the end of each article you publish on their websites. And if the readers are impressed by your knowledge and your content, then they are sure to check out your website and follow it to remain updated with your latest articles.
Mind the Keywords
Keywords play an important role too. Make sure that you blend in a good number of relevant keywords into every article that you write. This will make it easier for search engines to rank your website. Without putting the correct keyword in the articles, you will never be able to attract sufficient visitors through search engines. Now, be sure not to overstuff the content with too many keywords. Google will interpret such incidents as a marketing ploy and will neglect your article. In fact, if you do it too many times, then Google can even stop indexing your articles. In addition, try to make the keywords naturally blend in with the content. If the keyword looks like it has been put there intentionally and does not make any sense, then the reader might judge your website as being too focused on marketing and may decide never to visit it again.
Remarketing
Most of the website visitors just leave without performing an action that the owner would have expected. And earlier, there was nothing one could do about it. But with content remarketing, you have a second chance at attracting those visitors. Once a visitor has been determined to have shown an interest in your website, then you can easily target them with more interesting content which you think will attract their attention and bring them back to your website. You can then use the opportunity to make them sign up for your newsletter or follow you on social media so that you will always be able to keep them updated with fresh content from your website.
Use Data
When writing an article, try to add some relevant data to it. For example, suppose that you are writing an article about the housing market in New York. Instead of just plain content, you should add in some figures like the growth in housing prices over the past years, the projections about the housing market, the average price of a house, and so on. This will make it interesting for your readers since human beings generally are attracted to numbers and statistics. And the more data-oriented articles you publish, the more they will generate traffic as compared to just plain content.
Create an Intriguing Headline
When any of your articles pop up in the Google search results page, most users will decide to click and visit your website by looking at the title of the article. If the title they see does not interest them, then it is very likely that they will not click the link. In contrast, if your title does catch their attention, then you can be sure of getting a visitor. And one of the easiest ways to generate interest in a headline is by making it intriguing. For example, suppose you have decided the title of your article as ‘New Ways to Save Electricity’. Now, this is a rather flat headline that does not create too much intrigue. A much better title would be ‘Do You Know How Much Electricity You Can Save By Implementing These Hacks?’ This title will intrigue a reader far more since it is a question to which they will unconsciously answer ‘No’. And out of a curiosity to know what the ‘hacks’ are, they are very likely to click the link and visit your webpage.
Answer Questions
Ideally, all your articles must answer a question that a reader has in mind. What this means is that the article must be structured in such a way that readers can find answers to some of the questions they have been having in their mind. Such types of articles will create a huge impact on the readers since they will find it useful. And this will make your website an important resource for the readers, who will now be more likely to check your website regularly in order to remain updated with your latest articles.
Tell Stories
As far as possible, construct the article in a way that it comes across as a story. People like to hear stories. So, it makes sense that your articles should also give off a story-like feeling rather than just being a long block of text. For example, if you are writing about photosynthesis, then don’t just focus on writing a technical or scientific article which is solely concentrated on delivering facts. Instead, write it in a way that it talks about the entire process of photosynthesis like a story, right from what happens when the sunlight hits the leaves to how the energy conversion actually takes place. This will make the articles interesting to the readers, making them more likely to become repeat visitors.
Add Suitable Images
Images have a huge impact on people’s mind. If you place a text content by the side of an image, people are more likely to look at the image rather than the text. You should use this human tendency to its fullest. So, make sure that you add some stunning, high-quality images in your article at regular intervals. The main image, which will also appear as a snapshot on the results page of Google, should also be interesting to look at. The more attractive the image is, the more clicks you can generate from the results page.
Long Form Content
Earlier, website owners mostly used to publish articles which were of 500 to 750 words in length. This was considered good enough to get the attention of search engines. However, with Google becoming stricter on the quality front, long form content is now seen as necessary. Such content typically run for about 1500 to 2000 words on average. Google interprets these articles as more valuable since longer articles will obviously contain more detailed information about a specific topic. So, make sure that you publish long form content on your website if you want to attract visitors through Google search results.
Targeted Facebook Posts
When publishing your article links on Facebook, make sure that you promote it to people who have a large number of friends who are interested in such topics. This will make sure that your links get shared across the maximum, and that more people will visit your website by clicking the link on the Facebook post. For example, if you have published an article discussing the best restaurants in New York City, then promote it to people who are living in New York. Since they will normally have friends from New York itself, your article is very likely to generate interest among all of them.
Monitor and Analyze
Once you publish an article, you will have to monitor its performance. How many hits has the article generated? How long have the visitors stayed reading the articles? What percentage of visitors bounced away from your website after visiting the webpage? All such questions need to be answered. They will enable you to know how to improve your content marketing strategies.
