Seth Godin was quoted as saying: We don’t have an information shortage, we have an attention shortage. Seth certainly gets it … probably had it down before anyone else. What you may be asking? The concept of what it takes for content marketing success, of course. Secrets? Probably not. But certainly essential for success.
Content marketing tactics such as blog posts, feature articles, optimized website copy, white papers, social media content, and press releases move consumers along a specific path. Content marketing generates awareness of your brand, product or service; inspires consumers to engage and consider you; converts them into leads and sales, and creates advocates. Lots to gain, yes?
Discover how content marketing
exposes consumers to your brand, engages potential customers, and converts them
into leads and sales. The
following are our recommendations for ensuring the success of an online content marketing strategy that
even small businesses can successfully implement today:
Influence
marketing
There is nothing more valuable than contact with people who already have popular website. Do not try to ask them to promote you, better option is to some ego-bait stuff (like interview) with them then ask them for guest blog.
Are you one that believes that creativity can be learned? We are among that group. We also believe in suggestions for innovative thinking can boost team creativity through effective collaboration. Through a series of sparks and not a single flash of insight. Certainly our way of thinking on influence marketing.
In-depth articles
Forget
about writing average blog posts. Instead of this write some 10X stuff – 10X Content is the
Future.
Combine techniques
It is a mix of skills you already know but from your perspective. For example, I used to check the volume of keywords trough Google PPC and Bing PPC program then make a new content map strategy.
Tools
designed for spying on your competitors cover just 50% of this job. Check every
post, comment and article your competitors push. This way you can measure what
strategy could be fruitful for your business.
SEO
strategy example … content
Not
just SEO’d and unique but also useful. Your content should be shared and liked.
Your goal here is to be noticed and mentioned and receive as much attention as
possible.
No matter how good your content is, you won’t get any benefit from it unless you promote it. Hard. Remember 99% of perspiration and 1% inspiration.
Content comes first
A
website with brilliant content can do great with or without SEO, a website with
bad content will not survive with or without SEO, a website with good content
can become even better with SEO!
So,
what is considered good content?
Original Content (articles, text, images, videos, presentations, infographics, comments, etc.) – No copies or re-writes of existing articles
Content published on
your website first – Even if it’s your own content,
if you have already published it on another website then it’s not good for your
site.
Content that includes text as well – Try to have text to accompany your non-text content. For example, if you post videos on your website try to add a text description as well. If you add images try to describe in words what the image is all about.
Content that is well researched – Users don’t want to read quickly prepared posts and neither does search engines. If you are writing about a certain topic or answering a question make sure that what you write is justified and covers both sites of a story. Long articles are proven to rank better than short articles.
Posting frequency – 2 things are important when it comes to posting frequency.
The first is to have fresh content on your website and second to establish a publishing strategy and stick to it.
Keyword
research
–
is the main driver of successful SEO. In order to improve your search engine
ranking, you’ll need to first analyze keywords that are relevant to your
industry.
Sound
link building
–
it’s simple: High-quality link building produces greater results.
Creating
quality content
–
Don’t let poor content affect your site’s search engine rank. It’s vital that
you offer engaging and useful information to keep your visitors coming back.
When
you go about implementing SEO strategies –and in order to guarantee a
favorable search engine ranking–try following these methods to improve your spot
in SERPs.
Content-marketing
strategy
Every website should have a content strategy focused on your top keywords. When you create content such as blog posts, videos, whitepapers, research reports, and webinars, it gives people something to link to. In addition, the content you create can rank by itself in the search engines.
For example, if you write a blog post on “How to Pick an SEO Company,” there is a possibility it will rank for some of the keywords you use in the title and in the body post, especially if the post gets linked to from other websites or shared a lot on social media. It also helps if your website as a whole already has significant-high-quality links.
This
results in high domain authority, which translates into better rankings for all
of your content. In addition, regular content creation shows Google that your
website is alive and active. By sending this fresh content signal to Google on
a continual basis, it will result in better rankings for your website as a
whole.
SEO
strategy plan … generate quality backlinks
Having
an influencer and content marketing strategy will help you develop backlinks to
your website, but it is also important to actively be seeking ways to get
people to link to you. Some of the best ways to do this are to write for a
large publication, do industry interviews and recommend your powerful content
to people who matter.
In
addition, you can also use tools like Majestic SEO to see who is linking to
your competitors. Once you identify the links to your competitor’s sites, you
can analyze these links, learn how they got them and implement a similar
strategy for your website. For example, did they donate to a charity causing
the charity to link to their site? You can do the same thing.
Be
mobile-friendly
In
2015, there was a major Google update known as Mobilegeddon. This meant that if
you did not have a mobile version of your website by April 21, 2015, you lost a
significant amount of your rankings in the mobile version of the Google search
listings.
So your website needs to be mobile-ready. There are three types of accepted options for a mobile site in Google’s eyes: responsive design, being set up on a mobile subdomain or use dynamic serving. Google also now ranks websites higher that apply SEO for their apps. So if you have an app, make sure you are taking the time to implement application SEO.
The bottom line
Since as much as 90% of what we learned in a life-time always come to us via visual cues, we should constantly enhance our perceptual sensitivity to the environment, according to information scientists.
So, more than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci was right when he said, use all our senses, especially our sense of sight. Our power of observation and imagination depends on it. Productive thoughts often have their origins in the combinatorial play and dynamics of sensory inputs from environmental cues.
In my view, our thinking cap is often governed by how far we can stretch our power of vision and imagination.
Need some help in finding ways to grow
your customers? Such as creative
ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers? Or perhaps finding
ways to work with other businesses?
So
what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only
the next step. And that next step is completely up to you. But believe in the
effectiveness of collaborative innovation. And put it to good use in adapting
to changes in your business environment.
It’s
up to you to keep improving your learning and experience with innovation and
creativity efforts. Lessons are all around you. In this case, your competitor
may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that
it is within you already.
All
you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day
you learn and apply new lessons.
Try.
Learn. Improve. Repeat.
When things are not what you want them
to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Are
you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself
and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
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