“The world has changed. Most content stinks. Attract people through stories they love.”
Michael Brenner
These lines from Michael Brenner ring true, especially when you want to promote your business through content marketing.
While content marketing is an effective part of digital marketing strategy, mastering it doesn’t happen in a day. Stay with Search Engine Publication to learn from industry experts and see what they say about content marketing tips.
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What is content marketing?
Content marketing is connecting with your customers in the digital marketplace through articles, product reviews, videos, and even other social media platforms and content – Where your main goal is advertising!
When selling a product or a service, “What’s the first thing a client will want to see?” – The answer is within the question. The clients want to see your product, so content marketing is essential for digital marketing.
Content marketing lets you easily show your products to current and potential customers using articles, images, or blog posts.
12 Game-changing content marketing tips
The art of marketing through showing your products to clients is an ancient selling strategy.
In the past, companies used paper ads and posters in newspaper articles. While the strategy is the same, now everything is on the online platform.
We at Search Engine Publication have done in-depth research to present you with the essential content marketing tips to help you prepare a plan to promote your business in the digital market and decrease the hassle of further research.
1. Understand your target audience
Are you a marketer who lives and breathes the principle of focusing on self-promotion without addressing the audience’s interests or needs? If so, think again.
But why?
“Content marketing is like a first date. If all you do is talk about yourself, there won’t be a second date.”
David Beebe
Self-promotion leads to disengagement. That’s why it’s essential to understand your target audience and create content based on their needs, not your business requirements.
When you want to sell a product or service, share content that educates the client and motivates them to buy. Imagine you want to sell homemade organic hair oils online. But you published articles and blog posts like “Daily Self-care Routine.”
You can promote your brands in such articles, but the content is for people seeking self-care advice. If you publish articles on topics like “Best Homemade Organic Hair Oil for Healthy Hair,” you target an audience seeking the availability of homemade hair oils. And hopefully, buy them.
Pro-tip: Content marketing efforts become much more successful if you understand your audience. And if you’ve never performed target audience research, creating personas can be a great way to start.
2. Publish content that reaches your audience
Imagine you’ve published excellent content on your website, but if your target audience can’t get Google search results to find the content, you don’t benefit. This is where search engine optimization comes in. Make sure your content is SEO-optimized.
How to make content SEO-optimized?
Find relevant keywords
Focus on your industry. What type of product or service you are selling? Find the keywords related to it. A good content marketing strategy focuses on medium volume and low keywords to create engaging content that generates leads.
Keywords are specific words that your target audience searches. As an example – think – you run a shop that sells T-shirts. Now, a client wants to buy a T-shirt on an online marketplace. What will he search for? “T-shirts for men, High-quality T-shirts for a low price, Colorful summer T-shirts.” These specific lines your people search for are known as keywords.
Use the following keyword-searching tools to search for relevant keywords:
Read our article How long does SEO take? to understand how to conduct keyword research.
Perfect keyword implementation
Place your keyword in the right places and maintain keyword density.
Regular SEO audit
f you run an online website, check its rank efficiency regularly. Search engines like Google frequently change their search algorithms, affecting SEO. You can even perform technical SEO to highlight technical areas preventing your website from ranking on the search results.
Keep your pages well-optimized for good SEO. And for that, you must publish or edit your content after specific periods. Use SEO auditing tools like SEMrush. An SEO audit will help you to see issues affecting your site’s visibility and ranking. Organic traffic is the most critical part of business. Only the content that ranks on search engines reaches the audience!
Pro-tip: SEO is all about giving information about what customers want. Useful information that speaks to their pain points is more likely to rank higher on SERPs. Mention your products when they are directly relevant to a customer’s pain point, but again don’t overdo them.
Related articles: Unlock the Power of Restaurant SEO with These 8 Tips
3. Know your competition
With 82% of marketers already investing in content marketing, you’re not the only business trying everything possible to attract your audience.
So, keep a hawk’s eye on your competitors. Try to research their successful content patterns or produce more efficient and compelling content compared to them.
Perform competitor’s analysis on keywords to understand what competitor’s content is ranking and what you’re missing. This is what a keyword analysis of your competitor looks like:
SEMrush gives information such as missing untapped and unique keywords a website can use.
Pro-tip: Making keyword comparisons helps you know what extra your competitors are doing that you’re probably missing out.
4. Write in-depth content
Did you know that long-form content performs better on search engines?
Here’s a graph showing how content length impacts your ranking on the search engine result pages.
Creating quality content for your website that ranks well in search engines and genuinely serves your audience’s needs. However, increasing your content length should be more than just reaching a word count. The essence lies in crafting content as a one-stop resource for readers on a particular topic.
Pro-tip: When writing content, ensure your material is exhaustive and all-encompassing, addressing every potential question or concern your reader might have about the topic. This does not imply padding your articles with irrelevant information. Instead, it involves a meticulous approach to answering related queries, doing original research, offering practical advice, and providing insights that enrich the reader’s understanding.
5. Focus on your content mix
Decide what types of content you will publish. For example, you might publish blogs, social media posts, and email newsletters. Then get more specific within each channel. For example, your newsletter may contain 50% educational, 20% promotional, and 30% entertaining content.
Implementing this content mix requires understanding your audience’s preferences and behaviors.
Pro-tip: Analyzing engagement metrics across channels and conducting audience research will provide valuable insights into the types of content that resonate most.
Related articles: Digital Marketing for Doctors: 9 Tips to Attract New Patients
6. Create interactive content
One of the pillars of a successful content marketing strategy is creating interactive content your existing customers crave. Interactive content works like a two-way street where customers can interact with brands. Here are some statistics advocating the use of this valuable content marketing strategy:
- Interactive content generates two times more conversions than static content.
- 77% of marketers agree that interactive content results in multiple exposures and repeat customers.
- 38% of interactive content gets shared compared to 17% of static content.
- 68% of marketers say interactive content helps them repurpose their existing content.
Besides these benefits, interactive content can generate leads far better than blog posts or videos.
You acquire many leads using quizzes, forms, polls, giveaways, calculators, and assessments.
Pro-tip: To improve your content marketing strategy, create interactive content that is simple and easy to navigate.
7. Focus on serving your customers
In a quest to taste success sooner than expected, many content marketers predominantly aim to drive sales. While it’s essential to meet your sales target, the true potential of content marketing lies in its ability to forge meaningful connections with your audience.
This approach allows you to cultivate trust, paving the way for a loyal relationship. So, the core objective of your content strategy should revolve around delivering value through information, education, and entertainment rather than overtly pushing your offerings.
Consider, for instance, if you are a digital marketing company. You could initiate your content journey by publishing insightful articles on the latest digital marketing trends and offering actionable advice on social media strategies.
Such premium content showcases your expertise and positions you as a reliable source of industry knowledge. Your audience, recognizing your value, is more likely to consider your services when they need expert guidance.
Pro-tip: Adopting this strategy transforms your sales team from merely trying to sell your services to genuinely serving your audience’s needs. This shift in approach enriches your audience’s experience and naturally leads to a more engaged and loyal customer base.
8. Collaborate with experts and industry thought leaders
Collaborating with recognized influencers and experts exposes your content to their engaged audience.
Some other benefits of collaborating with experts and industry thought leaders are:
- Adds value to your content with fresh ideas and perspectives
- Enhances the credibility and authority of your content, as this aligns with the principle of E-E-A-T
- Helps you create more appealing and trustworthy content for your audience.
- Increases your content promotion efforts.
Content marketing is a way to connect to your buyers in the most effective way possible! The Content marketing tips we have shown you will help you prepare a foolproof content marketing strategy. So, keep practicing them and say cheers to success!
Pro-tip: Partnering and collaborating with influencers and experts increases the quality and reach of your content. It creates a base for ensuing sustained growth and success in the future.
9. Make your content calendar
A content or editorial calendar is like a map for your content journey. It brings order and clarity to your content’s planning and creation stages. By deciding on a publishing frequency for each channel, content marketers set a steady pace for their audience to follow along.
Imagine slotting your content ideas into a content calendar as if you were planting seeds in a garden, anticipating the growth of engaging content over time.
Remember to mark a special place for evergreen content within your calendar. Evergreen content is like the perennial plants in your garden; they stay relevant and fresh no matter the season.
By continually sharing and promoting these timeless pieces, you significantly increase the return on investment for your content marketing efforts. For example, if you run a cooking blog, an evergreen post might be “The Ultimate Guide to Baking Bread at Home.” No matter the year or the trend, people will always want to return to it.
When creating a content calendar, you need information such as:
- Publish date
- Due date
- Owner or author
- Status
- Title or topic
- Content type
- Link to files (Google Docs, Google Drive, etc.)
- Content-specific such as keywords
Here’s what a content calendar looks like:
While this is just an example, create one for your content templates. Your content calendar keeps you track of various dependencies and is crucial to any successful content marketing strategy.
Pro-tip: Having an up-to-date content calendar helps you manage your blog posts, videos, and social media content. Companies that overlook these content marketing tips are the ones that sooner or later lose their organic traffic and customer engagement.
10. Be opinionated
If everyone on the top search results shares the same information, your customers are less likely to engage and even less likely to click, share, or read. As a result, they move to your competitor’s content, which adds more value.
Showing your opinions in your blog post, video marketing, and articles, makes your content stand out.
In a world where companies are creating content using artificial intelligence (AI), showing your opinions and what you think about a particular product or service helps you go a long way.
Pro-tip: Even if your customers are bored of reading the same content, show your opinions openly to encourage your customers to take the desired action.
11. Repurpose your content
To maximize the potential of your content, consider transforming existing materials into new formats that captivate different audiences across various platforms. For instance, if you possess a comprehensive guide on gardening techniques, you could extract key insights and develop an engaging video series for YouTube, where each episode focuses on a specific tip or method. This approach breathes new life into your original content and draws viewers back to your website for more detailed information.
Similarly, consider the power of podcasts for sharing expertise. If your website hosts in-depth interviews or articles on industry trends, these could be adapted into podcast episodes. This medium allows listeners to absorb your content during their commute or while performing other tasks, broadening your reach to those who prefer audio over reading.
Visual content, too, can find a second life on platforms tailored to imagery and graphics. Take, for example, an infographic that breaks down complex data from your published research report. Such visuals are perfect for sharing on platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn, depending on your target audience.
Moreover, updating and refreshing existing content is crucial. What was relevant a year ago might need adjustments to stay current. Regularly review your content to update statistics, incorporate new developments, or refine advice based on the latest trends. This ensures your content remains valuable and trustworthy to your audience, encouraging repeat visits.
Pro-tip: To create an effective content marketing strategy and drive more organic traffic to your website, repurpose your existing content. It not only saves time but gives your product a new angle.
12. Track your results
To understand the effectiveness of these content marketing tips, use a social media analytics tool alongside a web analytics platform like Google Analytics. Tracking, monitoring, and assessing your content marketing metrics helps you tweak changes to your content strategy. This approach tracks critical indicators such as website traffic, engagement rates, and conversion metrics. Analyzing these data points gives you invaluable insights into how your content marketing campaign reaches your target audience.
For instance, with Google Analytics, you can measure visitors’ bounce rate and average session duration to understand the degree of interest and engagement your content sparked among them. From this point, users are likely to continue your site. A lower bounce rate and a longer session duration suggest your audience finds your content relevant and engaging, compelling them to explore your site further.
Leverage social media analytics tools to understand your content performance on different social media. These tools establish which types of content are impactful by calculating the number of likes, shares, comments, and overall reach.
Pro-tip: This data-driven approach ensures you reach your target audience and engage your potential customers meaningfully.
3 Content marketing strategies to say “NO”
1. Forge your path
While drawing inspiration from your competitors is great, remember that mirroring them too closely won’t set you apart. A standout content marketing strategy highlights what makes your brand special. So, rather than blending into the background by adopting the voice of industry leaders, celebrate your unique qualities and let them shine through your content.
2. Put your audience in the spotlight
It’s natural to be proud of the hard work and innovation that go into your products or services. However, creating content that truly connects involves addressing your audience’s needs first. For example, if your team has spent years crafting an ultra-durable and kink-resistant garden hose, create content that spotlights and meets your audience’s pain points. Rather than bragging about how your engineering team came up with the solution, tell about the key features of your products.
Starting with how your product or service meets your customer’s needs creates a more engaging and relatable message.
3. Write for humans, not just algorithms
SEO is undeniably important, but if your content reads like a jumbled list of keywords, you’ll likely lose your reader’s interest fast. Search engines are evolving to value quality content that genuinely engages and informs readers. So, when creating content, prioritize hiring writers who can bring genuine insight and passion to the topic. Encourage them to craft stories and articles that speak to human experiences and interests, ensuring your content resonates with readers while being SEO-friendly.
Use these effective content marketing tips for a killer strategy!
Two key traits that make a fantastic content marketing strategy are your ability to tackle challenges head-on and constantly pursue knowledge about your audience and the various platforms they use.
Content marketing may not be as complex as rocket science but requires determination, creative thinking, and a knack for analysis.
So, which of these content marketing tips are you implementing in your business to reach your target audience?
Did we miss out on some important content marketing tips?
