At this point, it’s a foregone conclusion that content marketing just flats out works. There’s too much evidence supporting this fact.
It results in better engagement, search engine results, and on average costs 62% less than outbound marketing.
What is it about content marketing that makes it so effective?
There are 200 million people who are using ad-blockers today and banner blindness is at its highest.
The message from the users is loud and clear — they don’t want to be advertised to, they want solutions. And this is precisely what content marketing provides.
In other words, brands really have no choice but to use content marketing. So, here are six ways you can take your content strategy to the next level.
Get the Language Down Pat
This may seem like an obvious suggestion, but you really need to know your audience’s language inside out for content marketing to work.
There are just too many good-intentioned web pages with badly written content. This is all too true for many multinational companies trying to break into new markets.
Sometimes, the content they produce is hilarious, and not in a good way —
Language is obviously an important cornerstone of content marketing. Good language helps communicate ideas and foster connections. Bad language confuses and turns people off.
Furthermore, good command over language is simply a basic need here. You also must know how to use it to deliver your message to your prospects without needing them to look up word meaning. Oh, and your content must also be entertaining. Because no one likes to be bored.
One really easy way to do this is to hire a writer or a language tutor on your team. So, let’s say you’re an Italian company trying to introduce your brand to an English speaking audience.
You can make sure your content is on point by hiring qualified individuals who speak English to review it.
Be Up-to-Date on SEO Best Practices
There are some people who call SEO a spammy, get-links-quick scheme, only it’s anything but. Good SEO that produces results without trying to trick search engines is incredibly hard to pull off.
You have to be mindful of your site and content structure, keywords, descriptions, and backlinks. You also have to create such stellar content that people will want to share it and link to it.
There’s also another reason SEO is difficult. The rules of the game are constantly changing. Since SEO tries to check off as many search engine to-do boxes as possible, you need to know what makes the latter tick.
The search engines themselves are constantly changing. Their algorithms are a perpetual work in progress so what works today might not work tomorrow.
SEO is also easily the most discussed topic online. There are hundreds to thousands of articles on what to do and what to avoid. Google has an SEO Starter Guide that covers all the points and it is updated regularly.
Alternatively, you can consult an SEO agency to help you out with your content strategy. Since each content strategy is unique, it makes sense to have a neutral third-party perspective take a look and make suggestions.
Publish a LOT of Content
This doesn’t mean you should publish low quality, repetitive content. Quality always trumps quantity. But, given the fleeting nature of online user focus, you do need a sizeable content library to make this work.
How much content will you need? Unfortunately, there’s no hard and fast rule here. It’ll depend on your marketing goals, audience, and type of content you publish.
Also, consistency is just as important as frequency. Publishing a lot of content that one time will get you some business in the door, but not much in the long run.
There are a few steps you can follow to create more content faster.
Firstly, focus on coming up with new content ideas regularly. Use the Google Keyword Tool, Buzzsumo, and industry blogs to see what content’s working. Then ideate new topics based on them.
Next, write every day. Writing is like any other art form. It gets easier the more you do it. If typing becomes too much of a chore, then you can use a speech to text software instead. Google Docs already have such functionality built into them.
Also, be sure to automate as many mundane tasks as possible. For instance, you can use Wordable to transfer content from Google Docs to WordPress with one click.
Master Guest Posting
Posting content to your website is a great way to connect with people who have already discovered your brand. Your content may bring in new audiences through search engines and social media. But that’s not always a given.
You do have a more direct option to leaps of quality inbound traffic through guest posting as well.
Guest posting is publishing content to other websites. A regular guest posting campaign will target authority industry blogs and publications.
Done properly, guest posting can introduce your brand to a large, readily available audience. It also helps you get high-quality natural links from high DR websites.
The most popular guest posting strategy is to reach out to sites you’re interested in with article pitches and have them published under your byline.
Over time, regular guest posting can help you establish yourself and your brand as an authority in your industry.
A lesser-known guest posting strategy is link reclamation and it should be in your marketing kitty. Many a time, a high-value publication will mention you without any backlinks.
In such cases, you can politely reach out to the publication and ask them for a link. This works if you provide a resource that adds value to the article with your mention.
Link reclamation is also a lot easier than regular guest posting since the publication has already expressed interest in your brand.
Conclusion
Content marketing can seem overwhelming at first. There are many strategies and all of them hold promise. But, the real secret sauce to content marketing success isn’t the strategy as much as consistent execution.
The methods suggested above have proven to be highly effective time and time again. You only need to put them into practice and keep at it for a while to see results.
Typically, it takes six to nine months of regular implementation for content marketing to produce appreciable returns. But, you should begin to see some progress within a couple of months.
Have you tried a content marketing strategy that has helped you in your business goals? If so, then feel free to leave them in the comments section. If you are looking to submit a guest post technology then you can also pitch your guest post to us.