Creating amazing pieces of content is required if you want to really win when it comes to online marketing. It doesn’t matter if you are publishing content with the intent to rank for specific keywords and pull in organic traffic, promote it across social media to pull in traffic, or simply publish it on your website so your visitors have something new to engage with every time they visit.
Your content has to be amazing, and in order to create great content it requires time and effort, if you are writing it yourself as well as a lot of money, if you are outsourcing to an experienced writer or have an in-house employee handling it.
To get the most bang for your marketing dollar, you should want to squeeze as much traffic, leads, and sales out of every single article your publish.
I see so many companies that create great content, publish it on their blog and then it just remains there idle. Sure, it might pull organic traffic from Google, but what if you could do a few simple things that would help you maximize every single post on your blog?
Content is More Than Just Website ‘Filler’
Years ago, when the “Content is King” rage swept through the SEO world it led to many businesses creating content, but for the wrong reasons. They were posting blogs, but not doing anything to leverage them.
We speak with so many business owners that come to my agency wondering why their SEO isn’t working. When we dive into it and ask what they have been doing they say, “We publish content.”
Well simply filling your blog up with articles isn’t going to magically attract traffic. It starts with content, but it also needs to include:
- Proper keyword research
- Targeting a single keyword or search term per piece of content
- Optimizing the on-page elements correctly
- Off-page SEO (link building)
- Having a call-to-action plan within the content
- Strategy to attract engagement
All of this takes even more time, energy and money — in addition to the actual content creation. Hence the reason why you should want to try to maximize every single piece of content.
We help many top companies with their content strategy and content marketing is how I scaled my agency. So, let’s dive right into how to get the most out of your content.
Following these simple suggestions will help you pull not only more traffic out of each piece of content you produce, but also leads and sales.
1. Pack it Full of Data
One of the easiest ways to not only hold the interest of a reader, but also trigger sharing, is by adding a lot of data when available. I’ll give you a real-world example of how this can help even the most difficult niches.
We had a client in the educational space. They created software for educational institutions. It wasn’t the most exciting niche, that’s for sure. Their target customer was very specific, so we created content that would trigger shares.
Why?
Well, because that niche is very tight-knit. Teachers are typically connected with other educators on social media, so the goal was to get them to share the content and introduce this software to as many other industry professionals as possible.
We also knew the teachers wouldn’t be the ones buying the software. Their school would. So, we used data in the content that really grabbed their attention and stressed how much easier it would make their job.
This strategy worked. It attracted a lot of shares, tagging, etc. — and it got them to put the software in front of the decision makers at their schools. The content worked because the right data was the focus point.
2. Stop ‘Selling’
This is something that I am utterly shocked still takes place, and I see it all the time in the SEO industry. Blog articles that are just glorified advertisements. They offer nothing of value and they give the reader zero incentive to read the content, and surely no reason for them to share it.
Let me be real and transparent with you. Am I writing this piece of content right now just to be a nice guy without any desire to attract new clients to my agency? Of course I want to onboard new clients and resellers.
But I also know that an article about how great my agency is will do nothing but collect dust on the blog. When you remove the ‘selling’ aspect of your content you accomplish a few very important things:
- You build a real connection and trust
- You attract a much higher quality lead because they are genuinely interested in your offer
- You experience more sharing because it’s quality content and not an ad
If someone that is having trouble with his or her content marketing and comes in contact with this blog post, they can read the actionable tips, implement them and see results, without having to pay my agency a dime.
Removing the ‘selling’ is the best tip I can give you for creating loyal readers and followers. The goal is that they eventually convert into customers and clients.
3. Put Effort and Thought into Your Titles
The days of keyword stuffing titles has long passed, yet I still see it being done. You have to write your titles for your audience, and not for Google. If this was ten years ago the title of this blog post would have been something along the lines of:
Best Content Marketing Tips: Content Marketing Tips You Can Use
That is a bit extreme, but you get the point. It would have been an article with “content marketing tips” stuffed throughout the article. There would have been very little value inside and it would have been written 100% for Google and not for the audience.
Today, you have to remember something — there are a lot of options when it comes to blogs. And this applies to every single industry and niche. Once people start to engage with your content and begin to visit and read on a regular basis you will see them return because they seek more of that quality.
But, you have to first get them to take a bite. Your title is the one thing that entices a click. A boring title is going to be passed over. Let’s use social media as an example.
I promote my content on Facebook. The audience I am targeting is seeing a lot of SEO and online marketing content in their Facebook feed. So, I like to use titles that cause them to stop scrolling for a minute. You literally have a couple of seconds to get them to click-through, otherwise they continue to scroll.
4. Structure it with Ease-of-Reading in Mind
Have you ever tried to read a blog post that is filled with massive paragraphs of text? If I see content that is formatted this way I skip over it. It’s a nightmare to read, especially on a mobile device.
If you notice, I break my blogs into little paragraphs, consisting of two to three sentences per. Not, some will be longer, but for the most part I try to stick to this format.
I also use headings to highlight a new section and also prepare the reader for what is next. The format and structure of your content delivers a better experience for your reader and it helps Google understand what your content is about, especially through the use of heading tags.
H2 and H3 tags should be used, along with bullet and numbered lists. If your content isn’t easily ‘scannable’ you will miss out on opportunities, as the majority of your readers won’t actually read the entire article.
Before I hit the ‘Publish’ button I make sure I can quickly scan the article and have a good sense of what it’s about without even reading it.
5. Offer Actual Value (Insight and Experience)
Imagine if I was writing this blog about how to elevate your content marketing to the next level without any experience doing it myself? Well, there are self-proclaimed ‘SEO gurus’ that start a new agency and start writing about things they have never done and truthfully have no knowledge of.
The same can be said for every niche. It happen. People write content based on theories and general information. While this might create content, it doesn’t create content that provides actual value.
Someone seeking content marketing tips is going to benefit more by reading one of my blogs, that features actionable advice and information based on tips and strategies myself and my agency use on a regular basis, rather than some general fluff piece that just lists generic reasons why content marketing is good.
Let your expertise and first-hand knowledge shine. That is how to build up a loyal audience that turn into customers.
6. Ride ‘Trend’ Waves Whenever Possible
Do you want to know what some of my most popular content has been over the years, in terms of views and referral traffic? It might shock you.
They were written based off UFC fighter Conor McGregor’s marketing and branding, and I published them when he was trending in the media. You can see an example that I published last year here. He is full of controversy and one of the most popular fighters, and it was very easy to publish marketing content that tied him into it.
Anytime you can ride a trending topic’s wave you have an opportunity to really amplify your content, for two reasons:
1. When a trending topic is all over the media, interest is at an all-time high. So, when I promote a piece of content on Facebook I am already targeting the right audience, and that relevant topic angle gets them to click-through.
2. If I promoted the same exact piece of content with the ‘trend’ removed from the title and content body it would not perform as well, even though the information would be identical.
7. Know Who Your Audience Is
This is very important, and where a lot of people miss the mark. You have to know your audience for two reasons. First, you have to know what kind of information they want to read, and second, you have to know how to speak to them through your content.
When I started blogging, I was very raw and real. I wasn’t concerned about offending anyone and I wasn’t trying to be seen as the next SEO guru. It’s that rawness that helped my content take off.
My audience quickly became those that wanted real information without the smoke and mirrors. I have struck to that narrative over the years and continue to publish content that I know my audience will love.
I’m not trying to appeal to the masses. If you do that your content will be too watered down and generic.
8. Repurpose Content into Multiple Formats
This is something that I am just starting to explore. As video and podcasts become the rage, it’s created an opportunity to reach multiple platforms with a single piece of content, provided you convert it.
It’s something I am seeing a lot of thought-leaders in large industries do. You can take your best performing blog posts and turn them into the following:
Podcasts: This is pretty simple. Simply record yourself reading your content. You act as a storyteller and you can then deep-dive into certain topics even more, which will give you a little more ‘meat’ for each episode.
YouTube Content: Set up a camera, and discuss the content. Some people would much rather watch a YouTube video than read a long-form blog post. This is a simple way to build your audience. You can also optimize your videos for search, which can play a key role in your organic traffic. (Bonus: Take the audio and use it for your podcast content, killing two birds with one stone)
Infographics: Visual content is still very effective. The best way to test how your audience responds to content converted into an infographic is to use a free template to produce a few. If they perform well you can then step up your design, but you don’t want to invest in that unless they perform well for your particular audience.
Final Thoughts
You cannot simply publish content without a plan. Doing so will eat up your online marketing budget and leave you with very little return, if any.
When done right, content is the gateway to your offer, and it’s the most effective conversion tool available. There are endless ways to leverage it, creating a lead magnet that constantly pull sin website traffic, and converts that traffic into leads and/or sales.
Through your content you are able to write (and control) the narrative. You get to tell your story, and when you do this authentically it helps you build trust and creates loyal customers. This type of brand loyalty is what then translates into referrals, repeat customers, etc.
For those reading this and wondering if it can work for them, let me just say this: Yes. Yes it can. I did it myself, and I learned about the power of content marketing almost by accident. My story is a prime example of just how powerful content can be.
I started an SEO blog as a way to just vent and provide accurate and truthful SEO content. I was sick of the gurus spreading their fluff, so I started publishing long-form posts that pulled the curtain back and laid out the truth.
This created a very loyal audience and a demand for a service that didn’t exist at the time. To this day I still focus on content. If I can go all-in on content marketing and create a seven-figure agency, then there is absolutely no excuse for you — it just takes full commitment.
So, who is going to put the above tips into motion and step up their content game? Let me know in the comments below. Also, if you have any questions drop them below as well and I will do my best to answer them!
