Content marketing is a viable option if you want to gain visibility for your business. It’s neither direct advertising nor it’s a social media strategy. It’s akin to blogging, but it’s done more professionally.
Content creators and marketers know the dilemma of getting recognized very well because our objective is just like that. It varies from business to business, but content marketing is about establishing the good kind of authority. But why focus on content than other techniques? It’s because content is easy, malleable, and relevant.
Blogging, but professionally
A blog is your best option when developing a content strategy. It’s where you’ll publish your articles, and generally collate your thoughts about trends in your industry. If you can write for online publications and get links back to your website, the better. But let’s keep it simple: what can you do to keep your blog/news section in your website search friendly?
You update it, keep it fresh, but be sure that there’s a purpose to your new posts. Always start with this question: what are people talking about these days, and how can I relate it to my business? Relevance is your top priority. You have to publish what people are going to read. That’s because you want to establish authority.
Think quality over quantity, and always follow a schedule. It can’t be helped that there are gaps between what you publish, but that’s because there won’t always be an important issue to talk about. Cyrus Shepard of Moz lists traffic and engagement as one good quality of fresh content. This is why timely posts work better in your favor than spamming your readers with filler articles.
Balancing marketing and content
Marketing is on the other side of content creation. This is why many SEOs prioritize linking because it helps their clients rank higher quicker. A professional content creator, however, will put quality over linking. It’s a constant dilemma, but one that shouldn’t give you too much trouble. Whether you do this by yourself or you’ll retain an agency to do it for you, make sure to balance good quality content and assertive marketing. A well-written article will delight readers, but it needs to be found. That’s why linking is necessary, and there’s always a way to make linking attractive to your readers.
Freshness factor: making the perfect post
Did you ever do something amazing, but no one was there to see it? It’s frustrating, right? This is exactly how it feels like when you write the absolute best blog, and you posted it in the wrong time. It’s so good, but it wasn’t relevant. You have the piece that can help you convert, but you don’t have the traffic to prove that it was a successful post.
This is why the freshness of the content depends on a lot of factors, not just the quality. Have a regular posting schedule, but give room for big movements in your industry. You need to take advantage of the rush of online traffic, so updating your blog within hours is important.
Furthermore, focus on core content. This is what I’m talking about when publishing what interests your readers, not just publishing for publishing’s sake. Boilerplate material doesn’t have an impact, and some people may just think you’ve published spam content. Expand on old topics or write something better than what your competitors published. There’s always a way to outperform them on freshness.
You also need to think about your engagement. Not that you have to write in a conversational tone, but give room for people to express their opinion about your piece. Having a comment section in your blog helps, but incorporate a few actionable phrases in the content to engage the readers while they’re reading. If you can inform them and make them think, you’ve hit the engagement bull’s eye.
As for linking, use new links to support your article. You get more value from these pages because people are currently interacting with them.
Strategies to widen your readership
Let’s say that it will take time before your blog shapes up to be a known source of good insight. You have a lot of content to publish, but you don’t want to end up unread by potential customers. This is why it’s good to have options to widen your readership. This is totally doable, even without a marketer’s help. With that, you must have a schedule to follow so that you’re not just doing things on a whim.
Guest blogging – This is a common strategy among marketers, and one that’s been effective in gaining more leads for their customers. You probably won’t recognize some of these websites, but many of them get hundreds of thousands of unique traffic every day. If you can get blog space and a byline, you can lead your readership back to your website.
Responding on forums – If you’ve been to Quora, you’ve seen experts answer the questions of strangers. It’s safe to say that not all of them are leads, but if people can see your grasp of your profession, you may be able to convince them to turn to you. Don’t worry because you can create a profile so readers can establish whether they can rely on you for services.
There are ways you’ll discover, and some of them may only work for your audience. But the important thing is engaging them, and if you know a way to do it that speaks to your market, don’t hesitate to try new things. That’s the only way you’ll know what works and what doesn’t.
Content has been so important to marketing that you can’t do one without the other. I mean, what will you market without content? But it’s important to use marketing techniques so you’re sure that your content will get somewhere in Google. It take a bit of creativity, but through practice, research and regular updates in your industry, you’ll always have something to write.
About the author:
Jimmy Morales is a marketing writer at SeoServices.com.au. He started out in customer service and BPO industries. Listening to what clients want, it made him attuned to know what they like and now, he uses that skill to relay expert marketing insights from experts to those who need it. He has moved around for work, but he never lets jetlag, changing time zones and new environments stop him on delivering great content. Know more about his road to becoming a marketing writer here!
