A content marketing strategy is vital to improving the performance of your site within the search engines. Not only can a successful content marketing strategy bring you the high authority links needed to improve your rankings.
Why Content Is Important To The Performance Of Your Site
Content is a key factor to the performance of any site, providing unique and useful content answering the questions your target audience are asking is the perfect way to build your brand’s reputation as a leader within its industry. This also will bring your target audience to your site as they look for the answers to their questions, providing you with the perfect opportunity to showcase your services to them.
Great content will also gain links from other sites as they credit and cite you for the information you are providing to them. Gaining these links is a key element to ranking in the search engines, as the search engines look at these as a vote in favour of your site and the content it is providing.
Coming Up With A Compelling Title
It goes without saying that the title is arguably the most important piece of content as it draws people in to your article. Statistics show that you have less than five seconds to capture the potential readers imagination before they move on past your content and onto a competitors.
This may sound silly, but the titles will tell people what your content is about. Make sure that your title includes useful and engaging information that the reader will be able to understand. Remember to be keyword savvy when thinking of a title, inserting the perfect keywords will improve the chance of search engines directing readers to your post.
Researching The Content To Be Created
Why do you need to carry research out? You can improve your content by taking inspiration from competitors. Pulling apart the successful content that has been made by others allows for you to make even better content and improve upon what has been created already. Having a clear overview of the competition will also allow for you to understand what type of content your industry rivals are creating. Using similar ideas can be beneficial but being different and offering something new could be one of the ways your content gets the recognition it deserves.
Taking in what age and gender demographics occur for your audience allows for you to target specific groups of people. Surprisingly your target audience may not be who you first expect therefore, completing research with evidence and updating that research regularly after any big changes to your company is a must.
Structuring The Content
Your content needs to be useful, well-written and interesting however, even if you have all of those components your content still has to have clear structure. Generally, visitors will scan over the content to make sure it is what they are looking for. If the piece you have written is poorly structured then the reader will leave your blog. Make sure to not add too many links as your content will look ‘spammy’ and it will put off any reader. Here are a few tips to help your content flow and become well structured.
- Maintain a clear structure
Keep your article flowing with clear paragraphs and relevant images.
- Only show relevant content
Make sure that any pointless information is removed and only key pieces of information are included within your content.
- Consider your target audience
Keeping your target audience in mind while you write any piece of content is essential, tailoring the content to what they can understand is a must.
Writing The Content
Remember to appeal to your audience when writing your content. The headline, paragraphs and types of language used are very important. Writing style will also be important whether that be writing to persuade or inform. Good writers will attempt to make readers take a specific action, whether that be to follow a link, enquire about your services or leave a review.
At the end of the content make sure to write a summary of how you would love to receive feedback and that any links to your content would be appreciated as long as you are credited.
Making Your Content Visually Appealing
You must understand that imagery attracts attention to your content. Make sure that you stand out from the crowd by including engaging and interesting imagery. Visually appealing content is a lot easier to digest especially if you have a younger target audience. Generally the images within your content guide readers’ eyes, therefore placing a call to action towards a service would be beneficial when trying to direct users to use the links included.
It has also been well documented that mobile devices are becoming more and more popular for browsing the internet. Since mobile devices have smaller screens, visually accessible content is often prioritised over poor less organised content. The images and videos stand out and are very engaging to the reader. Keeping images the same size and laid out correctly may sound basic, but a lot of writers overlook the importance of the content being visually appealing.
Final Checks Before Publication
Proof Checking your content is a great way of finding errors. Get a colleague or friend to read over the content to make sure it makes sense and the punctuation is accurate. Nothing is more off-putting than the use of poor grammar; it makes you look unprofessional and it will make the reader go elsewhere.
Reflecting on your work will help you improve content and generate new exciting ideas Having ideas of ‘what went wrong?’ or ‘what went well?’ in previous projects allows for you to have a great idea of what to look for before you publish your content.
Placing Your Content In Front Of Your Audience
After identifying your target audience it is best to create profiles for your audience type, completing research into what type of blogs or newspapers they read, TV they watch and influential figures they listen and take notice of. You can then decide which methods you will use to promote your content!
You can promote your content in multiple ways:
- Social media
- Newsletters
- Surveys
- Studies
- Email Marketing & More
Choose the right channel. Some content is perfect for Facebook, some for Twitter, and some is great for multiple channels. You should know your audience well enough to have an idea of what they want to see where. Use hashtags! Although hashtags are easy to overuse, they’re also a way to get fresh eyes on the content you’re posting on social media. Research what hashtags are relevant for your industry and add them into your posts
Trying to establish your brand as a front runner is very challenging although you can reap the benefits of hanging with the ‘big brands’ in the search engines and in the public’s perception. Establishing your company as an industry thought leader means keeping up with the freshest news and trends. Subscribe to weekly industry newsletters, and look out for brand new studies and surveys published by trade organizations. Make sure that you read competitors information and decide what you could do to improve upon their marketing techniques and become a front runner within your industry.
Make use of third-party tools to better understand your target audience — there are so many available, you should have no problem gathering huge amounts of valuable data to support and solidify your research. Google Analytics provides a breakdown of your users into various demographic categories, allowing for you to see how well your content is performing and how people are finding it is essential. Social media’s also have analytics that come in handy to see how many people interacted with each of your posts.
To Conclude
High authority links will come if your content is good enough, adding relevant links and create exciting, new and refreshing content for a targeted audience will help you improve rankings. Reflecting over your work and creating plans for what you could improve upon will allow for you to push your content further. If you have any questions do not hesitate to comment below with any questions.