Content marketing can be complex and overwhelming. Many business owners try to produce their own content and manage it in hopes of attracting customers. However, no matter what they do or how they tweak their site, results still seem illusive. You have most likely developed a strategy with clear objectives for your business, so why not for your content marketing strategy? Below are 10 questions to ask yourself when beginning, updating, or reviewing your content marketing. At the end of the day, though, you may want to invest in a digital marketing company.
1. What is your goal?
Although you may be tempted to sit down at your computer and
pop out random blog posts, this method will do little good for your company. Before starting content marketing and developing a plan, stop and consider how content marketing fits into your marketing plan as a whole and determine the results that you
hope to achieve with content marketing. Define specific objectives just as you would with any other business plan. Most importantly,
what is the ROI that you are looking for? Most companies want to achieve conversion in which their
content marketing turns into sales and revenues. However, some companies are looking to create a platform for industry players or want to
generate content in order to bolster SEO.
2. Who is your audience?
Who is your customer? Who are you talking to? You edit and alter what you say when you’re in public depending on who is around, and the same goes for content marketing. Creating interesting content for thousands of people can be overwhelming so instead think of one person. If you had to reduce your entire customer base to one person, who would that person be? Male or female? What is her or his age? Where do they live? Let this imaginary person represent the whole and create content that connects with the “representative.
3. What does your content say?
This may sound like a no-brainer, but your content has to be interesting, engaging, and relevant. You would be surprised how many companies think that they are succeeding at content marketing as long as something appears on the blog or on Facebook. What does your content say?
What value are you creating for the reader? Like any
marketing technique, content marketing has to be appealing to your customers.
4. Are you consistent?
Random blog posts and social media interaction appears sloppy to your audience and can give the impression that you are apathetic. No new content for weeks and months, especially after previous action, can make people think that your company is inconsistent or even failing. In addition to affecting customers’ assumptions, consistency is the key to healthy SEO practices.
Google and other search engines list “lively” sites first and promote sites with fresh content.
5. Are you linking internally?
Linking blog posts to other blog posts or pages on your site is a best
SEO tool you can employ easily. Are you writing about how to keep your home cool this summer and last month you wrote about the best and worst air conditioning units? Make tip #4 buying an air conditioner and link back to the air conditioner ranking article that you created previously. This allows you to connect topic and posts while also making your post and entire site more appealing to search engines.
6. Are you using images?
If there is one thing we can learn from the news industry is that the general population is over reading. Block text is skipped or, at best, skimmed. Readers quickly make up their mind about a blog post, giving one quick scroll down a page to see how long the text runs and if it’s deemed too long, then the “Back” button is clicked and they go away forever. Including images spices up your text and reduces bounce rate, making visitors stick around longer and give your blog and the site a closer look. If optimized properly, an image in a blog post can also support
SEO efforts.
7. Are you using the proper keywords?
Keywords are what search engines like
Google look for when matching your site to someone’s search. Pick words or a string of words that would be used in a search box. If I, a potential customer, were looking for your company by Googling my needs, what word combination would likely bring me to you? These are your keywords. However, Google is getting smarter and smarter so
do not over stuff your page with keywords. Google and other search engines employ special algorithms to weed out spammers who recklessly stuff keywords on to empty pages. Also, refrain from using generic terms that would put you at the bottom the barrel that contains tens of thousands of sites.
8. Do you promote your content?
Posting to your blog doesn’t actually do anything unless you promote the post
across social media outlets. Be sure to
promote your post on Facebook,
Twitter,
Instagram, and whatever
other social media platforms you use, and do so repeatedly. Blogs are best to post in the beginning of the week, but social media interaction spikes later in the week. Promote your blog post initially and then
support it later in the week, as well.
9. Is your blog your entire content marketing strategy?
Content marketing
is much bigger than blog posts. Your
entire digital presence is under the content marketing umbrella – everything from
videos,
social media, eBooks,
podcasts, and more. The information and pictures that you post on Facebook and
tweet are all content. Although
blogging is important to content marketing, think outside the blog and pay attention to full integration instead of putting all your eggs into one basket.
10. Do you have a clear call to action?
With all this focus and effort on
developing a content marketing strategy and creating great content, you may have forgotten that the end goal is to generate revenue and sales. If your goal is to reach conversion, as in to clicks into purchases, your content marketing isn’t doing you any good if it people aren’t buying. Stay away from annoying and obnoxious BUY! BUY! BUY! tactics. Something as simple as “click here to learn more” or a button that says “yes, sign me up for a newsletter” will do the trick.
