Have you ever wondered what is the driving force behind successful online businesses? It’s not SEO or social networks but it’s Content Marketing.<\/p>\n
Content marketing, when done right, can change the fade of any website.<\/p>\n
Follow our 15 content marketing tips below and boost your rankings and traffic.<\/p>\n
There are many sophisticated definitions of content marketing but my own simplified version is:<\/p>\n
Content marketing is the process of creating content for the purpose of increasing your web traffic, getting new customers, making more sales, or simply increasing brand awareness.<\/em><\/p>\n Take a moment and think about what does the Internet actually offers to people \u2013 it\u2019s various types of content through different channels (websites, social networks, email, apps, forums, etc).<\/p>\n Content marketing makes this kind of communication more official. In other words, instead of just publishing content on the Web with no purpose, you create and distribute content for satisfying specific marketing objectives.<\/p>\n What is content?<\/b><\/p>\n In the context of content marketing, content is everything that can be published on the web. For example text, videos, images, infographics, graphs, audio, pdf, podcasts, slideshows, etc.<\/p>\n It’s information that can be made available in digital format.<\/p>\n Related Guide<\/strong>: What is Digital Marketing<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Content marketing has many advantages to offer to an online business since content it’s the starting and ending point of any online campaign.<\/p>\n In particular the benefits of content marketing are:<\/p>\n 1. Create a content marketing plan<\/a> A successful content marketing campaign starts with a good plan.<\/p>\n When we talk about content marketing, the first thing that comes in mind is blogging.<\/p>\n This is not wrong, but having a content marketing strategy, it’s not just about setting up a blog and start publishing content.<\/p>\n Blogging is an important aspect of content marketing but that\u2019s not the end of the story. It’s only one the mediums to execute your content marketing plan.<\/p>\n A well-constructed plan must include all the tips outlined below.<\/p>\n The first item in your plan is what type of content to publish.<\/p>\n For long term success, you need\u00a0evergreen content<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n Evergreen content has the following characteristics:<\/p>\n Evergreen content will help you establish a solid online presence and over time will also help you to build high rankings on Google<\/b><\/a>, which in turn will get you more traffic.<\/p>\n I know it\u2019s a cliche to say it, but it’s the truth. When thinking about content,\u00a0 you should write for users and optimize for search engines.<\/p>\n I know that a number of people disagree with this approach, but let me explain why both are equally important.<\/p>\n Search engines serve one purpose, to make users happy by answering their questions or queries.<\/p>\n If you only care about what people want to read without taking into account what search engines can understand, at the end of the day you will publish great content that nobody reads.<\/p>\n On the other hand, if you first think of your users and the type of content they need and then\u00a0optimize it for search engines, you have a win-win situation.<\/p>\n Related Guide: <\/strong>Read my previous guide on content SEO<\/a><\/strong> to learn how to optimize your content for search engines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If you manage to make these 3 tools work together, you have more chances of succeeding online.<\/p>\n You need content to boost your SEO and you need content to feed your social media networks.<\/p>\n Anything that you publish in your blog or website has to be part of your SEO strategy<\/strong><\/a> and in-line your\u00a0social media marketing strategy.<\/p>\n Before creating a new piece of content, make sure that it’s aligned with your SEO and social media efforts.<\/p>\n When you start publishing content on your website or blog make sure that it is related to your niche and area of expertise.<\/p>\n For many, this might be obvious, but some people still get it wrong.<\/p>\n For example, if you are running a tech blog you should not publish a post about cooking just because you like it. Nobody will punish you for doing so but the chances of getting any benefits from that post are minimized.<\/p>\n The best approach is to publish related content that is aligned with the overall goals of your website.<\/p>\n For example, if you are selling coffee makers online then besides providing all the technical information about your products (specs, photos, reviews, videos) you should also provide a blog with articles related to coffee (making, drinking, recipes, advice, etc).<\/p>\n When it comes to text content like blog posts, various studies identified that lengthy content (above 1500 words) ranks higher in search engines and it is more shareable in social media.<\/p>\n The lesson we can learn from these studies is that it is better to publish a long detail post that covers all aspects of a topic rather than publish 2-3 smaller articles.<\/p>\n Since lengthy content is more shareable<\/em> in social media this means that you are not only fetching food t<\/em>o search engines but you also give users what they want.<\/p>\n You need to search social networks and find out what type of content people like.<\/p>\n For example, people searching for fashion<\/em> might want to see more images and videos than text content. This means you should adjust your content marketing strategy to satisfy this need.<\/p>\n Some ideas for shareable content that are suitable for all niches are:<\/p>\n Good content provides for original, well-researched, and unbiased information about a certain topic.<\/p>\n Even if your content meets the above criteria, it still needs to look good as well.<\/p>\n By good looking<\/em> content I mean text that is beautified by the use of paragraphs, bold, italics, headings, good font size, etc.<\/p>\n Taking care of the formatting of your content is also good for SEO and a sign that you are trying to build a high-quality website<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n In general, if you manage to combine different types of content together (i.e. text, images, videos) then this makes the user experience better which will generate a number of other benefits.<\/p>\n Besides providing for up-to-date and accurate content, another tip you can follow is to make sure that you keep a consistent publishing schedule.<\/p>\n Having a pre-defined publishing calendar will help you organize your time better and will also help you build a list of loyal fans.<\/p>\n Do not forget that new content is also an incentive for:<\/p>\n The title of a page or post is very important for many reasons. This is SEO 101 but it is worth mentioning that a good title will:<\/p>\n So, before hitting the publish button make sure that your content has an optimized and catchy title.<\/p>\n Related Guide:<\/strong> How to optimize your page titles<\/strong><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Content marketing is a great way to increase traffic and sales, but that\u2019s only good news.<\/p>\n The bad news is that you are not alone and if you want your content to perform well, it has to be better than your competitors.<\/p>\n Before creating your content search Google, Facebook, Twitter (or the network that is closer to your target audience) and analyze what type of content comes in the top positions.<\/p>\n Notice things like content length, content type, quality, and format and try to make your content better in all aspects.<\/p>\n Content that is not better than what is already ranking in Google, has no chances of getting high rankings.<\/p>\n So, better to spend more time and make the content better than rushing into hitting the publish button and lose your time.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect that your potential customers will search to find your website, make a visit, and buy your products.<\/p>\n When you publish a new piece of content you need to go out and promote it so that it gets the attention it deserves.<\/p>\n There are many ways to promote your content<\/strong> <\/a>without exaggerations and without taking any risks so the next immediate step after hitting the publish button is to do a good promotion.<\/p>\n Your best bet is social media because results are extremely fast and immediate but never underestimate the power of email and RSS. This is a task that cannot be done manually that’s why you need to use the right tools<\/strong><\/a> to help you reach your target audience.<\/p>\n When you do content marketing consistently for a number of months (or even years) you will end up with lots of content and if it is not organized correctly then you will get lost.<\/p>\n The best strategy is to organize your content into relevant categories and use tags, keywords, and descriptions for searching purposes.<\/p>\n Related Guide: How to optimize your site structure for SEO<\/a><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Last but not least, don\u2019t forget that the main reason you create content is to increase conversions.<\/p>\n Depending on your case, conversions can be different things from getting email subscribers to banner ad clicks, to more product sales.<\/p>\n If your content does not produce good results then you need to change your content strategy<\/strong><\/a> and think of alternative ways to produce and promote content.<\/p>\n Hiring a professional company<\/b><\/a> is always one of your best options not only for getting better results but also to give you more time to concentrate on what you are doing best.<\/p>\n To make money from content marketing, you first need to spend money and time.<\/b><\/p>\n If you have a decent amount of traffic visiting your website and following your social media pages, then with content marketing you can try and turn those visitors into customers (it\u2019s not that easy but this is the theory).<\/p>\n If this is not the case and you are just starting out then this means that you need to spend money (or your time which is still valuable) to create good quality content to build your social media following and rankings.<\/p>\n Eventually, you will get more visits and gradually these will create enough business (or clicks if you are using AdSense<\/b><\/a> as a way to make money) so that you make a profit from content marketing.<\/p>\n What I am trying to say is that content marketing can help a business grow financially, if you have the patience and money (or time) to do it correctly.<\/p>\n If you need faster results you can\u00a0start with AdWords<\/b><\/a> but if you want consistent results that can generate a long term stable return then invest in content marketing.<\/p>\nWhat are the advantages of content marketing?<\/h2>\n
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Content marketing tips<\/h2>\n
\n2. Publish evergreen content<\/a>
\n3. Write for users, optimize for search engines<\/a>
\n4. Content marketing, SEO and Social Media are best friends<\/a>
\n5. Build topic relevancy<\/a>
\n6. Publish thorough content<\/a>
\n7. Publish shareable content<\/a>
\n8. Pay attention to content formatting<\/a>
\n9. Publish content consistently<\/a>
\n10. Create catchy titles<\/a>
\n11. Create content that is better than your competitors<\/a>
\n12. Promote your content<\/a>
\n13. Organize your content into categories<\/a>
\n14. Optimize content for conversions<\/a>
\n15. Approach content marketing as long term investment<\/a><\/p>\n1. Create a content marketing plan<\/h3>\n
2. Publish evergreen content<\/h3>\n
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3. Write for users, optimize for search engines<\/h3>\n
4. Content marketing, SEO and Social Media are best friends<\/h3>\n
5. Build topic relevancy<\/h3>\n
6. Publish thorough content<\/h3>\n
7. Publish shareable content<\/h3>\n
\n
8. Pay attention to content formatting<\/h3>\n
9. Publish content consistently<\/h3>\n
\n
10. Create catchy titles<\/h3>\n
\n
11. Create content that is better than your competitors<\/h3>\n
12. Promote your content<\/h3>\n
13. Organize your content into categories<\/h3>\n
14. Optimize content for conversions<\/h3>\n
15. Approach content marketing as long term investment<\/h3>\n