A huge part of any digital marketing strategy is to first create content for it. However, to create good content that will do well, especially in the online sphere, isn’t easy. There’s already a sea of content out there — so how do you make yours stand out?
To start off with, there are in fact plenty of things you can do to boost your content. In all content marketing strategy, these are necessary steps to take if you want your content to perform well. There is no doubt that your competitors are already engaging these in their strategy — so make sure you don’t fall behind!
1. Do keyword research
Keyword research is an important step in creating all content. In fact, it’s the first step you should take. Before you even begin writing a single word, start checking what are the hot and trending topics on Google.
By doing a quick search, you will be able to know what are the most relevant keywords you should adopt in your content. Not only that, but you will be able to tell what keywords perform the best on different search engines — which is the key to getting your content out there.
However, keep in mind not to overuse your keywords as this will actually affect your page ranking. Google’s algorithm is smart enough to recognise that a webpage with too many of the same words may mean a potential spam website — and therefore it would not place it at the top rankings or recommend it to its visitors.
Similarly, visitors to your webpage would not like the excessive and unnatural use of too many a specific keyword and will bounce quickly. Over time, this will translate and search engines will mark down your domain.
2. Incorporate a powerful CTA
When creating your content, keep in mind the call-to-action (CTA) you want your readers to take at the end of it. Think about how you can get your readers to take that action. Want your readers to purchase something? Sign up for your newsletter? Or just to share your content on their social media? Either way, give them a reason to take these actions.
Perhaps you could offer something of value to them. Give them a 20% discount off your product with a unique link, if your goal is to get them to buy your product. Offer information and resources to get them to subscribe to your newsletter. Or even provide a free e-book for sharing around your content and getting others to click on it!
A CTA is one of the most vital aspects of any content marketing strategy. It is how you link content writing to marketing goals, ROIs, and KPIs.
3. Engage your readers with your choice of words
One great way to make your content interesting and engaging is to use the active voice instead of the passive voice. Generally, the subject is the one performing the action when you use the active voice. In the passive voice, the subject becomes the one the action is being performed on.
For instance, compare “The brave knight rescued the princess from the dragon.” with “The princess was rescued from the dragon by the brave knight.” The first sentence sounds a lot more exciting as it emphasises the action that is happening.
Similarly, you can also make your content sound more interesting with your choice of diction. Instead of “sales increased”, you can use “sales rocketed”. See the difference? By adopting more interesting verbs, you can highlight important actions while still making it engaging for the reader.
4. Keep sentences short and paragraphs brief
Keep in mind that attention spans online are a lot shorter. Not only that, but minimising your paragraphs helps you to optimise your content for mobile. With more readers consuming content from their mobile devices these days, it is ever so important to take this aspect into consideration as well.
Your sentences and paragraphs need to be optimised for both mobile devices and the short attention spans that people have online. So, keep their attention locked onto you by making bite-sized content and paragraphs!
5. Always hyperlink
Hyperlinks sound counterintuitive since you’re potentially sending your visitors to another website, but they can actually help you get backlinks! More often than not, the sites that you reference will reciprocate with a nod to you via a mention or a link. Win-win!
If you’re still concerned about sending your web traffic to another site, you can always set your page up to open links in a new tab or a new window. This will effectively keep your traffic on your page while still allowing you to practise good internet etiquette by hyperlinking your sources.
Linking to other pages also helps to boost SEO on your site and increase page view over time. It also makes your content more credible and gives your readers useful information.
6. Provide added value
One of the best ways to keep your readers coming back is to leave them with a parting gift. It can be a free digital guidebook, a link to a webinar, or some collated statistics in a Google sheet. Either way, it doesn’t have to cost a thing.
Not only will your readers appreciate this, but they might recommend it to their contacts too! This word-of-mouth marketing will lead to higher search engine rankings as well as some repeat traffic. Now you’ll be sure your content marketing will see a huge leap in improvement!
7. Keep your old posts updated
The last step of any content marketing strategy is to keep your content updated. As time passes and events unfold, content — no matter what it’s about — ages. Information goes out of date as the market changes.
A good strategy is to keep your content constantly updated and relevant. By doing so, your content will gain value over time. This means that even an old post could very well keep traffic coming in, as pages continue to link to your content and social media accounts continue sharing it.
Speaking of, it is a good idea to also update your old content with new and fresh links. For example, if your post is talking about a good digital marketing strategy for 2020, you can update it for 2021 — and improve on it by giving recent statistics! This not only boosts your search results but keeps your content useful and relevant to any visitors passing by.
Remember, a great marketing strategy will know how to maximise the most value out of its content possible. Be it using relevant keywords, links, or CTA, all these tiny steps go a long way in boosting your content. So start optimising your content by implementing these tips into your marketing strategy today!
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