13 Tips for Successful Content Marketing

Less than a decade ago, a business only required a simple website to be successful online. One could explain the products and services with a few pages of information, and the real goal focused on potential customers calling or visiting the physical store. However, things aren’t so easy now. The internet has grown into a more powerful marketing tool than ever before. Therefore, a website can and should offer more than the bare minimum. It’s crucial to have a solid online content marketing strategy for the business to passively reach the target audience, answer questions, and convert them to leads. These are the best tips for successful content marketing.

tips content marketing

Content Marketing

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing content online to create interest in a brand or product, without advertising it explicitly.

Tips for Successful Content Marketing

Check out these tips for content marketing to ensure the website stands out from the crowd.

Know Your Audience

Before creating an online content marketing strategy, it’s important to know the audience. Unlike traditional methods, one must know more than just the target demographic. 

Content marketing means writing blog posts, articles, and graphics to engage the audience. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand what a potential client wants. What interests do they have? Do they have pain points, and how can the brand or product assist? Are there words and phrases they tend to use to look online for answers?

For example, a dental practice and pharmaceutical company has different audiences, even though they operate in the healthcare industry. The pharmaceutical brand targets doctors, while the dental office focuses on patients. Therefore, the content pieces are more diverse.

A solid understanding of the audience means a more successful content marketing strategy. The best way to start is to create buyer personas to understand the people who visit the site.

Write for Your Audience

It sounds obvious, but once one knows the audience, one must write for and to them. The readers play a large role in how to present information, and that includes the topic selection and final edits.

From the beginning, people must choose topics that the potential customers want to learn about. This is often a challenging process, and it’s easy to get it wrong initially. It’s best to:

  • Stay updated in the industry
  • Write articles and blogs of varying lengths
  • Read and interact with blog comments
  • Listen to social media comments and feedback
  • Spend time on forums

content marketing tips

Research the Competition

About 91% of B2B marketers say they use content marketing in their overall strategy, so everyone in one industry is trying to attract new customers with content. That means there’s always competition, but each person has the chance to see what others create and match or exceed that.

Check the competition’s blog in the industry to find out what they’re doing with content. Are they using different formats? What topics did they discuss? Do the readers respond? These questions can give people an idea of what they should try.

Find a Unique Angle

One of the most crucial tips for content marketing is finding a unique angle. The competition is a great source for topic ideas, but someone else has covered those already. No one should produce similar content from another person or brand. The goal is ultimately to offer customers useful information instead of data that’s already available.

After spotting an excellent idea, resist the temptation to replicate it with minor alterations. Instead, use the topic as the starting point, looking for ways to take it on a unique path. This prevents the “echo chamber” of online content and is often more interesting to the readers.

Narrow the Focus

It’s often easy to come up with generalized and broad topics to write about. That’s the easy part. However, most people don’t have the time to create long-form and comprehensive content. Therefore, it’s best to narrow down the topic and cover it fully with the word count that the audience likes most.

Content creation is more manageable, and writers build effective topic clusters. It’s ultimately better to have 10 pages to comprehensively answer a question than a single page trying to answer 10 questions with little explanation, especially when each one is about a different topic!

Many people use the pillar-cluster model to create a better reading experience and improve SEO. A pillar page covers the umbrella topic, and then there are cluster pages supporting it. Content creators use internal linking to connect everything together, signaling to Google that they are all related.

content marketing ideas

Write In-Depth Content

Studies indicate that longer content does better on search engines than short pieces. This ties in with the tip above because it’s important to solve the reader’s issue.

Include all the information necessary in one post about the topic they are researching. Don’t use more words than needed, and avoid fluff. Instead, focus on the main issue, answer related questions, and bring up things the reader might not have considered asking.

Each page or post should only cover one specific topic and target a few keywords. The reasons for this include:

  • Avoid self-cannibalization
  • Strengthen the topical authority by crafting in-depth content about one keyword
  • Target new keywords on other pages

Have a Purpose For Everything You Create

Most content is either entertaining or useful. As you come up with topic ideas for your blog, you should ask themselves whether it might help the potential client solve their problem. If not, it should at least be interesting or funny.

If the topic doesn’t do either, scrap it immediately. Otherwise, it’s best to craft a title that makes the purpose clear. In most cases, it’s simple because one can use “how to” or “X things to know about [the topic].” Readers instantly know what they learn from the article and are more likely to click the link and read it.

Make Readers the Priority

It’s often challenging to craft content as primarily informative. Most people write copy to close sales – that’s the main goal. Therefore, it’s easy to fall into a “sales-y” pitch without meaning to do so.

Be aware of the distinction between informational and transactional. Inform the readers about the product or service, and make it a priority. Consumers today often tune out promotional content because they see it so often during the day. That ruins a brand’s chances of creating trust with the site visitors. 

When marketing services and products, tell readers what the brand does, why it’s crucial, the advantages of using that company, and how a particular item helps potential clients.

tips for successful content marketing

Make Relevant Connections to Your Business

One can’t be too promotional in the content, but it’s crucial to find opportunities to mention the brand’s services or products whenever relevant. This might come in the form of linking to another page toward the end of the blog post, which keeps visitors on the site beyond the first article they read.

Use CTAs Effectively

Calls to action can help a business tell the reader what to do next. They often come at the end of the article or blog, but writers can add them throughout the piece. 

Should the reader click the next link to learn more about the topic? Do they need to call the company to request service? Use well-written CTAs to tell potential customers about the next step so that they’re more willing to continue interacting with the website.

Set Measurable Goals

Brands require concrete goals for the site content to have a successful content marketing strategy. Before beginning, determine what the company hopes to accomplish. Here are a few common objectives:

  • Boost website traffic
  • Attract more visitors (targeted and first-timers)
  • Generate sign-ups for the email list
  • Get more shares on social media
  • Boost conversions on the website

Monitor Progress

After implementing these tips for content marketing and publishing content on the website, make sure to regularly monitor the progress against the goals. It’s easy to look at the many pages published already and feel accomplished, but it’s crucial to determine if those pages actually generate results.

Check Google Analytics or other programs as part of the routine to track metrics indicating overall performance. It’s easier to see if things aren’t going well and use that information to revise the strategy for effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.

Keep Content Updated and Consistent

Once the content is on the website, you can’t just forget about it. Many pieces are evergreen, so they stay current throughout the years. This is primarily the goal. 

However, some information might change, and it depends on the industry, as well. Check to see if being up-to-date is crucial for a topic by typing in the keyword and seeing if the related searches offer a year.

It’s best to ensure that content stays updated by:

  • Excluding the year in the URL when optimizing content
  • Including the year in the title of the content
  • Scheduling the editorial calendar to revisit content each year to update it, including the article, meta description, and title tag.

tips for content marketing

Successful Content Marketing at SEO Design Chicago

Typically, brands don’t see the results they want because they didn’t implement the tips for content marketing listed above. Those 13 things can help one craft articles and blogs that wow the crowd. It might help to hire a content marketer to handle these things. SEO Design Chicago offers top content marketing services. Contact us today!

FAQ:

  • What is content marketing?
  • What are some tips for successful content marketing?
  • How do I create a successful content marketing strategy?
  • What should I title my content?
  • How do I update my content?

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