Every day, businesses publish articles, blogs, videos and podcasts to connect with their target audience, but don’t get the expected customer traction. That is because they often end up producing lackluster content that goes unnoticed. For instance, we have always wondered why our competitors ranked higher, even if the quality of the content wasn’t that different. So, a lot of research, along with testing of our content, helped us in deriving strategies to perform better than other players in the industry. Using those strategies, we have created a step-by-step guide that you can follow to create exhaustive, in-depth content that will rank ahead of your competitors. Read on. Understand the intent behind a search query Before starting to churn out content, understand what your target audience actually needs. That means, understand the intention behind a searcher’s query. Usually it can be informational, navigational, transactional or commercial in nature. A query broadly depends on the searcher’s purpose and background. For example, if the query is “best practices for job application”, some of the searchers might be candidates and some might be employers. Hence, you might have to craft your content in different ways to suit the needs of different segments of your audience. Also Read: Google Search Quality Raters Say About High-Quality Pages and Content Study the competitors Visit Uber suggest by Neil Patel to track the SEO strategies that your competitors are using. Enter the URL on the homepage to get details on SEO keywords and top SEO pages. By clicking on the “Backlinks” link on the left sidebar, get the information of the sites that are linking to your competition’s URL. Use this information to list down the sites for back linking. Increase your domain authority Create multiple content pieces that are well-researched and unique–with a length of 1,000 words or more. Once in a while, you can add extremely lengthy pieces that are longer than 2,500 words. Another way to increase your domain authority is by linking the web pages and blogs of your website to each other. The search engine prefers a strongly interlinked website. Embed videos and images in your content Did you know that 90% of any information that is understood by the brain is visual in nature? So, instead of restricting yourself to written content, embed infographics, videos or SlideShare presentations in your blog posts. You can also include screenshots to explain a particular point in your post. The readers tend to share the content more when they find it more interactive. Moreover, brand awareness and recall is always greater in case of visual content. Also Read: Why Great Brand Stories Need to Add Videos? Write catchy and unique headlines To write headlines that captivate users, perform a Google search using your keyword. Note down the first five results that appear on the search page. Tweak each headline by giving a new twist to it. For example, if you Google the phrase “Content Writing Tips,” the first result will be “9 Tips to Become the Best Content Creator in Your Industry.” Make it unique and catchy by writing something like “11 Surefire tips to Amp up Your Content Creation.” Another method is to search keyword phrases on BuzzSumo. Modify the headlines that appear on the result page to make them unique. Write your content conversationally When presenting information in your blog post, back it up with your opinion. Record yourself while talking about your topic and listen to the recording. If you feel that it sounds unnatural, start the writing and recording process again. While writing, pretend that you are explaining your topic to a friend or a family member. Read a lot of materials related to your topic using online articles, books, magazines, and online guides. Doing so will allow you to get more ideas and help you to go through different writing styles. Include a call-to-action A call-to-action is an invitation you give to your readers to take action. If you are creating a series of blogs, you can provide a link to the next or previous blog. If you finish your post with a question, ask the readers to share answers or suggestions in the comments section. You can also ask your readers to learn more by subscribing to your newsletters. If you are selling a product/service, ask them to click the buy button. Make your site faster Compress the file size of your images to speed up your site. Take the help of sites like Compressor.io to compress images without any technical support. Streamline your code by removing unnecessary and redundant elements. Visit codebeautify.org to use tools that minify codes of HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and other programming languages. The plugins like Better WordPress Minify also streamline your code if you have developed a site using WordPress. Also Read: 10 Things you must know Before Building a Website To conclude Using this guide, you will not only perform better than your competitors, but can also establish yourself as a thought leader in your field. With time, the above tips will help you get more traffic and conversions with smart content.
Month: August 2020
10 Steps to Create a Content Calendar and Boost Your Marketing Strategy
Isn’t it surprising that 63 percent of businesses lack a documented strategy when it comes to creating online content? No wonder their efforts to capture the target markets fail to reach the full potential. This is where the most crucial element of content marketing – content calendar—comes into the picture. Popularly known as an editorial calendar, a content calendar is an organizing tool to schedule and organize future content. The typical content calendar contains the list of upcoming content pieces, publication dates, titles, focus keywords, status updates, and other crucial elements. These elements vary based on the business and available resources. With a content calendar, your business can keep all content marketing efforts organized. Tracking the activities and their results can become more efficient with this tool too. However, before we dive deep into how to create a content calendar, let’s take a look at its 4 important aspects: • Editorial – Your calendar must include pieces that you plan to publish and they should be scheduled in advance (even by a full year if needed). This way, you can keep checking your schedule and stick to it and know what you need to do next. But, do keep some room for flexibility as digital marketing trends keep changing quickly. • Platform – This basically refers to the place where you have your content calendar. You can use a simple Google spreadsheet or an advanced tool or even go the traditional pen and paper route. However, when a lot of people are working on different content pieces, they will need to refer to one place where everything is visible to everyone. In which case, a spreadsheet helps. Tools like Trello and Basecamp can help you create a calendar too. • Promotional activities – This covers how you intend to promote different content pieces and where. Like, do you need to send a newsletter about your latest e-book to your subscribers or promote a blog post on Facebook? Will you be doing a podcast on a very successful case study soon? If you are listing down promotional activities in the same calendar, just use a different color to make them easy to spot. • Ideas for the future – Creative ideas can strike you anytime, while driving to office, taking a shower or while watching a movie! But, you need to jot them down somewhere, so that you can use them for building content in the future. So, include random topics or ideas in your calendar even if you are working on something else right now and schedule them later on. Now, check out this step-by-step guide to create an excellent content calendar: Step 1: Analyze your team to determine the type and amount of content you can create Your content creation team must have multiple professionals, like graphic designers, editors, writers, and distribution specialists. Take a look at how much content they can churn out on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, without hurting the quality. Other than these content creators and distributors, you must have several subject-matter experts. Though they usually aren’t directly involved in the content creation process, but they can offer invaluable insights on a wide range of topics. Step 2: Align your content marketing strategies with your business goals to populate the calendar Your content calendar should be aligned with your business objectives, which means, it should cover topics and ideas that will get you what you want. For example, you can fulfill the purpose of ranking higher on Google’s search results with the right content pieces and schedule them in your calendar. So, you can create and publish high-quality, informative and engaging articles and blogs on your website with relevant keywords, so that search engines find them relevant and valuable. You can also plan to publish guest posts on various third-party portals to get quality backlinks. Your goal can also be to target a particular set of customers to generate new leads. In that case, create useful content like e-books and whitepapers that go deep into a topic and solve the problems of your target group. You can then create a CTA (call to action) on your website for interested users to share their contact details to get access to these resources. The goal of establishing your company as a thought leader can also be fulfilled through content marketing services. And by creating a content calendar, you can make your marketing efforts consistent and strategic. For instance, in this case, you can develop a set of comprehensive articles, videos, and podcasts that talk about an array of topics from your industry. Feel free to take the support of subject matter experts for creating valuable content for the end-users. Step 3: Repurpose existing content for better reach than last time Don’t ignore the content that you already have, as these can be repurposed to provide more value to the target audience. For instance, old blog posts can be updated with the latest information or made more comprehensive and converted into a whitepaper or e-book. Slide decks can be repurposed to create blog posts or videos for more engagement and better recall. Big reports or whitepapers can be used to create a blog series, with multiple posts on a broad topic. Step 4: Determine the frequency of each content type For a quarter, publish 18-20 blog posts on your portal. Select around six topics from these blog posts to prepare and publish guest articles on reputable third-party sites. Create two long-form contents – case studies, white paper, and/or an e-book. Organize a webinar and create multiple social media posts to promote it. The frequency of each content type can vary based on your team size and business goals. Step 5: Choose a content calendar tool Go for Google Sheets if you want a content calendar tool that offers easy collaboration and is free. For teams that have only one member, Google Calendar is an ideal option. Microsoft Excel spreadsheets are also a
8 Agency Secrets for Hiring the Best Content Agency
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]If you have not been living under the rock, you definitely know that content is one of the key things you need to drive your marketing process. Be it SEO, be it social, be it content marketing, you need content. Information-rich, engaging and well-written content is your best bet to grab Google’s attention and rank high on the search results page. After all, 90% organizations market themselves with content today, 80% people tend to learn about a company through customized content and 70% consumers connect with a company through content marketing. But wait. How do get all that content written and drive your content marketing process? Exactly, that is where most businesses start looking for a content marketing partner. Picking the right content marketing partner from a million (ok yes that is almost reality) is the real task. You will see business/brands changing their content marketing agencies every year, citing reasons like mismatch in goals, lapse in delivery deadlines, quality issues etc. And then there are brands who happily continue with their digital partners for years (well we are talking of 3-4 years at a stretch). For real magic to happen, you need to find the right partner who know exactly how to deliver what your brand needs and what your customers want. We decided to make things easier and create a list of things you can measure them up against, basically questions you can ask and assess whether they are the right agency for you. Here are 8 ways to ensure that you are hiring the right content partner. Read on. 1. Are they really content guys for real? These days, there are many web development agencies, SEO company and digital marketing agency that claim to be content players. However, in reality, they often offer content services on the side and don’t have a dedicated team to understand your needs and deliver accordingly. Like, in the past 10 years, we were often approached by clients who wanted their website content to be improved. And the reason usually is that their content was developed by an agency that is chiefly into website designing. Naturally, the quality won’t work, especially in the long run. So, avoid content services that are offered as a part of a different package. So, to find out if an agency actually has content-related experience, knowledge and skills, you can give them a small assignment or sample to work on. This way, you will know if their work can measure up to your expectations and if you can trust them. Even if you give them an old content piece to work on, they should be able to analyze it thoroughly and come up with ideas for improvement. Also remember that not all content agencies are adept at all forms of content. So, take a look at their past projects or portfolio or ask them what kind of content they have developed in the past. For instance, if you want to create whitepapers or product descriptions, hiring an agency that excels at SEO articles might not be ideal. 2. Are they capable of offering 360-degree content? Content doesn’t just refer to website content or articles. The various content formats used today include infographics, videos, case studies, e-books, whitepapers, presentations, blog posts, memes, checklists, podcasts, emails, and so on. And brands often use a mix of different content formats to get their message conveyed more effectively. So, before you pick a content creation partner, find out if they can handle 360-degree content, which will cover multiple content formats. In the long run, sticking with an agency that only creates SEO articles will not be enough to beat competition. Also, the agency should be able to advise you on which formats will work best for your business and on which channels they should be distributed. 3. Do they understand how content marketing exactly works? Always go for a content marketing partner that proactively asks you about your goals, before suggesting a plan. No marketing campaign can work well unless they are aligned with what you want, be it boosting brand awareness, building your domain authority or thought leadership, getting more traffic or generating more leads. So, if an agency simply offers to churn out say 20 SEO articles per month based on the topics you provide, be wary. The right content agency will also satisfy these criteria: They will know how SEO and high-quality content can work together to drive traffic and sales. While information-rich, engaging and well-written content is necessary to appeal to human readers, optimizing the same for search engine crawlers can get you the high rank you desire. Also find out if their SEO team can do the right backlinking to promote your blog posts. Pick an agency that can help you choose the topics that will perform the best. They should be aware of the trending topics and what your competitors are working on, so that you can gain an edge. The agency should also research and come up with the top keywords you can use to make your content more valuable and aligned with search engine ranking criteria. Find out if they use the latest tools like SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, BuzzSumo, Uberflip, Ubersuggestand Quora to get fresh and original content ideas and strategies. Ask what will be the agency’s content strategy to help you achieve your goals. Are they capable of identifying your target audience or creating the buyer personas?How do they pick writers, what content formats do they think will be right for you, and how do they intend to distribute your content and on which channels. Will they distribute on your owned media, paid media or both? The right content agency will also have an editorial calendar in place, so that they can easily track what to create and when to publish. This is especially essential if you want weekly articles, blog posts or daily social media posts etc. And remember to ask how they plan to
Infographics: Failing at Content Marketing? 7 Things You Need to Fix
After spending a decade in the field of content marketing services, we can say one thing for sure – only a few businesses can make this form of marketing work for them. Others fail. Naturally, many complain about how content marketing is not really worth it and the money spent on it doesn’t bear fruit in the form of the desired ROI. So, what you need to first understand is that, content marketing needs time, patience and expertise to show results. And you need to be smart and strategic about it as well. Currently, as per the Content Marketing Institute, 10% B2B marketers think that content marketing is hardly effective, while 54% consider it to be moderately effective. This scenario can only change for the better if you go about content marketing the right way. If you do it just because every other business is, you will not be rewarded. After all, your content marketing strategy should get you more traffic, better leads and greater ROI. So, you need to know what exactly works. So, even if you have a content strategy in place, you might want to know what else will help. But the overdose of information on the internet can leave you puzzled. This is why we have put together an infographic with 7 tips that are easy and actionable. Read on to truly succeed at content marketing. Conclusion Content marketing is a long-term game. The long-term gains can offset short-term losses. So, audit your strategy and amend it repeatedly to become the best in your niche. If you still have doubts about content marketing, schedule a call with us here.