CONTENT STRATEGY
CONTENT STRATEGIES FOR SEO
WHAT IS CONTENT STRATEGY?
Content strategy is a framework for producing and marketing content.
A content strategy details an organisation’s approach to subject selection, content formats, writing style, design and promotion.
Having a content strategy helps you plan your website’s content marketing. Without a strategy, it is easy to hop from one tactic to another, without real focus, objective or direction.
With a well thought-out strategy, everyone knows what they need to do, how they’re going to do it and what they hope to achieve in the process.
A Typical six-point content marketing plan
1. Set Goals
Ask yourself if you are creating content to increase brand reach, generate leads, build followers, attract previous customers, improve search ranking results, or another specific objective.
2. Define your audience
Your content strategy can only work if you know who your audience is; what sites are prospects already visiting, what kind of content do they engage with and which social media platforms do they use.
3. Create specialist Content
Ask yourself if you are creating niche content to increase brand reach, generate leads, build followers, attract previous customers, improve search ranking results, or another specific objective.
4. Publish your content
A strong content strategy and content creation is just part of the formula. You also need to amplify your content. Determine the online places your audience frequents and then publish to those channels.
5. Listen to your customers
Your customers like to know they have a voice and are being listened to on social media. Engaging with your customers and responding to their feedback enables you to gather valuable data and demonstrates that their opinions matter.
6. Measure your results
Measuring the results of your content marketing is a crucial aspect of any strategy. You need to know what your audience liked, what they disliked and why in order to refine output and optimise engagement.
8 content marketing types and why you should use them
Blogging
For many organisations, blogs form the bulk of their content marketing strategy. There’s good reason for this; blog posts are usually quick to write, they’re indexed by Google, visitors will share them and it’s an easy way to offer value for just a little investment.
Blog posts are great for building relationships with your readers and making that first step towards converting them into customers.
Updating your blog with frequent, good-quality, niche posts can also drive significant amounts of traffic to your website.
Video
Video is quickly becoming the biggest online content type. According to Cisco, by 2022, 82% of internet traffic will be to video content.
YouTube, is the 2nd most popular website on the planet, after Google, with over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos watched every day.
Video is so versatile and is particularly effective when used for product reviews, how-to guides, customer testimonials, explaining complicated concepts or introductions to your organisation.
INFOGRAPHICS
Infographics make it easy to pack a lot of information into one image in a way that is visually engaging and easy for the reader to understand.
For example, if you had a bunch of twenty statistics, wouldn’t you rather see a visual representation that’s easy on the eye and the brain rather than a block of words and numbers?
Infographics get shared a lot and if a backlink is embedded in your infographic, it can lead to gaining dome really valuable backlinks.
case studies
Case studies are customer stories that demonstrate how your organisation has helped a particular client or customer.
Case studies tell the story of the problem, the solution, the method, the outcome and usually a customer quote.
Potential customers like case studies because they help them to understand how your business can add value to their products or services.
Real-life examples often help build trust, add credibility and can result in new leads.
checklists
Checklists are documents that provide a step-by-step list of things to do in order to achieve a desired outcome.
Checklists are great content assets because they are quick and easy to create and offer significant value for the target audience.
Once you’ve created a checklist, you can share it on social media and include it into a blog post.
The more you repurpose and share checklist content, the more value your business gets out of the investment, through backlinks and relevant traffic.
Email Marketing
Email marketing seems to have been around since Adam was a boy but should still be an important part of your content marketing strategy.
When done well, email marketing is a highly effective communication tool, keeping your customers and prospects up to speed with the latest news and information from your organisation and sector.
It is a way of driving an already warm audience to offers, new products and services and fresh content.
white papers
White papers are information-rich content pieces that offer commentary, solutions and statistics on a particular topic.
White papers are rich in detail. They are one of the best ways of positioning yourself as a thought leader and build credibility and respect within your sector. They are also fantastic lead magnets.
White papers should focus on a specific challenge for your target audience and offer solutions backed by statistical evidence.
A well-constructed, considered white paper can be a great lead generator and showcase for your organisation.
podcasts
After a stuttering start, back in the day, podcast subscriber and listening numbers are now climbing vertically.
There are around sixty million active Facebook business pages but only 750,000 podcasts available. Whilst that may seem like a big number, after drilling down to topic, you can often find that there are just a handful of podcasts covering your particular sector or specialism.
Podcasts are high-engagement and low-competition. They position you as a leader in your sector, are mobile friendly, free to air and the entertainment choice for many a lunch-break or commute to work.
We can help you develop your content strategy
If you would like to discuss your content strategy or content creation, please contact us. We have plenty of ideas and would love to have a chat.
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