Feb 13 2024
Content marketing is one of the most lucrative digital marketing tactics. It has the potential to attract a steady stream of highly qualified traffic. It helps you build long-term relationships with your target audience. Its only downside is that it requires a lot of time and effort.
The basic tenets of content marketing are simple enough. Establish a blog, figure out what your audience wants to read about, and write about it. However, this rather basic way of doing things is often no longer enough in today's overcrowded marketing landscape.
Let's look at eight advanced marketing principles and how brands can use them to level up their online marketing.
There are two types of topics you can cover on your blog: trending topics and evergreen ones.
Trending topics tend to see a sudden surge in interest, potentially attracting a lot of traffic. They often deal with current or seasonal events, new developments, or topics that have attracted a lot of attention on social media.
For example, a guide on the best Valentine's Day gifts is a blog post that covers a trending, seasonal topic.
Evergreen content, on the other hand, covers topics that attract a steady interest throughout the year. These topics are highly likely to remain relevant for years to come. How to clean a washing machine filter is an evergreen topic, for example.
In order to level up your blogging game, start publishing content on high-volume, relevant evergreen topics. Start by brainstorming without the aid of the internet. What questions related to your product or service does your target audience have? What might they want to know more about? What could be confusing to them?
Once you have a list of potential topics, you can check what the search volume for them really is and what kind of competition you are up against. Don't worry if you are competing against some big names in your industry. You may not be able to rank for these topics fast.
Covering them will boost your website's value in the eyes of search engines as well as website visitors, who will start to consider you an expert.
Here's an example of this tactic in practice. This guide on converting watts to kilowatts does not yet rank in the top ten. It does, however, provide immense value to the brand's audience, who don't have to look for another resource to do their calculations while browsing for solar panels.
It gives the entire website a user experience and expertise boost.
Another way to take your blogging efforts to the next level is to provide interactive content for your audience. This will boost engagement rates and time on page and improve the overall user experience on your website.
Depending on the nature of your business, you will need to choose the type of interactive content that will best suit your visitors. For example, if you are a roofing company, you can provide an interactive calculator that will help customers determine how much it will cost to put up a new roof.
The key here is to ensure that the page is highly valuable and useful. Having interactive content for the sake of having it will not get you the desired results. Take some time to think of a format that will serve your audience. Will it be a calculator? An interactive chart? A timeline?
This capsule size guide is a good example of aligning the content format with the needs of the visitor. Vivion's customers will certainly need to figure out what size capsule they need. The handy interactive size guide makes this easier and more efficient. If you would like to combine multiple interactive features in one document, consider creating an online flip book.
A lot of brands mistakenly believe that their blog should be all about them. And yes, that is true to an extent. But if you never branch out and promote your own products or services only, you will be missing out on a valuable advanced content marketing tactic.
Think of it this way: your customers are going to be interested in products related to yours. If they are buying shoes from you, they might also be keen to see some socks that will go well with them.
Writing blog posts about related products can be a great source of traffic. You can rank for keywords you otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to. You can attract a completely new audience segment this way, too.
This tactic will also make your blog look very helpful and user-centric, as your main goal will be to offer help to your readers.
A content format that lends itself well to this tactic is the product roundup post. Here's how you can write a good one:
- Think of a product category that complements your own product line.
- Write detailed descriptions and reviews of every product
- You can also compare products to each other if it makes sense.
- Recommend your own products: how do they complement each other?
- Include any affiliate links if you have them.
Check out this post on keto wines. It matches the brand's other content well: they have a keto meal planner, so it's easy to see why recommending keto wines is a sound choice. The post itself is detailed but not overbearing, it's easy to digest, and it provides some useful recommendations.
Another common blogging mistake is treating your blog as a sales outlet. While one of the purposes of content marketing is certainly to increase your sales, that is not the main reason to have a blog.
Your number one goal should always be to help your readers. Don't push a sale at them, and don't try to get them to subscribe to anything. Be informative and as helpful as you possibly can. By helping readers out, you will increase the chances of them converting.
This does not mean you should never make a sales pitch in your blog posts. Check out this tutorial on using Google Flights. 99% of the post is incredibly helpful and truly aims to educate its readers. The brand only makes a subtle sales pitch at the end of the post.
Incidentally, this topic is also evergreen and is likely to bring in a lot of qualified traffic. It can establish the brand as a reputable source of information. Visitors may not convert instantly, but they are much more likely to do so over time.
If you treat content marketing as the long game that it is, you can see much better results than when you try to get some instant results.
Another advanced content marketing tactic, one that heavily relies on search engine optimization, is doing advanced keyword research in order to tap into better keywords with a higher ranking potential.
Most bloggers and brands do basic keyword research. They check the search volume of a term they want to rank for, include LSI keywords, and add their chosen keywords to the meta elements.
If you want to level up, consider employing these more advanced methods as well:
- Look at the search terms visitors use on your website. What are they looking for that you haven't yet covered?
- Look for keywords and search terms on Reddit and Quora. What do people talk about related to your niche?
- Look for low-competition keywords your competitors are ranking for well.
- Group keywords by search intent.
When you choose a main keyword for your blog post, don't immediately start writing with keywords in mind. Instead, write the article as you normally would. Only once you are finished should you start optimizing for keywords. This will ensure content quality and give you plenty of opportunity to include some organic keywords that a keyword research tool might not consider important enough to highlight.
Speaking of keyword research, another great way to level up your blogging game is to hone in on extra specific, niche pain points.
This will likely require a bit of digging on social media or on forums to figure out what your target audience is curious about. You might stumble upon a topic that has not yet been properly covered elsewhere. Or something you can write about well and with plenty of experience.
You can also come up with topics yourself, but make sure to check whether or not they are seeing any traffic.
These posts may focus on keywords that have a lower search volume than you'd necessarily want. However, don't let this discourage you. Very niche keywords can be incredibly lucrative, especially if you manage to snag the top spot. You can attract a highly interested and qualified audience who is more likely to convert.
Here's a post on fixing a highly specific WordPress issue. This is not something most people will come across or search for. However, the people who do will be quite satisfied with the result that comes up.
Make sure the content you write for these pain points is some of your best. Only that way till you truly appeal to your niche audience.
You are probably already aware of the fact that blog posts need to be formatted well in order to attract readers. The majority of blogs have learned how to ensure their spacing is on point. They use bullet points and insert appropriate images and videos. Videos can do more than just enhance your blog; for example, custom explainer videos can effectively explain your product or service in a visually engaging and informative manner, capturing audience attention and driving conversion rates
That's not quite enough to stand out, though. Let's look at this post on LinkedIn hashtags and see what they have done better than most:
- The share buttons on the left are sticky, as is the CTA on the right,
- There is plenty of negative space on either side of the article, making it much easier to read.
- They use the right headings: H2s for their main points, then H3 for subheadings.
- They insert just the right amount of images: they are not obnoxious and distracting but illustrate each point well and show the different steps as needed.
- Links clearly stand out. You know you are about to be taken to another page, and the anchor text clearly tells you where you are going.
When formatting an article, think about user experience. What does the reader want to see first? Are there any important points you might need to bold or underline?
Finally, you should also consider creating other content formats that will support your blog posts. You don't need to do this for every topic. Some topics will naturally lend themselves better to various additions.
For example, if you are talking about meal planning, providing a free downloadable template can be a great extra format. If you are discussing how to fix something, filming a short tutorial can significantly boost the value of the post.
Images and video are the most obvious content formats, but consider all manner of downloadables as well, from ebooks to templates and lists.
Check out this SEO plan template. It comes with a downloadable template in three different formats, which aligns with the topic itself. It also features a helpful video guide that walks you through using this template. If you prefer to listen and watch, you don't have to read the post at all.
Note that you can also choose to gate some of this additional content. If you decide to ask your readers to subscribe to your newsletter or at least provide some contact information, make sure you really make it worth their while. Don't spam them, and don't be too pushy with a sale. Keep your communication educational and informative, and build a relationship over time.
Are you already using some of these advanced blogging tactics? Which one do you think would appeal most to your target audience?
Before you start executing any of them, take some time to make a step-by-step plan. The key to content marketing success is patience and research. The sounder your data, the better results you will achieve.
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