Content Marketing Strategy Ideas
We want to get found online, but what exactly do we want our customers or clients to see? Here are some simple ideas to help you achieve the results that you desire.
Following on from our article about creating an internet omnipresence, we examine some ideas around how to go about this. We can start with our website that needs to get created or expanded as much as is feasible.
The idea here is to put a volume of knowledge onto our sites so that we offer more in-depth information on as many topics as possible. We want to include as many industry-related keywords and key phrases as we can, and use synonyms and variations in the wording of phrases. This diversity will send signals to Google, Bing and the other search engines that we are authoritative in our area, because of the depth. Because of the width of topics, we’ll be more likely to be included in longer and more complex searches from users.
When people search nowadays, the terms are far more varied than they used to be, and the search engines can differentiate this and offer accurate results. Both search engines and searchers have evolved.
Create content about every topic that you can think of
So, the idea will be for us to cover every conceivable relevant topic in our niche. There’ll be limits to this, as you wouldn’t want to put sensitive company information, or your successful marketing tactics online. You should cover every topic in a way that helps a visitor. Hopefully, we leave them wanting more by offering ‘teasers’ of better information or solutions. They find out more if they buy/sign up/enquire or whatever goal we have in mind for them.
We want to make our content clickable, linkable, and helpful.
An example of clickable content would be a headline and subject that piques curiosity. This headline encourages searchers to click on our result in the search engines rather than someone else’s. (Not to be confused with clickbait!)
Clickable search results can help increase your ranking position. Imagine one of your posts is at number seven in a search and it’s getting more clicks than number six. Googles algorithm will detect this as a signal that your result is more relevant to the search and often switch the results.
Examples of clickable headlines/topics:
‘Discover the 3 best ways to avoid caking when applying eye makeup.’‘The biggest mistake that new engineers make that can hurt their career.’‘The solutions to the 5 most common challenges while chopping meat.’‘The top 10 countries to work in as a chef.’‘3 regions that you should avoid visiting altogether at the moment.’
People might get curious if the article indicates that it’ll help them avoid a big mistake or be better off somehow.
A piece of linkable content is something that another webmaster or author might want to share with their readers.
When writing an article, it’s often helpful to include statistics. Other times complicated concepts are introduced that can’t get explained in the limited space in the content.
If I were writing about the increasing popularity of home-delivery gourmet food, I might want to show a graph or an infographic. I’d include one that I found through Google and link back to the source. If that source happened to be you, (because you created an attractive piece of content), my link back to you will increase the power and authority of your site.
These links are added to help people find out more about a topic. They’re also similar to a bibliography in an academic book or paper. The reason why bibliographies exist is to show that research has gotten done, add credibility to the writer, and for them to cover themselves.
(It is OK to use small snippets of text or data under ‘fair use’ in copyright law.)
Unlike a bibliography, a backlink is sending ‘link juice’ and power back to the source. Over time these links make the whole destination site more powerful and authoritative.
This increase in website authority is what we aim to achieve.
Examples of linkable content:
- An infographic where information gets displayed visually.
- A controversial viewpoint that causes an opponent to write an article debunking it. They’ll link to the argument they’re referencing.
- Something groundbreaking, remarkable or funny. Something that people would want to share with their peers or associates.
- A resource that others would like to share. For example, you might create a free downloadable safety manual. You could then send an email to training managers, letting them know that they can use this for free to help them in their training programme. You would then ask if they could include a link to your download page from their website so that as many of their visitors can benefit as possible.
Valuable content will solve problems and answer questions.
These pages will correspond to actual and typical questions that searchers have.
Examples of valuable or helpful content:
‘Solving the problem of trouser legs getting oil from bicycle chains.’‘How to reduce or eliminate lower back pain.’‘Free downloadable map of the park.’
These types of topics will naturally attract searchers. If you want ideas for creating additional articles like this, Yahoo Answers or Quora are good places to look.
We can search for questions related to our industry, then answer them in as much detail as possible. If we can do this through a video, Slideshare or Infographic then even better.
These new articles will be helpful, but also clickable and linkable.
Easy wins
1) Re-purposing existing content.
If you look through the emails or newsletters that you’ve sent to subscribers, some will be out of date. Other emails will still be timely. The best ones will be timeless or ‘evergreen’. If you look through your emails, notes, reports or anything that has not gotten published online, ask yourself whether this work could be re-purposed.
If you don’t have a subscriber list yet, then look through emails that you’ve sent to colleagues, customers or suppliers. You’ll find that lots of these can be tweaked and changed into blog posts or articles. Make sure you change names or specifics or ask permission from other collaborators if you want to use these details.
Anything that might be clickable, linkable or helpful can be re-jigged into a blog post, report, ebook, or infographic. This practice means that the work you’ve done in the past can be recycled and additional value can get garnered from it. Use topics that are as helpful as possible without letting out trade secrets or any ‘secret sauce’ from your in-person presentations.
2) Create a Glossary of terms which will be a powerful page on each website. With so many keywords on one page, this content is likely to appear in many different searches. It’s also linkable and helpful.
3) Create an FAQ page, (or expand an existing one), for the same reasons as the Glossary of terms.
4) Think of any top 10 lists for any aspect of each business. Searchers love top 10 lists.
Conclusion
To think about starting to write articles can be daunting to someone who doesn’t do it regularly. It’s like anything in life; it gets easier with practice.
We don’t have to think of article ideas for the next year. We only have to get inspiration for one or two. Hopefully, after reading this, you have an idea for at least a few. We get these produced, and during the process, inspiration strikes, and within a few days, there are more ideas for articles.
Fast forward two years, and we have a hundred pages or more on each website. Visitors are finding us from different keyword searches going into the thousands. This rise is partly thanks to the increase in authority. It’s also because of the number of keywords, and the different wording of search queries matching the content on our sites.
At this point, a new competitor has an uphill struggle trying to catch up with our sheer volume, depth, and width of written material. This material will be on domains that have a track record of producing valuable content for years, with many backlinks to internal pages of the
