Some content marketing will go viral, generating tons of hot traffic to your blog, while other content will be lost in the archives. If you want more of the first kind, you’ve got to put your readers first.
By now, you probably know that one of the ways to fail in business is to ignore the target audience’s needs and desires. If you create content marketing without a smart and documented strategy, your content will not convert.
According to Content Marketing Institute, “Business-to-business (B2B) marketers who have a documented strategy are more effective and less challenged with every aspect of content marketing.”
The first wave of content marketing was simple: bloggers, content writers, and marketers targeted a particular keyword in their content, and felt pretty confident that Google would at least index and rank their content pages ahead of the competitors.
The next wave of content marketing is proving to be much more challenging. But, for those who are willing to put in the work and change their approach, success is definitely possible. The key difference is that your content must convert well.
It’s definitely not all about quantity, but publishing more content on your blog can help you to convert more visitors into leads and customers.
More than anything else, what you need is a step-by-step guide for creating content that converts. Keep an open mind, and learn how to create content marketing that consistently converts:
Find content ideas that are proven to convert.
The demand for fresh, high-value content marketing is high. If you invest time in creating it, you’ll reap the rewards. But, the competition is strong. Most marketers are going to give up, but those who learn the tricks and get customer insights will grow their businesses.
You can get viable ideas from blog posts, infographics, videos, magazine covers, online publications, Slideshare presentations and more. Valuable ideas will help you create a content marketing strategy that’ll generate quality leads for your business.
Optimize your copy like you would for a landing page.
According to Nielsen Norman Group, visitors, on average, only read around 20% of the content on a webpage.
If that’s true, then your job is to ensure that important points stand out in your content marketing.
Your content should have a base objective from which every element then flows. As content marketers and bloggers, we all want to create a positive first impression. With a strong value proposition, you can achieve that goal.
A value proposition should be clear and direct. Don’t try to use too many words, or to impress anyone with uncommon words.
Craft attention-grabbing headlines.
“Write compelling headlines” has almost become a cliché, but I think it’s still worth mentioning because this advice is the foundation of a great content marketing strategy.
Great content that also converts must stand out from an ever-increasing crowd of similar content. “A poor headline will render your article invisible,” says Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger Media.
80% of people never make it past the headline and only 2 out of 10 people will actually read the rest of your content.
When you write, write conversationally.
The way you write can make your content market efforts easy to read and personal. Do you write the way that you speak? Some people don’t believe that it works, but it does.
Always include a call-to-action when emotion is high.
Blog posts without calls-to-action are only half-finished. Of course, it all depends on your objective for putting out the content in the first place. But, if you want a better result, include a call-to-action when emotion is high.
And once you’ve created the content, edited it, published it and begun promoting it, don’t waste all of that effort by leaving your content without a call-to-action.
When readers finish reading your content, they’ll be asking, “where do I learn more?” or “how do I get to know the author better?”
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