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- How to Write a Content Marketing Plan That Will Increase Leads
- How To Perform a Content Audit of Your Blog
- How to Set Up a Successful Presale
| How to Write a Content Marketing Plan That Will Increase Leads Posted: 30 Jun 2019 10:00 AM PDT  You have a website and you even have a blog, but are you using it? If your blog isn't providing you with relevant leads, read on. There are various ways to generate online leads for your business, but content marketing should be the foundation of your strategy. Not only is content very affordable, it's also highly effective. Great content marketing can generate three times as many leads as pay per click and four times as many leads than traditional outbound marketing. However, to get these results, you need a solid plan. Nearly 63% of business don't have any documented content strategy plan. If you're starting out on your marketing journey, a downloadable blog content scheduling tool can be found here. Research your keywords.Gone are the days of articles filled with clunky keywords; search engines are more sophisticated now and employ complex algorithms. Using repetitive words and inappropriate practices, like keyword stuffing, will reduce your ranking on Google. Despite the changes in the algorithms, keyword research should still be an integral part of your content marketing plan. Research helps you understand what your audience is searching for so you can create content to meet the needs of your audience. Keyword research gets very technical, but don't get overwhelmed in the complexities of competition and search volume. Instead, use your research to come up with content ideas, outlines and article titles. You'll likely find groups of related keywords together; these phrases and groups of words will help you hone in on your target audience. Consider using the phrases as subheadings for your articles. Google gives more credence to phrases and short groups of words than just single words. Determine your content goals.Every article or piece of content you produce must have a clear and specific goal. It's entirely possible for you to have more than one goal for your article. Some examples of goals you might set include:
By keeping these goals in mind when you create content, your efforts are more targeted, and you're more likely to achieve your goals. For example, if you want your reader to sign up for your monthly product newsletter after reading your blog post, you'll need to point out the benefits to the reader and add several clear calls to action in the article. Develop an outline of your content.Don't just quickly draft an article and publish it. It's crucial to plan each article thoroughly. Planning requires taking the time to create an outline that is then used to flesh out the full piece of content. Don't outsource your content-generation efforts to anyone who doesn't have deep experience in your business or market. Part-time school kids will be the death of your efforts and do nothing more than make you look foolish. Presenting your company to the world takes time, insight and deep thought. Refer to your keyword research when creating the structure of your outline. Your draft should also include your overall content goals, the format of the content piece, internal and external links to include, the target audience, and how you will promote it. The format of your content pieces is a key part of your content marketing strategy. Choose a few standard formats for all of your written content. Standardizing your style will create consistency and help build brand awareness. Some ideas for content formats might include:
The formats you choose are mostly a personal decision tailored to your organization. It's helpful to see what others in your industry are doing, as well as what organizations outside your industry are doing. Looking outside your industry will give you additional content ideas. Establish a publishing and promotional schedule.Once you've planned and outlined several months' worth of content, schedule it. Stick to the plan and consistently post your content to build a loyal reader base. Consistency could be daily, weekly or monthly depending on the content and format you've chosen. You're likely to see quicker results from Google the more frequently you post content, but don't get too hung up on frequency – it's better to produce high-quality content consistently rather than filling your site low-quality meaningless blog posts and social updates. If you have any topics that are seasonal, or essential to your company, schedule them accordingly. Your scheduling matrix, or spreadsheet, should include dates for when content is created, who the author is, who edited the piece, when it will be published, and when and how it will be promoted. Be sure to allow a time buffer for any unforeseen events that could occur. Whether you're promoting your content by email, LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook, it's essential to choose the best times to post to garner the highest level of reader engagement possible. A few Google searches will show you the best times to publish on each platform; use that as a guide but not gospel. Depending on the volume of content, there are an array of automation tools for posting content available. It's OK to repost an article that you published a few months ago. People tend to read what's in front of them today. It's alright to repost articles as long as you don't repost the same old information. Review and analyze content.You're not done just because you wrote and published an article. Your next step is ongoing analysis to improve your content and dial it into your exact audience and their needs. Remember, you, your content, your customer and your industry are continually evolving – so, too, must your content. Schedule a day on the calendar each month to review how your content's performance. If you have one or two pieces of content that are getting more attention, find out what's unique about that piece and replicate it. Finally, take time and massage your old content for a new audience. Edit and add some relevant updated information, links and photos. Editing older articles can take far less time than creating a brand new piece from scratch and can improve the performance of the article. |
| How To Perform a Content Audit of Your Blog Posted: 30 Jun 2019 06:00 AM PDT  The end result of an audit is that you end up with high-quality content that serves a purpose while leaving everything that doesn't behind. Taking the right steps can boost traffic to your site. As an example, Ahrefs conducted a content audit and saw a 7.57 percent rise in traffic on its website within two months. Having low-quality content on your blog can reduce the amount of traffic to your website and decrease the number of potential conversions you make. Ultimately, this can affect the performance of your entire business. It can also affect how Google indexes your website because having several low-value-add URLs can negatively affect a site's crawling and indexing. This includes duplicate content, low-quality and spam content, soft error pages, and more. When performing a content audit, there are certain steps you need to take to complete it successfully, including:
Here is how you can perform a content audit for your blog so that your website performs at its best. Determine your goalsIt'll be difficult to gauge what to do with all the content on your website if you don't know what you're trying to achieve. There are so many different possibilities for your content that if you don't map out your goals, you'll get lost trying to determine which pieces to keep and which to discard. Taking the simple step of determining your objectives with your content audit will save you time and resources because you'll know exactly what you're doing and why every step of the way. You want to determine your goals in plain terms. Write down what you're trying to achieve by flushing out old content and restoring it with something new.
Take inventoryThere's going to be content you want to keep as part of your audit because you believe it adds value to the reader and to your business as a whole. On the other hand, there will also be tons of articles you want to discard because it doesn't meet your goals or serve a purpose being on your website. But how will you know what to keep and what to get rid of? The only way to organize your content successfully is by taking inventory. It's time-consuming but completely necessary if you want to improve your blog content and enhance the experience for your audience. First, you need to collect all the URLs you have on your website. You can do this using Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, and XML Sitemaps, which all help you to gather the webpages you need. Analyze your dataIn order to determine what you'll do with the content on your blog, you need to take action based on factual data. It's essential to analyze your data to make informed decisions about your content so you don't get rid of content that drives traffic while keeping content that sits on your website bringing no positive results. Google Analytics is your best bet for determining how the different webpages on your site are performing. You want to keep everything in one place, so keep all your webpages with URLs in a spreadsheet using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Having everything consolidated in one place will help you organize your content and determine what should stay and what should go. Pay attention to the following key metrics:
Organize your content into categoriesOnce you have data to make informed decisions about your audit, it's time to organize your content into different groups based on what you'll do with them and where they'll go. That way, you're able to stay focused and keep frustration at bay. When there's a lot of content to go through, which is more likely than not when performing audits, it's essential to stay organized so it's clear where everything goes and you don't waste time. It helps to organize content based on the following categories:
The content you want to keep is the pieces that already perform well on your website. Visitors love these pieces and continue to come back, share, comment, and repost them on social media and other outlets for further visibility. This is content that stays relevant and rarely needs to be updated, if at all. Examples include evergreen content, basic information about your business, FAQ pages, etc. The content you want to discard is pieces that no longer hold relevancy or interest for your target market. They don't add value to their lives and don't solve their issues or relieve pain points. They rarely receive engagement or feedback and kind of just sit on your website collecting cobwebs. If it isn't serving your overall content marketing objectives, it should probably be thrown in the bin. Examples include anything irrelevant to your business that doesn't serve a clear purpose and duplicate content. The content you want to update is pieces that show potential in helping you reach your business goals. These posts received engagement and likeability, however, they may need to be updated so they're relevant or need to be written from a new perspective. If they cover important topics you believe will prove valuable to your audience, they're worth editing for potential conversions. Examples include content that's relevant to a certain time period, content with lower traffic and engagement, trendy topics and statistics. Follow up on the dataOnce you've flushed out your content and put everything in its rightful place, it's time to sit back and see what happens. You can't simply stop at deleting content and think you're done. If your blog is going to see positive results, you need to keep up with the data and watch how users interact with your audited content. Now is the time to gain further insight and draw conclusions about what works for your blog and what doesn't so that you can continue creating and offering value to your readers. Refer back to the goals for your audit and determine whether or not they get reached because of your updates. If not, you know there's still work to do and more data to be analyzed. More likely than not, an audit will do your blog good and bring about positive ROI as well as increased traffic and engagement. One of the best things you can do as a blog owner, especially if your blog has been around for a while, is to perform a content audit. This refreshes your website and gives you an opportunity to improve your conversions, increase engagement, and revamp your site's content. If your blog is going to thrive, it needs to have high-quality content that serves a purpose and offers your audience value. |
| How to Set Up a Successful Presale Posted: 30 Jun 2019 06:00 AM PDT 
Whether you're just starting a business or you're looking to introduce a new product at your existing business, presales can be a great way to gauge interest in your business, fund early operations and minimize a stressful cold opening. "[A] presale allows you to obtain feedback prior to releasing to the full market," said Mike Sheety, director of ThatShirt. "This can give you a chance to iron out any kinks and accurately scale how well your product/service is going to be." A presale can be an interesting tool for small business owners – especially if you're just starting your business and want to test out if your product will do well among whatever audience you're targeting. Presales can act as a testing ground for new products, ideas and concepts for your business. It can also be a great way to build anticipation around a new product or service you're releasing among an already loyal base. Running a good presale means organizing your efforts and marketing your campaign well. If you can do these two things, you can set yourself up for a successful presale. What is a presale?A presale is selling a product or service in advance of when it will be released. This means you're potentially selling products that have not even been made yet. While it can be a precarious situation for some small businesses, if you remain ethical and set up your presale properly, you'll be able to keep your customers happy. A good presale can be used as a tool for new and existing businesses – you can build anticipation while hedging your bets (to an extent). Advantages of a presaleThe biggest advantage of a presale is it gives you a solid customer base while giving you room to work through any potential issues with your product or service. If you have lead time for a release date and you know people will buy your product, you can focus on ensuring the product is up to the proper standard. "It allows you to determine if all the effort and investment is going to be worth it for your target audience as well as pointing out any weak spots," Sheety said. "Any issues and weaker areas that arise can be dealt with promptly before creating a huge dilemma when the product is available to the full market." Having flexibility means you can spend more time focusing on your product and less time worrying about making sales. Presales also provide the advantage of receiving early customer feedback. "Preselling is a fantastic way for a small business to acquire feedback from a small group of trusted customers through a targeted sale before their product actually goes live," said Ollie Smith, CEO of Expert Sure. "By employing this method, the business can adjust their plan and improve quality." While there are some advantages, these points should be carefully considered – setting up a presale comes with its own list of challenges. Challenges of a presaleA presale's biggest advantage and challenge is the time you have to assemble your product. While you should technically have more time to work out any issues, you also open yourself up to delays and other quality issues. Managing time properly and developing a sound product or service by the time of release is the biggest challenge of running a successful presale. "You can experience delays, defects and quality issues," Sheety said. The challenge lies in balancing the time you're given to work out your presale. How to set up a presaleSetting up a presale isn't difficult – it's all about marketing. Sheety said creating product samples is a good way to give potential customers a good feel for what you're looking to produce. It can also help you make sales. How you market your product and sell to your initial audience is largely up to you – some businesses set up a post on a crowdfunding site like GoFundMe and market that, while others opt to connect directly with an existing audience through email marketing. No matter what you choose, make sure your presale is easily accessible. "Many companies often ration who has access to the presale to ensure it can only be used by loyal fans," said Steve Pritchard, marketing consultant for fashion company Ben Sherman. "If finding the presale is too hard or complex, customers won't make the effort to sign up." Pritchard also said presales shouldn't punish fans for their loyalty – there's no point in offering a better deal or product after the presale ends. With these two thoughts in mind, follow these basic steps to setting up a successful presale:
Bottom lineSetting up a presale can be a great thing for a small business, if it's done correctly. You can gather initial feedback, test the market to see if your product will do well and get set as a new business owner. While there are many benefits to running a good presale, stay aware of the challenges. If you do things properly, you can create a great product that does well with your audience. A presale "saves the organization precious time and money and allows it to continue to build a great reputation with its target market," Smith said. |
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