A Beginner's Guide, 10 content marketing tips for beginners

Content marketing has become a big part of consumer engagement and attracting the attention of the right audience online. That means that a lot more companies are doing it, and it’s getting harder to stand out amid the sea of audio, video, images, documents, blogs, and more.

To make matters worse, virtually every marketer and business owner have found themselves in a rut trying to create enough content, get the desired engagement, and find interesting ways to innovate.

Before getting into the 10 content marketing tips, it is better to provide a few quick definitions about basic terms related to content marketing so that we are all in sync.

What is content?

In our context I would say that content is everything that can be published on the web. For example text, videos, images, infographics, graphs, audio, pdf, podcasts, slideshows etc. It is in other words information that can be made available in digital format.

What is content marketing?

There are many sophisticated definitions of Content marketing but my own simplified version is the following:  Content marketing is the process of creating content for the purpose of increasing your web traffic, getting new customers, making more sales or simply increasing brand awareness.

What are the advantages of content marketing?

Content marketing has many things to offer to an online business as content is the start and ending point of any online campaign. In particular the benefits of content marketing are:

More targeted visits from Search Engines – the more content you publish the greater is the number of organic visits you can get

More visits from Social Media – Good content will be shared on social media which in turn will bring more visits to your website

User engagement – User can engage with your content by providing comments, reviews, ratings, answering to other user questions etc.

It’s good for SEO – Good quality content is the heart of SEO. Websites that combine good content with proven copywriting tips are better off than websites who fail in any of these aspects.

Increase brand awareness – Content can help users spread the word about a brand and this word of mouth affect will eventually lead to better brand awareness.

More sales – Content can generate more leads and increase sales

10 Content marketing tips

1. Publish related content

When you start publishing content on your website or blog make sure that it is related to your niche and area of expertise. For many this maybe obvious but some people still get it wrong. If you are running a tech blog for example you cannot publish a post about cooking just because you liked it. Nobody will punish you for doing so but the chances of getting any benefits from that post are minimized.

The best approach is to publish related content that is aligned with the overall goals of your website. For example if you are selling coffee makers online then besides providing all the technical information about your products (specs, photos, reviews, videos) you should also provide a blog with articles related to coffee (making, drinking, recipes, advice etc). This is related content and studies show that more than 50% of consumers enjoy reading related content from brands.

2. Publish lengthy content

When it comes to text content like blog posts, various studies identified that lengthy content (above 1500 words) ranks higher in search engines and it is more likeable in social media.

The lesson we can learn from these studies is that it is better to publish a long detail post that covers all aspects of a topic rather than publish 2-3 smaller articles. Since lengthy content is more share-able in social media this means that by proving for that type of content you are not only fetching food to search engines but you also give users what they want.

3. Publish shareable content

You need to search social networks and find what type of content people like when it comes to your niche. If you are promoting fashion items maybe they like more images and videos, if you are promoting gadgets may be they like more reviews. You need to find that they want and provide them with that content. By doing so you are also increasing the chances your content to go rival on social media and benefit from the extra visibility.

Some ideas for shareable content that are suitable for all niches are:

• Top 10 lists…
• Best of lists…
• How to …
• 10 ways to…
• Most popular ways…
• Best tips for…

4. Publish good content that looks good too

Good content provides for original, well researched and unbiased information about a certain topic. Even if your content meets the above criteria, it still needs to look good as well. By good looking content I mean text that is beautified by the use of paragraphs, bold, italics, headings, good font size etc.

Taking care about the formatting of your content is also good for SEO and a sign that you are trying to create a high quality website. In general if you can try to combine different content types together (i.e. text, images, videos) then this makes the user experience better which will generate a number of other benefits.

5. Publish content on a steady basis

Besides proving for up-to date and accurate content another tip you can use is to ensure that you publish content on a regular basis and if possible on fixed dates and times. Having a pre-defined publishing calendar will help you organize your time better and will also help you build a list of loyal fans.

Do not forget that new content is also an incentive for:

• Search engines to visit your website
• Get more visits from your newsletter and RSS feed
• Get more visits from social media

6. Publish content under a good title

The title you give to your content is very important for many reasons. This is SEO 101 but it is worth mentioning that a good title will:

• Help search engines understand what the content is about
• Help social media sites understand what you are sharing
• Attract or not users attention and encourage more clicks to visit the particular page

So, before hitting the publish button make sure that your content has a suitable title that will help you take advantage for all the above benefits. This is where the Google keyword tool can assist you in choosing effective content titles.

7. Publish better content than competitors

Content marketing sounds nice and a great way to increase sales etc but that’s only the good news. The not so good news are that you are not alone and if you want your content to perform good it has to be better than the competition.

Before starting creating your content search Google, Facebook, twitter (or the network that is closer to your target audience) and see what type of content comes in the top positions. Notice things like length, quality and format and try to make your content better in all aspects.

Content that is not better than competitors cannot generate the buzz you expect in search engines or social media so better spend more time and make the content better than rushing into hitting the publish button and lose your time.

8. Bring your content in front of customers

Don’t expect that your potential customers will search to find your website, make a visit and buy your products. When you produce a piece of content you need to go out and promote it so that it gets the attention it deserves.

There are many ways to promote your content without exaggerations and without taking any risks so the next immediate step after hitting the publish button is to do a good promotion. Your best bet is social media because results are extremely fast and immediate but never underestimate the power of email and RSS.

9. Organize your content

When you do content marketing consistently for a number of months (or even years) you will end up with lots of content and if it is not organized correctly then you will get lost. The best strategy is to organize your content into relevant categories and use tags, keywords and descriptions for searching purposes.

10. Create content that converts

Last but not least, don’t forget that the main reason you create content is to increase conversions. Depending on your case, conversions can be different things from more email subscribers, to more banner ad clicks to more product sales.

If your content does not produce good results then you need to change your content strategy and think of alternative ways to produce and promote content. Hiring a professional company is always one of your best options not only for getting better results but also to give you more time to concentrate on what you are doing best.

Conclusion

Content marketing is important for all types of businesses. The benefits from content marketing are a lot and recent studies have shown that a large percentage of people (more than 70%) prefer reading articles about a company rather than reading advertorials. When designing your content marketing strategy you need to find the right balance between content creation, user satisfaction and conversion. A successful content marketing campaign creates happier users and more customers.

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