Content marketing seems to be the name of the game these days if you want to get your site noticed. While it used to be that you could stuff all of the right keywords on your website and just wait for the traffic to come, search engines like Google are far more advanced than that now.Not to mention, placing too many keywords on your site will actually harm it in search engine rankings.
In addition, consumer behavior has changed quite a bit. People are online in many forms all day long and love to consume content, find answers, learn, and interact. All of this says you need a content marketing plan if you are going to be successful.
Here Are a Few Tips for Developing a Killer Content Marketing Plan:
Know Who You’re Talking To
This may sound obvious, but it’s an often overlooked step. Do you know your target audience? Are you talking to someone in their early 30s with kids, or are you offering information and products that would be useful to a corporate executive? Of course this will depend on your business and what you offer, but it is crucial to know who you are talking to up front in order to tailor what you say to be relevant to them. In the inbound marketing world, we refer to these as buyer personas.
Know What You’re Talking About
This also may sound obvious, but one key to a content marketing plan is that you don’t oversell. Of course you will talk some about your products and services, but if you continually create content that only advertises your services people likely won’t be too interested in reading your content. Instead, it’s best to make informative stuff that relates to your product offerings but that people find useful and helpful.
As an example, let’s say you are a real estate agency. Instead of sending out 5 blogs a week and offering a downloadable guide that only talks about why someone should hire you, throwing in some helpful articles on where the housing market is, or tips for getting the most value out of your home when you sell will be helpful and engaging to your audience. Taking this approach will also allow you to build credibility.
Here is where keyword selection comes in. As previously mentioned, you don’t want to “stuff” keywords into your content. However, it is important to choose keywords that will attract your target audience, and use them naturally in your content. Doing this correctly allows search engines to identify what you are talking about (without viewing your content as spam), and most importantly it helps people find your content.
Choose Your Type of Content
The Content Marketing Institute defines content marketing like this: “Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action”. Your content marketing plan could include blogs, eBooks, videos, webinars, podcasts, downloadable how-to guides, web pages, email, etc.
Come Up With Great Titles
This one is short and to the point. You probably assume titles are important, but you may be underestimating them. Some say you should spend 50% of your writing time on the title alone! This may sound extreme, but the point is that people won’t read your blogs or content if you don’t have a good title. You don’t want to go to all of the trouble creating great content only to have a boring title.
Set Up A System
As you’re developing a content plan, it’s also good to set up a system. Who in your company will do the content creation? How often will you dedicate time to brainstorm ideas and create the content? While it’s important to be publishing great content regularly, you can choose to create an entire month’s worth of content in one time period, or spread it out and create one piece at a time. It really depends on what is best for your organization. The more of a system you have set up the easier it will be to regularly churn out content.
Get Started!
Now it’s time to get at it. If you’re new to writing and creating content, this is the hardest part. So after you have made a content marketing plan, just start creating. Have fun with it. Remember, you can always edit your content as you go or after you create it, so don’t stress over every little detail at first. Just get started!
If you are uncomfortable with creating content for your site, or would rather hire it out, consider an agency that can create content for your business. To learn more about our marketing services here at Half a Bubble Out, download the free offer below:
Since 2002, Half a Bubble Out has been dedicated to providing marketing, advertising and small business consulting that meet the needs of our clients. We specialize in powerfully telling stories through Inbound Marketing to grow your business filled with more passion and provision. Based in Chico California, we serve clients throughout Northern California and across the country to New York.
