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We all want to create successful content marketing strategies and have our clients’ names up in lights receiving the acclaim they deserve. But how achievable is this?
In truth, it’s not an unreachable target; it just requires a vast amount of preparation and dedication, which is where some companies fall short.
When you consider the supporting role that content plays for SEO, it seems a shame to let all that hard work go waste. Here are just a few effective methods for creating a successful content marketing strategy.
Creating great copy doesn’t guarantee you instant social media shares and high-quality backlinks. There’s no magical ‘go viral’ button you can hit. Instead you need to make sure that your content marketing strategy is targeted from the get-go.
Before you start your campaign, make sure you take the time to clearly define the main goals. These will be the backbone of your strategy and will help ensure that your content marketing efforts are driven towards an end goal. Whether this is increased brand awareness, boosting traffic, link acquisition or social shares, putting definitive aims in place will help you achieve them.
When your client first comes on board, set up a meeting to talk through their current content marketing strategy and establish what has and hasn’t worked for them in the past. This will save you time when you come to the ideation stage later on.
Once you’ve established the main goals of your campaign, it’s time to think about your micro goals. These are the individual goals that you want each piece of content you create to achieve. Your content won’t stay the same, so neither should your targets.
Both your main and micro goals need to fit in with your overall strategy so always make sure that your content ties into the bigger picture.
Before you start creating your amazing content with its sights set on success, you need to establish who your audience is. This may be one particular demographic, but in most cases your audience will be made up of several groups of people.
A handy way to segment your audience is by defining their characteristics and social standing. Sites like YouGov Profiles are an effective tool to use for this.
Take a look at the example below:
Group name
By establishing the groups of individuals in your audience, you can include content tailored to them in your Content Marketing plan. This ensures that your content resonates with the right people. Otherwise you’re just creating content and hoping for the best – and your clients deserve better than that.
On-page SEO isn’t something that you should shy away from. By using tools like Übersuggest you can strengthen your copy, help support the SEO strategy and make your content more targeted.
Übersuggest is a free keyword tool that provides targeted suggestions based on a base term. It’s an effective resource if you’re struggling to come up with strong titles, or just need some content topic inspiration.
“Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.” – Seth Godin
When it comes to creating your content, the tried and tested approach may work for you, but it’s well worth trying alternative methods. For example, larger pieces of content can offer you a great deal of value that you may struggle to achieve in the same timeframe with smaller content pieces.
Ahrefs is another fantastic tool at your disposal. In addition to the backlink analysis you can run, the software also allows you to search for the top 10 most shared pieces of content by topic. So it’s great for getting an insight into what your competitors are creating and also the topics that your intended audience are interested in. When you come to plan the content you will create, this will help to support your strategy and ensure that it is as targeted and relevant as possible.
So you’ve put your content marketing strategy in place and have achieved great things, but rather than patting yourself on the back an idly continuing, you need to compile your results.
Once your content goes live it’s important to ensure that you track how it performs. Using software like Google Analytics, you can collect a whole range of information that will give you an invaluable insight into its value.
These include, but are not limited to:
Having access to this data will help you identify what content is and isn’t working and gives you the opportunity to refine your plan. Remember that your strategy doesn’t have to be set in stone. Ideally it should as flexible as possible.
If you don’t have time to resources available to create a comprehensive content marketing strategy then contact Koozai today.
