We’ve all heard the marketing mantra: Content is king. With the volume of information traveling the Internet every day, every hour and every minute, that adage is more relevant than ever. A solid content strategy is an absolute must for achieving your Internet marketing and website goals.
Here are some tips to help you stay on top in the content wars.
Set Clear Objectives
It all starts here. Do you want to increase website traffic? Introduce new products or services? Maximize lead generation? Drive sales conversions? Be known as a thought leader in your business segment? You may even want to encourage people to visit specific pages of your website. Regardless of the particular goal, you need to get a handle on what you want to happen when your audience reads your content.
Differentiate Yourself
You can’t afford to ignore the competition. And they probably have some valuable things you can learn or need to counter. There’s no harm in admitting your competition is doing a better job than you are. So define what makes their content strategy strong and proceed accordingly, in a strategic way that sets you apart.
Think Through Your Topics
A helpful way of coming up with a content strategy is to use a topic-oriented approach. Work with colleagues who will be collaborating with you and take a day or two to brainstorm. Topics could be anything from info on industry trends and new technologies as a value-added, educational resource to a listing of awards that builds credibility for your organization. Then, prioritize your topics into a spreadsheet and set up a timeline to stay on track.
Take a Visitor Perspective
Be objective. Put yourself in your audience’s place and think about how you would respond to your message. One way is to ask some of your customers what they think, since they’re your ultimate target. The visitor perspective counts for any size and type of business. Then you constantly need to be innovative to maintain interest.
Leverage Channels
Content can be broken into two parts, on-site and off-site. On-site is the pages of your website. Off-site is what you use on external websites,
which can have a direct impact on search engine rankings. Ask yourself, “How can we use our content to move people through these channels?” For example, a YouTube video could direct people to a landing page on your website. You will provide your audience with relevant content, utilize a social media channel and drive visitors to your site.
These steps will help you create content that is relevant to your targets audiences and delivers results.