Content marketing is effective for:

  • Brand awareness
  • Attracting new customers

Content marketing helps reach your target audiences by:

  • Creating content
  • And publishing it
  • Then distribute

Rather than being a quick growth tactic like paid ads, content marketing offers long-term growth.

If you don’t know how to start a successful content marketing strategy.

Read this post containing content marketing tips.

Let’s get started.

Content marketing tips

  • Content goals
  • Your audience
  • Buyer’s journey
  • Solve reader’s problems
  • Pillar and cluster content
  • In-depth content
  • Analytics
  • Consistency and up-to-date
  • Optimisation strategy
  • Repurpose content
  • Brand voice consistency
  • Personalise content
  • Data
  • Original research
  • Different formats
  • User experience
  • Remarket content

Content goals

There is a lot of of content you can create for your business like:

  • Instagram Stories
  • Blog posts
  • E-books
  • Podcasts

For your blogging strategy:

  • Identify your target audience
  • Decide how your content will help them

Then, use analytics to check if your content is reaching people with the right search intent.

Doing so, helps you write quality content that helps grow your audience.

Audience

Your right audience is those who:

  • Engage with your brand
  • Buy your products

And you need to know your audience so you can write content to attract them.

So, create a buyer persona of your ideal customer who your products serve best.

To start, take into account their:

Doing so will help when creating content for them.

Buyer’s journey

Your content strategy should engage readers at every stage of their buyer’s journey:

  • Attract new visitors to your business
  • Convince prospects to purchase
  • Retaining customers whilst building brand loyalty

For example, for customers who don’t buy your product because they don’t know how to use it.

Create video content showing customers how and solving that problem.

Solve reader’s problems

Your aim for creating content should be to:

  • Teach
  • Solve problems

Your brand should be a trusted source of information first, then focus on leads or sales.

So make sure your content:

  • Answers readers questions
  • Provides useful resources and tips
  • Introduces them to your offer and how it helps

For example, travel niche brands offering flights or holiday homes should focus their content on travel information and needs, like:

  • City-specific travel guides
  • Best places to visit
  • Best solo travelling tips

When a reader trusts your brand as an information source, they’ll trust your related offers.

Pillar and cluster content

Organising your content into pillar and cluster content, improves:

  • Reading experience
  • SEO

This works by:

  • The pillar page briefly covering sub-topics related to the main topic
  • And cluster pages going into more detail on the sub-topics mentioned

Then you connect all these topics together using internal linking, which tells Google they’re related.

For example, an SEO website’s main topic would be SEO.

So the pillar page would be about SEO.

Then, the cluster pages would be about on-page SEO, Technical SEO and off-page SEO.

In-depth content

In search engine results, long content does better than short content.

So write content that has everything a reader wants to know about a topic.

Remember to make sure it’s all valuable information and not fluff.

You can do this by:

  • Answering related questions
  • Providing tips that will help them

To find questions to answers:

  • Go to Google
  • Search for a short or long-tail keyword
  • Scroll down to the “People also ask” box

Here you will find the types of queries people have searched on Google, related to your search.

Note: Each post should cover one topic and target one to two keywords, because:

  • It increases your chances of ranking because your not writing about general topics
  • It builds topical authority with in-depth content on one keyword
  • Less keywords covered means more keywords to target on other pages

Analytics

Analytics helps you know:

  • What’s working
  • What’s not working
  • Where to improve

Remember it’s important to monitor both traffic and conversion rates.

Because your blogs could have more readers than you have followers on your social media accounts.

But the conversion rate on your social media accounts could be higher.

Meaning your blog introduces your business but your social media accounts close the sale.

Also, analytics can help improve your future marketing strategy.

For example, if a certain blog topic gets more traffic compared to others, then you should focus on that topic.

This will increase website traffic and you’ll be more efficient by spending time and effort where it matters.

Consistency and up-to-date

Keep your content up-to-date and relevant for search engines.

To keep your content relevant and updated, do the following:

  • Don’t include the year in the URL when optimising your content
  • Include the year in the content title instead
  • Update your content every year, including title tags, meta description and content

Remember, keep the URL the same so you don’t need to earn backlinks to it again. 

And, don’t create unnecessary redirects.

Also, be consistent when publishing content because:

  • It helps you rank in the SERPs
  • Builds trust with your audience

Optimisation old content

Optimising old content is important.

For example, repurposing high-quality content that’s getting a little old can increase leads and organic search views.

Remember, don’t waste old content, especially if it’s an evergreen topic.

Repurpose content

Repurposing content helps reach new audiences.

For example, you can turn a podcast episode into a blog post.

Or, turning a blog post that performed well into a YouTube video for audiences that like watching instead of reading.

Doing so also gives your audience more opportunities to see it.

Brand voice consistency

Your brand needs consistency on every channel it engages on.

So make your messaging similar on all channels to align with your brand’s voice and values.

From your YouTube videos to reading your blog post, your audience should know it’s the same company.

Personalise content

Personalising your website’s content is important.

Because on your website, you have control over:

  • What visitors see based on pages they’ve visited
  • Dwell time
  • Account activity

You can also control personalisation when it comes to devices visitors are using and their buyer persona.

You can do this with:

  • A product reorder button for users who’ve previously ordered
  • A popup CTA to download a guide to help use the product

Content mapping can help you know the types of content for each buyer persona at different stages of their buyer’s journey.

Data

Data in content marketing can be used to back up certain points you make.

You can use data on your website and social media platforms.

Just make sure to link the data to your product or to confirm a point you’re making.

Because statistics and data prove the value of products or solidify arguments.

Remember:

  • Cite the research when using statistics
  • Make sure it’s no older than two years
  • Use factual data
  • Make sure data is accurate
  • Stats and data should be from reputable sources

Original research

Publishing original research helps your brand look:

  • Authoritative
  • Knowledgeable
  • Trusted
  • Helps your content stand out from competitors

You can do this by:

  • Carrying out customer surveys
  • Having social media followers take questionnaires

Your survey can be on:

  • Products
  • Services
  • Industry-related topics

Then cite your original research in a blog post about the survey topic.

Different formats

Include different types of formats in your content marketing strategy like videos.

This will help drive more traffic as search engines like Google have started showing video and image in SERPs.

For example, you can include infographics in blog posts, as they are pinnable and easy to scan.

But when it comes to creating a YouTube video, make sure you know how to create a video marketing strategy. 

Other format examples include:

  • Interactive photos
  • Editable code modules
  • Interactive charts and graphs

User experience

User experience helps:

  • Retain readers
  • Reduces bounce rate
  • Increases chances of converting leads

Optimising for user experience helps rank higher in the SERPs because of positive ranking signals.

So, make sure your website:

  • Loads fast
  • Is mobile friendly
  • Is easy to navigate

And your content is:

  • Easy to read on all devices
  • Has clear, consistent headings
  • A sans-serif typeface

Also optimise your website for accessibility by:

  • Having alt text for all images
  • Including captions in videos
  • Using high-contrast setting on your website

Lastly, make sure your content is easy to read out loud by software.

Remarket content

Remarketing content means trying to turn buyers out of users who engaged with your content but didn’t convert.

But people who have previously shown an interest in your content are more likely to convert at the right time.

Conclusion

Content marketing is about the audience.

This means you have to:

  • Know your audience
  • Cater to their needs
  • Solve their problems

Do this and you will have loyal followers marketing your brand for you.

Now it’s over to you.

Tell me the best content marketing advice you have ever received.

Let me know in the comment section below.