Make Sure Your Content Succeeds
Search engine optimisation experts and internet marketing professioanls spend a lot of time producing content. Unfortunately, the quantity of time spent producing the content is not replicated in the marketing stage and therefore it is often the case that fantastic content rarely fulfils its potential as a link building tool. There are some basic tips that can be applied to elevate content from simply being well-written to being a highly effective search marketing tool, and I would like to explore that in today's blog.
How to market content
1. Use your social media outreach
The best content will connect with people, it will get them to think about the subject matter of the content, whether it is an editorial, infographic or video and encourage readers to form their own opinion. Whenever we create content, that is always the end-goal – to get people to think, and hopefully to like it. The most difficult part for smaller businesses is getting content to be picked up by the community and read by people, but this is why social networks have the potential to be so effective.
Even small businesses with a relatively limited social media outreach might be followed by other highly influential people with extensive outreach. The key is getting people to share it, so just make sure you post great content at an optimal time and make relevant people aware of it.
2. Have a marketing strategy in place
Don't simply create one single link on your social media networks and expect it to go viral within 30 minutes. Have a plan in place before you release the content to extend its visibility beyond that of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Research the most active industry forums and decide how you are going to discuss it and generate buzz around it – what is the hook of the piece? Will it create controversy? Does it promote your products or services? Try to answer these questions and build a marketing strategy for your best content because this will help it achieve its full potential.
3. Time your release
In the 'Science of blogging', Dan Zarrella conducted a series of experiments aimed at discovering how the most successful blogs function. One of these experiments was testing when the optimal time to create a link on a social network was – when is the best time get retweets on Twitter, or the best time to get likes on Facebook etc. The results were surprisingly significant, and the vast dataset that the results were taken from makes them reliable, but obviously there might be some variations depending on the niche of the industry.
The results showed that the best time to post a link on Twitter is around 4pm on a Friday, whereas Facebook activity appeared to be much more prevalent during weekends, and generally during the mornings. Timing to launch your content at peak times is another great tactic to optimise your content for success.
4. Be Patient
Great content doesn't always explode within minutes of its launch – of course there are exceptions, but generally it could take days, weeks or even months before a piece of content really achieves its potential. It can be frustrating because obviously a lot of time and effort is taken into producing high-quality content, but the best thing to do is have faith, and let it share and spread organically. Don't repeatedly spam your social network profiles with repeated links to the same content if it doesn't start attracting traffic instantly because you risk alienating your client base or damaging brand awareness.
Creating superb, original and creative content is one of the best things a company can do, no matter the size of the business. It is the best way to communicate directly with your clients and keep them informed about brand products, services and offers as well as achieving higher rankings in the SERPs. Hopefully these short tips can help you develop the reach of your content, but if you have any further comments then please feel free to comment on this blog.
