Content Marketing Improvement Tips

The most important aspect of a good blog is its contents. What attracts people to a site is the content. So the contents should be able to meet the expectations of the readers.

The aim of content marketing is to drive sales lead. But in a situation where the reader was not able to even finish the first paragraph of the content, it becomes difficult to sale.
Here are the tips that will help you to improve immensely on your content creation and marketing.


1. Create the best content you can

Easy said but hard to do. Making your content memorable and sticky is a craft that has many parts. A good place to start to help you do that is with the 6 key concepts.

Here are the 6 principles to guide your content creation.
*Simplicity
*Unexpectedness
*Concreteness
*Credibility
*Emotions
*Stories

If you can weave some of these principles into your content creation then you are well on your way to awesome content.


2. Write awesome headlines

In the past people had to buy a book, purchase a magazine or a newspaper to obtain information. That purchase was a financial commitment no matter how small. You bought it and you were committed in some small way to keep reading..
On the social web that offers so much content for free if that headline doesn’t grab you or the first line doesn’t touch your heart or your mind it is discarded and you are on to the next snippet.

Nanoseconds and fleeting web surfers are a challenge for content creators. You have only moments to capture attention and get that click on your link whether it appears in a tweet, a search engine result page or a Facebook post.
Learn the art of writing headlines.


3. Create focused content

Successful businesses know their customers. They understand their problems, their wants and pain points. Content needs to be focused around that ecosystem of topics that provides answers, meets their deep desires and solves the customers pain.
Content needs to be kept on a tight leash.
 Always be putting yourself in their shoes and asking the questions “Is this something my customer needs to know?” or “Would they find this information fascinating?“.
If you know your topic and are passionate about your industry then you know what those answers and topics are.


4. Give content coherent structure

We are a time poor society that is bombarded with messages, ideas and information that is often overwhelming. The avalanche of data keeps coming. The challenge is often not what to read but what “not to read”.
Walls of text without structure are a turn off .
The key elements to well structured written content are:
*Short sentences
*Short paragraphs
*Subtitles
*Bullet points
*Lists

Don’t serve up an article that screams at the reader “I dare you to find the key points within this vast wall of text”


5. Make it easy to share

Content needs to flow. It needs to be liquid and designed and built for the social web.
Social sharing buttons that are prominent and easy to find are a war you must win with your web designer. I often see greyed out sharing buttons that only an eagle could spot.

Even prominent publications such as the online New York Times get this wrong.

Sometimes function needs to overwhelm design sensibilities.


6. Optimize for search engines

Facebook and Twitter are maybe sexy and in fashion but Google isn’t to be forgotten. Before hitting that publish button on your blog make sure you have made it easy for search engines to index and crawl your key words, phrases and content.

There is no excuse to not do this with free plugins available for WordPress and Blogspot that make this easy and efficient.


7. Give it a brand voice

Each brand whether personal or corporate has a certain voice. It may be edgy, adventurous or even conservative. This personality or “voice” should be woven into your content DNA.


8. Make content multimedia

The power of words should not be underestimated but the “Visual” web demands more. Create and publish your content into a range of multi-media.
Same message but in a variety of formats such as Infographics (learn more about Infographics creation), videos, etc.

There is also another principle at play here around the retention of information and learning. The more senses involved, the higher the retention rates. Here is one of the multimedia (infographics) that shows the importance of multimedia.

Create and publish videos, podcasts, images and infographics and that’s just for starters. Don’t forget whitepapers, ebooks and transcripts. Some like to read and others love to watch.


9. Distribute onto multiple social networks

Don’t assume that your audience is only on Facebook. Everyone has their social network preferences. Some like Twitter, others love Pinterest and YouTube has 1 billion unique visitors every month.
Same content different networks.
So once you have hit the publish button then it’s time to distribute your content far and wide. Ubiquity is the goal. This builds trust, grows brand awareness and credibility.


10. Convert readers to buyers

Content without a goal is a waste of time and money for business and brands. The goals of content marketing can include obtaining subscribers for your email list, increasing Facebook likes and finally selling a product or service.
Make sure your content converts readers to buyers. Content marketing needs a sales or “landing page” that converts.
According to Unbounce a sales landing page based on “Conversion Centered Design” should have seven key elements which are in the two categories of design and psychology

**Design
-Encapsulation
-Contrast & color
-Directional cues
-White space

**Psychology
-Urgency and scarcity
-Proof
-Credibility

Please drop your comment and suggestions.

Credit: Jeff B.