Content creation continues to emerge as a very important part of an online marketing strategy.

You can’t just build an appealing website but throw in some mediocre content and make it rank well. These days, people know how and where to get what they want; and Google is responding to that. High quality content that caters to people’s problems is the key to drive traffic to your website and make your audience share it to others, therefore multiplying your reach.

Content marketing can be a much more affordable and effective way to help your SEO efforts these days. Writing high quality content (assumed) produces links faster and naturally gets shared on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, and the like.

Another big advantage is Content marketing doesn’t get affected by algorithm updates, making it count as a big investment for the long term. Now that you know just how important high quality content is for both Google and your audience, you need to guarantee results. There are many tactics utilized now by different businesses worldwide, but these 10 unusual, non-conventional ways of using content marketing to promote your business may just do the trick for you.

1. Research, Research, Research

Staying in research mode at all times will always be better than being stagnant and just sticking to the same formula over and over again. You need to be updated about content marketing for you to never run out of great and effective content ideas. Research will keep your mind fresh, making idea pop into your head and increase the quality of your content. As soon as you get ideas based on the current trends in content marketing, jot them down and develop them until you have a good outline to work on.

In connection to doing your research on a regular basis, you should think out of the box when it comes to choosing the topic and title of your articles. Know the latest things happening in your industry and write about them with a unique and thought-provoking angle in mind. You should learn how to stimulate your readers’ minds and make everything more interesting than usual. Many businesses are writing content, so you should know how to stand out.

3. Write with Personality

At the end of the day, your audience are people and they would want to read something that sounds like a relatable human being actually wrote it. Whether you’re writing a press release or a blog entry, it’s important to incorporate who you are and what is unique about your brand. Developing your writing style for your business and finding your own voice (if you are a content writer) is an ongoing process. Let the content you produce innovate by developing your own voice and knowing what works well with your target audience.

4. Create Infographics

Infographics is a one-two punch when it comes to content marketing. Not only do you create content that matters, you produce them through images that make them more interesting and shareable. Looking at a full page of text can sometimes feel basic and boring, so incorporating infographics to your content marketing will make your strategy more effective than usual.

5. Different File Types

Converting your content into a PDF file, slideshow, or eBook is an unusual but effective strategy. This is especially effective for content materials that aim to inform. These file types are print-ready and can be projected so your readers can use them as a reference material or as a lecture. Make sure you leave links leading to your website so your readers can always go back to your site for future references.

6. Giveaways

Some businesses are stuck with using content creation to inform and persuade, but it shouldn’t end there. Just like any marketing strategy, having some kind of promo or giveaway will definitely spark interest to your content. Giveaways are unusual blog traffic method that can generate massive blog traffic. Get your visitors to participate by sharing your posts to various sites and subscribe to your feed. This way, you can retain them and even earn some loyal followers in the long run.

7. Blog Commenting

The good thing about blog commenting is you gain blog traffic and also earn a backlink. Same with forum commenting—simply use your site URL as your forum signature and when you make comments, it will be displayed alongside your posts. Join active forums and blogs, start commenting today (and regularly), and see the amount of traffic you can drive to your blog.

8. Promote Your Content Daily

Content creation is a marketing strategy, so you must know how to promote your content. Direct promotion involves sharing your content through email and social media, while indirect promotion involves building connections with key players and credible sources related to your business. You need to have techniques for both of them to work effectively, and this requires daily practice. Make it a habit to perform all these promotional tasks. This is the only way your content will get noticed, and ultimately, help your business grow.

9. Get Affiliated

Affiliates are important because the more partners you have, the more exposure your business gets. This promotes business stability and identity in the long run. Learn to choose affiliates wisely. They should be related to your business or the key interests of your target audience. Learn how to deal with them in a friendly manner so that your relationship will grow overtime.

10. Create Shareable Content

We live in an online world dominated by social media. People now have the means to share to their followers what they’re interested in. If you can create content that is shareable, contains important keywords, and is interesting, it will rank high in search results, make people talk, and introduce your business to a wider audience. One of the greatest ways to drive traffic to your website is to create valuable and engaging content that is highly shareable and relevant to a large group of people. Make sure everything you write is so exciting that people will want to share it to their own social networking accounts.

The opportunities of content marketing and promotion are already vast, but they continue to expand by the minute. Growing your business is the bottom line objective with content marketing.

Use these 10 unusual strategies and always remember to step it up a notch to promote your business the best way possible. Do all this with one primary goal in mind: how can I provide useful, helpful value to my community and market?

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Resources:

https://www.quicksprout.com/the-advanced-guide-to-content-marketing-chapter-5/

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2013/07/03/10-tips-for-driving-traffic-to-your-website-part-1

https://www.netmediablog.com/increase-blog-traffic-in-2013

photo credit: AltimeterGroup | cc