NOTE: “Experience” is a newer factor, from late 2022, and has to do with the content creator’s first-hand experience on the topic. (See search quality raters PDF for detailed background and more info)
Here’s a best practice bullet list of 20 things to consider for E-E-A-T quality content development.
And, remember – you may include many of these and always keep in mind that they are interconnected and matter as an aggregate.
Deep Research: Always start with thorough research. Use reputable sources and cite them when necessary.
Author Credentials: Highlight the credentials of the content creator, especially if you are an expert in the field.
Clear Writing: Ensure the content is well-written, free of jargon (unless industry-specific), and easy to understand.
Up-to-Date Information: Regularly update content to ensure it reflects the most recent and accurate information.
Avoid Misinformation: Double-check facts and avoid sharing unverified information.
User Testimonials: If applicable, include real testimonials or case studies to back up claims.
Transparent Sources: Clearly cite and link to all sources of information.
Engage with Audience: Respond to comments and feedback to show that you value your audience’s input.
Consistent Publishing: Maintain a regular publishing schedule to establish authority in your niche.
Detailed Content: Go in-depth on topics, providing comprehensive information rather than surface-level content.
Visual Aids: Use charts, infographics, and images to support and enhance the content.
External and Internal Links: Link to reputable external sources and interlink to other relevant content on your site.
Feedback Loop: Encourage feedback and be open to making corrections if errors are pointed out.
Collaborate with Experts: Occasionally invite industry experts to contribute or review your content. If you have a podcast for example, translate and improve the audio into text on your webpage(s).
Avoid Conflicts of Interest: Clearly disclose any affiliations, sponsorships, or potential conflicts of interest.
Mobile Optimization: Ensure your content is easily readable and accessible on mobile devices.
User Experience: Prioritize the user experience, ensuring fast load times, easy navigation, and a clean layout.
Social Proof: Showcase endorsements, certifications, or affiliations that can boost your content’s trustworthiness.
Continuous Learning: Stay updated with industry trends, attend workshops, and continuously improve your content creation skills.
Remember, E-E-A-T is not just about ticking boxes; it’s about genuinely providing value to your readers and establishing yourself as a trusted source of information in your field.
How can you make sure that your online campaigns are achieving their highest potential when there are so many factors responsible for their success or failure?
Are you split testing your content marketing, email marketing and social media marketing campaigns?
And with U.S. digital ad spending reaching $72.09 billion in 2016 according to e-marketers, why waste money on campaigns that are under performing?
Split Testing Provides Results You Are Likely Missing Now
Split testing, or A/B testing, is a method of experimentation that places two variables against each other to measure success rates.
Split testing landing page shows big improvement in conversions (recent leadpages testing results for a marketing offer after just 3 weeks)
The basic premise of split testing involves keeping one variable constant, while changing the second variable to see if it makes the campaign perform better. As a result, marketers are left with the best way to use each variable in a campaign.
With a variety of different online marketing campaigns, from email to social media, there are a number of approaches to split testing and the variables you can test to optimize performance.
Check out these suggestions for just a few of the main online campaigns.
Split Testing Content Marketing Campaigns
As split testing is working with variables, remember that only one variable should be changed at a time. Otherwise you won’t be able to tell the cause of performance changes.
As with other online marketing campaigns, content marketing involves a number of steps to consider:
style and subject of article
type of writer
length of article
image use or not
what publisher will post the article
position on the webpage
will be a call to action and what specifically
Each of these can be considered a variable during split testing, and will need to be tested individually to see what works best for you.
For example, as a beauty brand you might test different publishers by placing the same article on a fashion website and an online travel magazine.
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From there, you can test the variable by keeping track of the number of comments, page views, how many times it’s been shared and whether the viewer scrolled to the bottom of the page to find out which publisher results in more audience engagement.
Split Testing Email Marketing Campaigns
As emails are sent directly to each individual customer, it is important to approach it in a manner that is both relatable and applicable to your target market.
Otherwise, audiences can often feel annoyed or like their privacy has been invaded. A great approach to split testing is to see what has worked in the past.
If you’ve noticed anything that definitely did not work, make sure to look into that particular variable.
Variables may include:
subject headings
in-text banners
the type of call to action
…all of these can be tracked and can have an impact on open and click-through rates.
It may be a good idea to use tools to manage the success of each variable.
InboxGuru used in tandem with Infor CRM is a great tool for implementing, managing and enhancing email campaigns.
This method, alongside split testing, can be an efficient way to maximize performance.
Split Testing Social Media Marketing Campaigns
A great social media post often means targeting a specific audience with the right image and the right copy, posted at the perfect time.
Here are important considerations for social media post testing for performance:
Images and videos use
Style and tone of copy
Subject of the post
Time of day when posted
Frequency of distribution
Networks
These are just some of the variables that should be considered in your split testing process. In order to really get the best outcome from split testing, it is important to keep an open mind and maintain an all-encompassing approach so that you get the best combination of features in your campaign.
For example, try looking at your outdoor campaigns for social campaign inspiration.
Maybe a billboard you did performed well and the same image could be used on a social post?
Try being creative and don’t be afraid to test out different things.
Making a few adjustments to your online campaigns can ensure that your time, effort and money pay off.
Try split testing your online marketing campaigns in order to figure out what works best for your brand, and to ensure it’s performing the best that it can.
Content marketing has quickly become a buzzword in the world of Internet.
The problem here is; most people are getting it wrong.
First of all, lets make it clear with the definition to the content marketing. Why not ask somebody who knows it all?
Wikipedia says:
Content marketing is any marketing that involves the creation and sharing of media and publishing content in order to acquire and retain customers. The type of content businesses share is closely related to what they sell. However, the content’s main focus is on the needs of the prospect. This information is consistently delivered and can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video, white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs etc.
In fact it means that content marketing should be useful, conquer the audience, and attract potential customers, rather than subtly promote a product or a service.
Everyone’s doing content marketing today. But there’s a problem. It appears that “content marketing” is more a buzzword rather than a long-term strategy for the company.
So before you decide whether this promotional channel works for your business, ask yourself the following question:
“Is it really content marketing you are doing here?”
Just because everyone is doing content marketing does not mean that they are winning at content marketing, or even if they are doing the right thing.
So why isn’t the strategy and content marketing working for you?
Here are a few of the common signs you may be doing it wrong. See if you can identify with any of these.
#1: You Have No Idea What Content Marketing Is About
The first sign that you have gone astray is advertising your products or services in a content marketing strategy directly.
Do not get me wrong, there is some product advertising here.
But if it takes more than 30% of your publications, this is not content marketing.
When you release a selling promo video of your product, or publish an article which points to why the prospect should buy the product you offer, you shouldn’t expect your readers go nuts and give your publications numerous likes, comments and re-shares.
The most effective content marketing is built primarily on the needs of your audience, and not on the need of increasing your sales (at first).
First, build a trust-based customer relationship, and then only you can move on to the sales stage.
#2: Your Content Isn’t Optimized
If you want your target consumer to spend his time and/or money on your business, you have to make your content simple to find.
SEO goes beyond blog posts as it’s equally important to optimize your content marketing efforts, whether it’s an article, press release, status update and so on.
Using industry or niche specific keywords in the content assists the bots in identifying topics your website covers and index the pages and relevancy, to better to rank in search results.
These keywords are the words that customers are most likely to enter into a search engine to find the products or services you offer.
The battle online for your audience’s time is vicious, and if you don’t implement a content marketing strategy to fight off your competitors and boost organic traffic to your site, then you’re doing this online marketing thing wrong.
Adding keywords is not going to take longer than 5 minutes, but it will get you customers. (Note: keywords research for an in-depth content strategy can take several days with follow-up meetings and final selections, as they are built into a content calendar and an overall promotional strategy).
Hence, identify and shortlist the keywords you want your business to rank for — opting for long tail keywords (3+ words) is wise too. Keep all your content creation and syndication efforts around these keywords to increase the exposure and relevance of your website in the industry as well as the market.
Instead of creating the kind of content that works for themselves and their niche, some companies are turning their websites into content farms.
They are over-optimizing their keywords, they are making titles that make no sense, and worst of all; they have forgotten about the user.
That is pretty much the reason why all you see around you is ordinary content that adds value to no one.
While excessively entertaining content may attract the wrong target audience, boring your readers to sleep will also do harm to your brand.
Both facts and statistics are important and interesting to readers.
But at the same time, if your content is nothing else, it is going to be too difficult to perceive.
It is not an easy deal to add humor and personalize content in the initial stage of the funnel, when the visitor first comes to your site and knows nothing about you.
But neither it is the reason to be discouraged at this stage.
We all love positive human attitudes and a good sense of humor. Use common words. Add some humor.
Make your content look more like a personal story rather than a review article containing only the facts.
Content marketing appeared because “the world of technology” gave its grounds to the world of “Handshake Networking”, where you need to be on friendly terms with customers, and customer service is the number one factor to get people to buy your stuff.
By engaging in conversations with your prospects and customers, you can better adapt your marketing and business services to meet their needs.
Basically, you’re going to invest in building relationships online. Your network is perhaps your most valuable professional asset.
#4: You’re Writing For Yourself
Quite frankly, people do not want to know about you or the product – they want to learn about something unknown and exciting, and find information, tools and insider access that solves a particular problem.
It is important to combine all of these elements into something of value, but make sure you are listening to the needs of your readers, rather than polishing your own ego or overselling.
“If you want your company get results from content marketing, the first thing you need to do is to find out what customers want, what they are interested in, and how you can give that to them. In other words, your content should be a separate product rather than being a part of your marketing or advertising.” – Robert Rose, CSO Institute Content Marketing
Marketing experts usually start with identifying the needs of their audience, and then they switch to meeting these needs and delivering the valuable content.
If you think that you do not have any spare time to visit theme-specific forums, comment on blog posts, read articles dedicated to your subject matter, or communicate with customers through social networks, then you are going to fail building the appropriate customer relationship.
Be sure when you sit down to write content (or your hired writer who does it for you) that you start by putting yourself in your customer’s shoes.
The blog posts, landing pages, and web content is NOT for you.
It’s for your target market.
Spend a lot of time thinking about what they need and what they want to know.
#5: You Are Being a Lone Hero
Content marketing is not something you should be doing it all by yourself.
Creating and promoting content, especially for a new site, is essentially a full-time job.
Engage your staff in content creation. Show them that their participation in a content marketing strategy would bring them career advancement and dividends.
Use third-party content and case studies. There is nothing wrong in placing the content created by other companies in your blog. What is more important, is that you should add your thoughts, statistics or facts to it, and don’t forget to indicate the source.
Engage your subscribers on the social media in content creation. This is an excellent way to attain loyalty, identify the needs and learn how to listen to your customers.
Outsource big projects. Order several major studies, articles or video content from professional companies. You will not only get a high-quality content from the market experts, but will also receive a fair outside perspective onto your niche and business. If you’re in a tough niche, there’s no magic key that will produce instant success in your content marketing.You’ve simply got to strategize regarding the most effective form of content, and keep at it.
#6: You Lack Focus On Your Business
Ask yourself these 2 pivotal questions:
What are you trying to make your customer do after having read your articles or e-books?
Does your content lead your customer do this?
If you create content only because it’s easy, you aren’t likely to enjoy the outcome.
The effective content marketing should consist of these two things:
Storytelling
Focus on making this storytelling coincide with your business goals
None can survive without the other, otherwise you will not get the desired outcome.
There’s one more thing to remember.
“The quickest way to kill your content marketing is to do nothing after you create your content.”
If no one can see your content piece, what was the point of writing it in the first place?
The important thing to remember about content marketing is that half the work is creation, the other half is promotion.
At the end of the day, it’s still marketing, but your task is to make people forget that it actually is one.
People don’t want to be convinced to buy something – they want to think that they made the decision themselves, and when you’re pushing content in their faces which sounds too salesy, they’ll see right through it and leave.
What happens once a potential customer left you his contacts for to obtain valuable content?
Does he receive an email or the call from the manager? Or his contact info is merely dusting in your client database?
You may not be targeting your visitors at all points of the sales funnel. If you don’t have any clear plan for carrying your customers throughout the sales funnel, then your content marketing is worthless.
“An integral part of the problem could be that your sales crew know nothing about your content-marketing strategy.”
They do their best to close the deal, while not being aware of what it all is about. If your crew don’t know your business goals and plans, the sales are going to be affected correspondingly.
To address this problem, it is necessary to put together all of your sales department, and lead them throughout the funnel, from visiting the the website and obtaining the client’s contacts prior to the first sale.
This will help maximum efficiency to transform website visitors into buying customers.
SUMMARY
Here’s the TL;DR for you…
Your Content Marketing Sucks because:
#1 – You Have No Idea What Content Marketing Is About
#2 – Your Content Isn’t Optimized
#3 – Your Content Is Boring as Hell
#4 – You’re Writing For Yourself
#5 – You Are Being a Lone Hero
#6 – You Lack Focus On Your Business (Building)
#7 – You Are Stuck In a Sales Funnel
The content popularity promptly grows in an online business, therefore content marketing is increasing in value.
Becoming successful in this field becomes more and more complex, and your rivals will always beat your heels.
But better late than never.
So if you still have not have launched a marketing content for your business, now is just the right time to do it.
Good luck!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR OF THIS POST:
Kristina Smile – is a CMO at TriggMine, an email marketing automation service.
She is great at email marketing tips & increasing conversions. During the past 2 years she successfully launched more than 50 email campaigns for e-commerce websites.
She’s also the voice of TriggMine. Kristina has performed as a speaker at 100+ events in Europe & Asia. She believes that email marketing rules and data is king.
The ability to evolve and the agility to pivot in response to trends are crucibles upon which marketers’ work is often judged by consumers and organizations alike. One area in which this is especially apparent is content marketing. As surely as digital content marketing has become elemental, so too has the Web’s indiscriminate urge to disrupt it. – dmnews.com
How many times have you taken some sort of assessment or quiz online for fun?
Or, maybe you took an assessment or tried a useful calculator from a known, online brand?
The bottom line is that unless you have been living underneath a rock, you have heard or seen a number of different quizzes on a wide variety of subjects online.
The interactive content sweetspot focus areas (From convinceandconvert.com)
These quizzes are actually everywhere, so it is normal that you will see them going across your news-feed and taking over a big part of your social media experience.
They are becoming more and more popular in use for B2B marketing professionals as well.
“People aren’t satisfied with one-way communication anymore; they want to participate in a conversation. This is where interactive content comes into play. Instead of creating long, static documents, consider creating ‘choose-your-own-adventure’ style assets” – Peter Arvai, CEO of presentation software company Prezi
“The shift from the traditional “click->landingpage->emailcapture->provideanswers” is turned on it’s head, of sorts. It’s about solving problems first, and providing (immediate) answers and leveraging content marketing second.”
However, these quizzes and interactive content engines are actually used for a whole lot more than simply taking up some time or as a fun way to brag to your friends about the great results that you got on a quiz.
The new interactive content marketing map (ioninteractive)
These online quizzes are actually a powerful framework and toolset that you can use for lead generation and viral engagement for your website.
Examples of interactive content tools you can add to your websites, blogs and social media channels:
All you have to do is strategically place an email capture just in front of the results of the quiz.
Most of the quiz takers are going to be itching to find out what their results are, so the best quizzes will actually fall in line with about a 50% opt-in rate. Plus, the lead quality is often higher.
When you want to be able to use a quiz on your website to help you with some great lead generation you will find that there are some major ways that you can really maximize your conversion rates.
A recent study from B2B Content Marketing Trends showed that ‘Producing Engaging Content’ was the biggest challenge, right before ‘Measuring Content Effectiveness’.
From ContentMarketingInstitute.com (CMI)
A new breed of marketing talent and content know-how will be needed, because interactive content also requires design and development expertise.
How to start building interactive content?
To begin a interactive content strategy, ask what data you want, and what service your buyers want.
Compare and contrast with what your sales teams want. Ask them to cooperate on building a quiz for the highest MQL‘s (marketing qualified leads) possible. Always keep your intended audience in mind first. How can this quiz really help them make decisions?
You’ll begin to see a positive shift in your sales accepted leads (SAL), all while your are educating and helping your customers and prospects. That’s a winning formula.
A popular trend today is that the highest converting quizzes are doing a great job of building up a decent rapport with their quiz takers well before they present the offer to opt-in.
As a person looking around online today, we all enjoy the ability to have a great conversation.
Talking with another person is a process that releases Oxytocin, which is a drug in the human body that makes us feel good.
These quizzes that are able to succeed on a conversational level are also those that generate the most leads.
In order to do so, you need to be able to create a connection, which can be done by using your personality.
Here’s an example of what Orbitz has done with a fun travel quiz:
Orbitz Travel Quiz Example
Any quiz that comes off as having personality will have the feel of being more human, which will then help the quiz taker to feel more comfortable so that they are willing to fill in their email address.
Wit and charm can go a long way to make someone feel as though they are talking to a real person when filling out a quiz that is filled with snark and personality.
Additionally, you can take the initiative to create your quiz as though you are talking to an actual person.
This can be done simply by thinking about a person that would enjoy your content or the quiz and write it as though you are speaking directly to them.
Stay Relevant
If you are putting together a quiz for your website that is going to be all about content marketing, you need to have a call to action that has to be about CONTENT MARKETING.
By the same token, if you are putting together a quiz on sharpening your writing skills, the call to action has to be about writing skills.
Basically speaking, the content has to be able to provide an experience that is continuous in order to captivate a quiz taker and there should be no call to action that is a surprise.
The emails are entering into their inbox and they will end up taking up space and the quiz taker’s valuable time.
Because you are asking for something of value, you need to be able to give them something that is valuable in return.
With each quiz that you are using for lead generation, the value will be in the results. This will mean that the more involved the quiz is, the more valuable your results will be.
You need to remember that having the approval to email someone is something that you should not take lightly.
We recommend displaying the results right after the quiz, and not holding the quiz taker ‘hostage’. Provide the results and recommendations, but allow them to download the results and get more relevant information by entering their name & email. (Note: test this for your own market!)
Solve A Problem
If a customer is going to be asking you a question, the chances are that there were other customers that have had the same question whether they realize it or not.
Some of these customers may simply be too shy to bring up the question or they just feel as though they would not enjoy the answer to the particular question.
Answering the questions that any of your current or potential customers may have will be the perfect way to generate content that you know they will appreciate.
Positive Is Always Better Than Negative
The bottom line is that there are two ways that you can offer your help:
One way is telling quiz takers that they are in trouble and they need your services so that they can get out of trouble.
The other way is to tell people that they are great, they just need your services to make them even better than they are currently.
Some of the quizzes that are the highest converting are those that will give people fun and really helpful answers to the questions that they have or those that are going to test them on their knowledge or expertise.
Social sharing / viral opportunity
Everyone likes to hear that they scored better than a friend or a family member on a quiz, so they will be more than likely to take the quiz themselves so that they can have bragging rights.
Keep your quizzes to the point, make sure that they load easily and always be strategic about the content that you have as well as the placement of your opt-in form.
Conclusion
When all is said and done, you will see that a well planned out quiz and interactive content can be a perfect viral engagement tool for your website.
Make sure to add social widgets (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn share buttons) and create sharing texts that entice the audience to take it also.
The power of the interactive content marketing model actually lies in the personalization. So, make sure that you are smart about the lead boxes that you use and have fun with your quiz options.
Brands can take their content marketing to new levels with interactive content and quizzes while providing great value, and making their sales teams excited about the new daily leads they get.
You and others in the team are all pumped up thinking about the loads of traffic you are about to experience thanks to the well thought out content marketing strategy.
You are even more excited to see your blog prosper and move to new heights. (You have a blog, don’t you?)
“No matter what, the very first piece social media real estate I’d start with is a blog.” – Chris Brogan
But, is it all that simple?
If it was so simple, everyone will be doing it.
So, what’s the difference between successful marketers and others even though both implemented their versions of content marketing.
Here is the best kept content marketing secret – The Content Marketing Calendar.
A content marketing calendar is all you need to turn your sluggish attempt at content marketing into the bazooka that will crush your website under loads of traffic.
What Is a Content Marketing Calendar?
In simple words, it can be described as a timeline of the content you are going to publish over the next few days, weeks and months.
It’s similar to the programming guide for TV, radio stations, newspapers and magazines.
In the content marketing space, this calendar refers to visual representation of the content you’re going to post and promote in the future.
Why You Need a Content Marketing Calendar?
A calendar does seem like a simple tool and everyone is not sure of the impact of such a simple tool.
Consistency Is the Key
A lot of people like content marketing but only a few succeed. People who fail do not realize that consistency is the key to success in content marketing.
If you are not going to post useful content on a consistent basis, you will have a hard time in creating your brand and driving traffic to your web property.
A well-planned calendar helps you in being consistent.
Since calendar is a tangible item, it also ensures that everybody sticks to the calendar. In other words, it also acts as an accountability tool.
So, if you are one of those who are still not convinced on the usefulness of having a calendar, here are 7 reasons you need a content marketing calendar. You’ll save tons of time, and get more productive and organized at the same time.
#1 – It’s a Strategic Tool
Content marketing is a marketing strategy and you need tools to execute and measure the success of your strategies. A calendar acts as a strategic tool that gives you a panoramic view of the overall content marketing efforts.
It gives you a bird’s eye view of the whole content. It also allows you to easily get an overview of the overall strategy. It also helps in keeping the content consistent.
#2 – It’s an Organization Tool
A successful content marketing strategy requires one to do a lot of things.
It requires you to create high-quality content, distribute the content to other high traffic websites, post about content on social media profiles and a lot of other things.
In simple terms, it’s a lot of work and it’s complicated which means that you need something to keep track of all the content that has been published and that is going to be published in the future.
This problem grows multi-fold when you have multiple members in the team.
A calendar helps you and everyone else in the team to remain organized while planning activities related to creation, posting and promotion of content.
#3 – It Makes Content Marketing Easy
Content marketing does sound easy but it’s not easy to implement.
It involves producing high quality content on a consistent basis and a lot of other things to promote that content.
Without a calendar, you will quickly feel lost as you’ll find it difficult to keep track of various content ideas, posting and promotion.
A calendar also allows you and others in the team to visualize the results of content marketing efforts and motivates everyone to keep doing what they have been doing.
#4 – It Makes Sure That You Do Not Miss Anything Important
As mentioned above, you need to have a strategy to succeed in content marketing.
A calendar helps you in keeping track of various important holidays, industry events, product launches and other such things to ensure that you can take advantage of such opportunities by planning in advance.
A calendar will allow you to plan creation and promotion activities to coincide with the launch of a new product or other such events to derive maximum benefit from your efforts.
#5 – It Helps in Saving Time
Many people whose job is to write quality content on a consistent basis struggle with ideas.
A calendar will help you in saving a lot of time as everything is already planned and you don’t need to think about the topic you are going to write on.
In other words, you don’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel.
It also helps in maintaining quality of the content as when you are short of time and facing a deadline, you may slip and go ahead with content that you won’t normally post.
#6 – It Helps in Building Credibility
Content marketing works only if you work it.
According to a recent study, infrequently published content or low quality of content leads a significant number of consumers to believe that the business is not aware of customer habits.
In other words, infrequent publishing or publishing low quality content damages your reputation and your brand.
On the other hand, if you publish high-quality content on a consistent basis, it helps in building credibility.
Keep in mind that you will struggle to produce high-quality content consistently if you do not plan it in advance.
#7 – Total organization via the Content Marketing Calendar
A content marketing calendar can be in the form of a simple spreadsheet with a number of rows and columns outlining various things.
As far as the actual heading in the calendar are concerned, it may include various business events, holidays, selling cycles, deadlines, product launches, type of content, target audience, promotion, due date, status, title, publishing date, content category, notes, call to action and other such things.
“Content is the reason search began in the first place.”
–Lee Odden
CONCLUSION:
Overall, the goal is to keep track of all the metrics related to the overall content marketing strategy.
So, if you have been struggling with content marketing efforts and have tried a lot of different things without using a calendar, you should start using a calendar to plan your content.
Content creation is one of those realities a blogger and marketer has to engage with and appreciate when hoping to gain natural, organic traffic – and for the long term.
It is not going to happen overnight and this is a given. However, with a little bit of care and patience, the results will start rolling in.
Let’s take a glance at 15 specific ways experts state content creation will lead to increased traffic numbers. Why not make the most of these ways to get better results?
(IMPORTANT: Before you begin, always research, develop your initial strategy and plan for the best quality content you can provide. Content and topics that create emotion, content that engages, entertains and informs are keys to “share-ability”. The love you’ll get back from your readers…and eventually search engines, creates new and ongoing organic traffic streams for your business).
(Curata.com – Content Marketing Strategy Pyramid)
1 – The Virality Of Memes
Memes are one of the most powerful options a person can have when it comes to driving natural traffic.
It is easy to read and fun for those who are just looking to relax and get a generalized view of what is being put in front of them. Memes have done the trick for the past few years because they have the ability to go ‘viral’.
There are entire blogs that have put up one meme and that was all they needed to get millions of new people on board.
Now, this is, of course, the dream.
That does not always happen. However, the goal should be to mix things up and that is what content creation is all about.
It does not just have to be a wall of text that is tossed at prospective traffic. Memes will do a lot, especially when combined with social media to create something truly powerful.
2- Videos & Streaming Data
Who doesn’t like the idea of being able to sit down and take a glance at some of the videos that are being put up in their niche?
From Ericsson Mobility Video Report
There are times when you might even take a look at what a competitor has published and just love what they have done (ideas!). Videos are great because once again content creation does not, and should not have to be about text only.
It is all about moving forward and getting with the times, people!
This is where creating short videos will help a lot in conveying a message and getting people to come onto your site as desired. It is not as tough as one might assume and can go a long way.
Educational, informative and fun. Think about edutainment.
It is essential to understand with this way natural traffic is only going to come based on their first impression. If you optimize YouTube videos correctly, you’ll rank those also.
This means, the video better be spot on especially in the first few seconds. Don’t rush through this part of the process and make a good video first.
3 – Infographics Yield Quality
There are many prospective visitors who are going to want quality information being provided to them especially in niches where information is hard to locate.
When you are able to give this to them, they will race in and keep coming back repeatedly. Quality does matter and that is where infographics come into action.
They are able to list down a lot of information without going off on a tangent.
Content creation is all about taking information and presenting it in a unique and ‘cool’ manner.
Venngage.com – infographics create tool – free to start
Well, there is nothing more exciting and modern than a great infographic. Take your time with this as it is going to yield fascinating results as it has for numerous people online in the past.
There are specific blogger tools, which tend to get ignored when it comes to generating natural traffic and this is unfortunate.
Scoop.it – Curation, ideas and community
Make the most of these tools in order to get going down the right path.
If you are looking to focus on content creation, you are going to adore the power being provided by ‘Scoop.It’.
This is one of the most powerful content curation tools in the world and is going to help you out immediately. What does it help you with?
It is going to pinpoint all of the best topics, articles, and general content in your niche. It does not get better than this when you want to get a gist of what is taking place in your world.
You should also research topics, and contribute via the “Suggest” button. Editor will review your content, and approve based on merit and quality. It’s an authority domain, which is exactly what we want. (Even though the platform uses “nofollow” links, you’ll get traffic).
5 – Reviews And Building Trust
Natural traffic tends to come in bursts, but there is one thing that is going to help provide you with sustained results.
This is going to come in the form of product reviews and/or reviews in general. If you are able to give people a real in-depth look into something in their niche, they are going to lap it up.
Chaosmap Local Review Tool for SEO & Small Business
They will keep coming back especially if you have taken the time to give them meaningful information rather than just hoping to sell.
Don’t lie to them when it comes to this type of content. You want to make sure it is up to par and is going to provide them with real value.
When you do this, you will notice how natural traffic numbers go through the roof in a hurry.
6 – Opinion Posts
There are certain visitors who are going to want opinion posts in order to gauge what is happening in the niche.
Let’s suppose the niche is about skin care and makeup and they want to learn more about recent advances made with anti-aging products.
If you are able to give your opinion on the matter and what direction the industry is going in, you will start to see people respect you more and more.
This is when content creation starts to build expertise and power.
You want this sort of authority as natural traffic will race in on a regular basis. You will adore the numbers that you are doing with regards to the traffic when you put up opinion posts.
You want people to converse and debate.
This is when you gain even more.
7 – Using Storify To Gain Results
Another blogger tool that has been available on the market for a long time would have to come in the form of ‘Storify’.
Storify.com
This is a powerful tool on its own and is going to do a lot for those who want to get started down the right path with regards to content creation.
The purpose of this tool is to make sure everything that is being put on social media sites will be presented to you on a platter.
It does not get better than this for those who want to be ‘in the know’.
8 – Building Lists
Who doesn’t love the idea of being able to sift through lists and get a feel for what the market is telling them?
Why not just put together a couple of lists and present them to prospective visitors? They are going to love what is being written down and that is what you want the most.
Why “Top ___” lists?
They are easy to read and they are even easier to make as well. This is what you are going to enjoy about the process in the first place.
Content creation does not have to be impossible. It is easy and when you start to put in a few images/videos as well with these lists, you are going to get great results.
When you include authors and companies that helped build the list, make sure to use their “@” reference and share on Twitter. They tend to share it back out to their community if it’s good and helpful. More traffic for you.
9 – “How-To” Posts Attract Attention
Sticking along the lines of lists, you should also be taking a look at ‘how to’ posts because they are going to attract a lot of people as well in the niche.
If you are in a niche where you can explain things to people in steps, you are going to want to put a few of these together as soon as possible.
You will notice people are going to want to see what you have to say and how you are doing things.
This has done the trick in many niches especially building related ones.
10 – The Power Of Curata
Let’s move onto the next blogger tool that can be listed as a ‘way’ with regards to getting natural traffic.
How is this going to help you out?
Curata is one of the most advanced tools in the market and has done wonders for those who have taken the time to learn how to use it.
Curata.com – content marketing scale
The purpose of this tool is to find content based on specific filters you are putting in. The content you are going to get will be absolutely precise to your expectations and that is hard to beat.
You are just not going to be able to find this type of content even if you spent years doing it on your own.
The formula is able to sift through all of these details for you.
11 – Using Case Studies To Woo Traffic
Have you gone through a specific process in the past?
How did it work for you?
Why not give people a little case study with regards to your own experiences?
This will help them get a feel for what worked and what didn’t. This could be related to anything even something as simple as skin care.
You want to give them a real look into what you have done. Don’t just rush this and make sure you are as detailed as you can be.
Content creation is all about being unique and this is what you do with case studies. No one will be able to copy you in this regard.
Sometimes, if you are able to spread the case study out, you can get people involved in the process to help you out along the way.
This increases user integration and interaction.
12 – Using Interviews With Experts (and Podcasting)
If you know people in the industry who have a lot of knowledge on the topic, why not tap into it as soon as you can?
mybloggingjourney.com
These are details that are going to matter a lot and you should not ignore. You want to get their advice on certain hot topics. This is where content curation and creation come together.
You want to be able to produce interviews people are going to want and keep them coming in.
When you do this, you will be able to see a real rise in natural traffic. Always make sure you are being intricate with the questions being asked as you don’t want to be generic.
13 – TrapIt And Its Value
The final tool in this list that is going to be highlighted out would be ‘TrapIt’. This is another fantastic tool that is a must for those who want to gain natural traffic.
Trap.it – content creation
The purpose of this tool is to help with trap specific content that is going to be related to your niche.
You are able to save the content and keep it for later in order to store ideas. It is powerful because of how simple it is to use.
14 – Offering Specific Ebooks Related To Niche
Ebook creation is one of those options that is going to work, but it will take time to put together. You want to build a short ebook that is going to help people get a real look into your niche.
It could be something as straightforward as acne treatments for the skin care niche, or a social media guide for beginners. (PDF)
You just want to give people a reason to come onto the site and see the rest of the content that you have on it.
15 – Maximization Of Guest Posts Work
The final way that has worked over the years and is going to continue to work would be to get others involved in the niche.
Guest Blogging Works, Guest Blogging Is Not Dead.
If you want people to come, why not get guest posts put on your site? This will ensure relevant topics are always being put up and visitors will want to hop on and read what is being posted as well. (NOTE: We are accepting authors in the B2B niche at this time. Contact us above).
Those who are in search of results in terms of their traffic numbers have to implement these methods as soon as possible.
It is never easy to gain natural traffic and paid options can take a toll on the budget. It is essential to find a balance and that begins by understanding these ways and making the most of them.
These 15 ways have been highlighted repeatedly over the years because they work and are going to generate traffic regardless of the niche being looked at.
It is this value that is hard to beat and those who are able to maximize it are going to have a massive smile on their faces as the higher traffic numbers roll in.
Content marketing is one of the most powerful techniques for garnering attention and attracting ‘hot’ leads, while you establish brand prominence and authority in your marketplace.
All this while you’re creating a lot of good will at the same time.
Yet, this cannot be done manually as some might assume.
Optimizing the processes is essential to ensure positive results continue to come in for a long time.
Content marketing is not all inclusive, however.
IDC talks about the different marketing mix, and what’s included in content marketing, and what’s not. A strategy needs to be built.
Types of marketing assets and differences as compared to ‘content marketing’:
Before launching a comprehensive content marketing campaign, it is essential to take a step back and find a collection of resources (tools) to maximize the process.
WARNING:Make sure to develop a content marketing strategy before playing with tools. It can be dangerous and addictive, and create more “busy work” than is actually valuable.
Here are 13 must-have resources (tools) according to experts in the industry who have been this for a number of years.
1) Feedly
Feedly is one of the more comprehensive tools on the market right now and a favorite among Internet marketers.
What does this tool do for the average user? It looks to pull as much content as possible which relates with blog content being put up by an Internet marketer.
This is a RSS Feed reader / aggregation tool – but is easy to use, and works perfectly for curation ideas and topics. (Read the “108 experts share favorite RSS tool”)
It is powerful as the sources it is able to engage are almost endless.
It would take a lifetime to go through the viable content being put up by this tool. It is truly remarkable to say the least.
It is as simple as this. Those who are not going on Pinterest when it comes to resources are missing out.
This is one of the most well-regarded tools in the world and it is free.
How could social media ever be a tool? Surely, this is a mistake, right?
Wrong!
It is not a mistake.
Pinterest is a powerful solution because people from all over one’s niche are going to be available to follow.
This alone leads to powerful ideas and content curation. It provides a whole new angle to look at.
3) Learnist
Premium educational content. Sounds fantastic doesn’t it? This is what industry leaders are able to serve on a silver platter for those who maximize the use of Learnist.
The name says it all about what this tool is going to provide. It engages the leaders in one’s niche with ease.
It helps ‘learn’ from them by showcasing the content they are putting up.
This is what content curation is all about at the end of the day. Being able to engage and learn the content inside and out before presenting it to the world.
It’s easy to set up ‘boards’ – and you can even use the Chrome Extension. (add-on)
4) iFlow
The next tool in the list would be iFlow. This is an exceptional tool in its own regard and should be appreciated for the value it brings to the process.
The ideas are always ‘flowing’ with this tool. It has some of the best filtering options one will find in the world of content curation tools.
The pinpoint accuracy is hard to deny and something any Internet marketer would enjoy and be able to benefit from.
5) Scoop.It
Want to scoop new content and be able to maximize its value?
Well, Scoop.it is the way to go without a doubt. This is almost a community of sorts with regards to content curators who are spreading information.
They will be able to tap into what you are presenting and vice versa.
The powerful spreading of knowledge leads to tremendous content curation across any niche.
It is something more and more Internet marketers are leaning towards because of how consistent the tool is and the value it brings to the process effective immediately. A ‘must-have’ with ease.
6) Storify
Storyboards are magical and this is what Storify relies upon. It is able to help build storyboards which are going to be the foundation of any well-run content marketing campaign.
What is the value of not having an all-encompassing plan with the curated content in hand?
With Storify, the tool is going to give the ability to engage the content being curated and help build it up to something that is going to convert.
It also helps find other content curators who are in the same boat and looking for a great fit with their own process.
7) ContentGems
200,000 RSS feeds. This is all that has to be said about the power of ContentGems and how wide-ranging it is.
This is quite a bit of content and something one will neve be able to get through in its entirely.
The gems are out there and this tool is going to find them for you.
It cuts the process into something that is quite manageable and easy on the mind without a doubt.
Imagine being able to gain access to all of this content and then searching through it with important keywords? Wouldn’t that be easy? Well, ContentGems gives you this ability. Yes, searching through 200,000 RSS feeds has never been easier.
8) Post Planner
Curating content is fine, but how is it going to be spread in order to engage the target audience? Postplanner to the rescue.
Isn’t that the goal in the end?
A content marketing campaign isn’t going to hold much leverage if it does not spread out and become the talk of the niche.
Well, if that is the aim, Post Planner is a must.
It is able to engage the content and set it up for FaceBook with ease. Post when the timings are best in your niche and watch as multiple posts go viral.
There is a science behind the process and this tool is able to unravel it for you and your niche.
9) Triberr
Tribes are divided based upon interests (niches) and enable you to gain access to some of the industry leaders in your particular tribe.
Triberr makes the process easier of being able to curate meaningful content.
These are some of the finest minds in the game and that is the type of content you will be able to get your hands on.
This is wonderful for those who need to be able to curate content that is substantial in its worth.
Yes, it is going to scour through the Internet and do the job for you.
The lists are not just tossed together, but meticulous with regards to quality control.
Only the best content is going to be put in front of you in relation to the keywords being given to Curata.
This is substantial for those who don’t wish to go through every blog in their niche in order to find a handful of articles.
11) Bundlr
It is one thing to find the content, but how are you going to organize all of it?
What if you have specific keywords, themes, and/or ideas that are going to be used to create content marketing campaigns? Bundlr can help.
If you have a lot of articles to work with, this is going to be challenging to say the least.
You have to use Bundlr in order to maximize the potential of this content. The tool is going to make it easier to save content and clip it into specific groups for later. It just organizes all of the content that is being curated and that matters a lot in the end.
12) Slideshare
The 12th tool in the list would have to be a famous one and an underappreciated option to say the least. Slideshare has a significant amount of content and is building its resources up by the day.
The best part about this tool would be its reliance on new information.
The content present on Slideshare is just not going to be found elsewhere.
It is always good to take a look at what it has to offer and then make a decision as to its ability to act as a great tool.
For most, it is downright awesome.
13) Trap.It
The final meaningful tool in this list would have to be ‘Trap.it‘. This is a powerful resource to say the least.
With a collection of 100,000 sources to tap into, Internet marketers are able to get their hands on real gems. Hard to find content is sometimes troubling when doing the searches manually.
This tool takes the stress out of the process as it automatically learns the requirements of the user. It begins to anticipate the market being targeted with the content and what is valued by the user. Imagine seeing a tool get smarter and smarter to a point where it knows what you want before anything is said?
This is what Trap.it provides. It is truly magical.
These are the 13 must-have tools for curating content in this day and age.
Those who are not making the most of these tools are not going to be able to build meaningful content marketing campaigns.
It is as simple as this.
The gap between competitors in the market is closing down and those who have the help of great tools can continue to push towards the top.
Those who refuse to do this will struggle. Maximize the help of these tools to ensure your campaigns are being in accordance with the standards set these days.
An interesting shift is occurring in the advertising and marketing world.
More and more businesses are continuing to move marketing dollars in a move to support their content marketing efforts.
As this is happening, many businesses are going an extra mile in search of funds and budget reallocation.
Content marketing budgets are increasing due to the fact that it has proven to be an effective strategy of building web traffic, leads and sales. In addition, it is reducing the cost of lead generation when done right.
The phrase “content marketing” was used as early as 1996, when John F. Oppedahl led a roundtable for journalists at the American Society for Newspaper Editors.
Businesses greatly interested in leveraging the numerous benefits of content marketing appear to have an ever-growing list of strategies and content solutions to select from. They can outsource their content to an agency, hire freelancers or train their in-house teams or a combination thereof.
With the numerous options available, selecting the best option for your business can be difficult.
However, understanding how each of the available solutions can best align with your business goals, customer needs and budgeting restrictions is important prior to making a leap into brand promotion with content driven strategies.
Although most of the content marketing strategies have been successful for various business models, not each and every tactic will be effective for your specific needs.
Identify Your Content Needs
The very first step towards determining the amount you should be spending on content marketing is identifying all your content needs. A content marketing audit is recommended.
The key to a fruitful content marketing effort is ability to measure and keep track of your ROI to avoid being among the eighty percent of marketers who are not sure whether they are succeeding on failing.
To avoid this lack of understanding on the kind of content marketing solution that will be most effective for your business, be sure to make decision based on your customers’ needs.
Budget for All Your Goals
Once you have established your business needs and goals, you can commence budgeting for your content marketing techniques. There are different prices you can encounter while doing your research but the rule of thumb is that you should receive optimal vale for what you pay for.
Read on for an insight on what you should expect to spend with different content marketing ventures.
1. Hiring an Internal Content Marketing Expert
Hiring team of professionals or a single content manager to work on a full-time basis can be an expensive route to take.
Especially if you are just beginning with content marketing. Taking into account the training time, this can be very expensive. However, with adequate resources at your disposal, this can prove to be the most cost-effective investment for your long-term content marketing needs.
Hiring an internal content marketing expert can cost you about $48,000 to $150,000 or more per year. In most cases, the costs associated with such hiring is mainly based on their track record, years of experience and of course their geographical location.
Such individuals should also have some extra skillsets such as social media know-how, digital marketing, copywriting and search engine optimization among many others.
2. Outsourcing to a Content Marketing Agency
In most cases, a powerful content marketing strategy usually includes a healthy mix of content types. Some of them can be accomplished on a short-term basis whereas the in-depth content types require more time to develop and heavily strain your staff resources.
In addition, your team might not have the expertise to develop a content marketing strategy. For in-depth specialty projects, outsourcing to a consultancy or agency can be the best solution.
Majority of the content marketing agencies pride themselves of service diversity to encompass your business needs. In addition, agencies hire professional staff with great expertise in their job.
Outsourcing can cost you as low as $1500 per month and can go up to $10,000 or more per month. Prior to hiring a content agency, ascertain that their services and package offerings align perfectly with your business goals. Standalone numbers are not meaningful. Only when put into context of the objectives, process and results does it matter. Some of these factors will not be known up front. That’s part of the marketing game.
3. Contracting with Copywriters and Freelancers
This is one area where pricing can be a bit complicated since quality of work, experience level and speed of delivery affect the entire cost.
There are numerous websites where you can publish your content needs with a budget and wait for freelancers to bid.
If your business has specific needs that require fast project turnaround, specific industry knowledge or attention to detail, it is advisable to look for content marketers specializing in your needs for optimal results. In this case, a content marketing project can go for as low as $50 and as high as $3000.
Content marketing is here to stay and knowing how much you can spend is extremely important. It is important to understand how to incorporate it into your entire marketing strategy and not end up spending heavily.
If you need a content marketing project and cost assessment for your business, get in touch with our consultants:
However, with a good plan, tools and resources, you can make it more effective.
Using the right content marketing productivity tools should help you achieve that goal.
Here are 12 of the most uncommon content market productivity tools that should help save more time.
#1 – SEMrush.com
You can use this content marketing tool to identify how your competitors are ranking on Google.
Using SEMrush, it’s easy to assess the amount of traffic going to your competitors’ websites as well as the keywords being used to get higher rankings.
What you need to do is enter the web address to your competitor’s website and this tool will reveal the list of keywords used for ranking on Google.
Steps to get started with SEMrush:
Open a free account on SEMrush and register yourself and you can gain access to the top keywords your competitors are using to drive traffic to their websites. You can begin by entering their web addresses (URLs) and watch for both the organic and paid results, traffic numbers, cost per click and more.
If you’re aware of these keywords, maybe you can use some of them to bring more traffic to your own site.
Naturally, you want to create content on your website that gets shared across numerous social media platforms.
Using Buzzsumo, you can find out the commonly shared content and shape your own content around the same topics.
Steps to get started with BuzzSumo:
Using this tool, you should enter your own address or your competitor’s website address and find out which content is mostly shared across different social media channels.
Also, you can search for keywords and find any content related to these specific keywords that’s shared the most.
You can use Buzzsumo to examine the type of content shared on specific social media channels and produce content to similar to what’s targeted on these channels.
You can use this to get statistics about what’s working, and use it to get new ideas for your own content marketing strategies.
#3 – Canva.com
Canva is a power tool used to prepare any promotional visuals to be used on your website. It might be very expensive to hire graphic designers for every image that’s need to go on your website.
Well, through Canva, you can perform any graphic design features needed on your site without the need for graphic design skills. You can produce professional and impressive images using a streamlined and simple interface.
Even better, you can create similar images to be used on the same content rather than using the same image over and over again.
Figure 1 – Easy designer layouts and editing
Figure 2 – Preset sizes and images + custom dimensions
Steps to get started with Canva: Create a free account, and login via Twitter, Facebook or email. Using the app in your browser is free, and many textual and picture elements can be used for free to start. If you want to upgrade, you’ll get additional images and tools to make it even better. There is a team version, starting at $9.95/month, but the first 30 days is free.
#4 – QuillEngage.com
This tool allows you to monitor your results without the need for using Google Analytics which can be quite exhausting and time consuming.
Steps to get started with QuillEngage: Create a free starter account, and connect with your Google Analytics profile.
Pick the template you need, and save. Quill Engage will send a weekly (or daily) email with a complete interpretation of your website’s results which is simple and easy to understand.
QuillEngage has different pricing models for you to start, from free, basic and premium pricing structures:
#5 – EditFlow.org
Using Edit Flow, you can build your own editorial calendar which is an essential part of content marketing.
If you plan your content accordingly, you can become more productive and produce better content for your visitors.
Steps to get started with EditFlow: This tool is a free WordPress plug-in that allows you to view all the drafted posts to adjust dates accordingly, send messages to all the team members and also set custom status updates that match your workflow.
Create an account, and follow the simple instructions.
#6 – Do Share (Google Chrome Web Store)
This is a Google Chrome plug-in that allows you to post content to your personal Google+ profile. Currently, it’s not possible to schedule any posts through Google to your personal profile.
However, by using Do Share you can hold any content until the time for posting it arrives. Of course, your browser must be open when posting time comes around in order for the tool to work properly.
Also, you can pick content from Google+ and send it to the tool for later posting.
Yet another Google Chrome Plugin, Momentum allows you to plan your tasks and provides daily reminders.
Momentumdash.com – chrome plugin for productivity
Therefore, if you plan on updating your website’s content on any particular day, you can use this tool to keep everything in check and make sure that everything is completed in time.
You can also use this app to monitor the rest of the tools you’re using for your content marketing efforts. Once you confirm your account, you’ll be ready to go.
Combine this plugin with calm.com and get more work done with less distractions.
Also recommended: A good summary of tools and techniques as a companion guide, was done by HealthAmbition.com You can find this here.
#10 – Self Control App.com
Do you always find yourself distracted every time you are on the internet?
Do you need an app that blocks your access to other distracting websites when you’re working on your site’s content?
Self Control App: Block distractions and get more productive online (Mac Version)
Well, thanks to Self Control , you can achieve exactly that.
Specifically for Mac users, the app blocks your access to any distracting websites allowing you to allocate more time to your site.
Basically, you set a period of time and a number of sites to be blocked then your access to these sites will be blocked during that time.
Regardless of whether you delete the app and restart your computer during that time period, nothing changes.
#11 – Slack.com
If you’re working with a content marketing team, you need a platform where communications are easy and effortless between all the team members.
Slack.com – better communication and productivity across channels and teams
Here, everything is in one place and you can search for it very easily.
It’s the best communication tool for most modern content marketing teams.
#12 – Evernote.com
When creating and marketing content for your website, you’re likely to create notes and comments you need to add or follow-up on.
Evernote.com – turn on your team collaboration and productivity
Keeping track of these notes can be very difficult.
Well, if you’re using an app like Evernote, you can easily get access to these notes whenever you need them.
BONUS: Don’t forget to include the amazing co-schedule product when discussing calendaring and team work for your content marketing and social media projects.
Coschedule.com – WordPress productivity tools and calendaring functions for social media and more
It fits right into your WordPress CMS, and has a nifty Chrome browser plugin too. It’s our mainstay product.
BONUS:Get the free lead generation guide that will show you how to quickly get more leads from traffic. Includes 2 bonus strategies not found in this post.
We also hear great things about hipstersound and defonic, but have not installed/tested them yet.
Content marketing is strategic planning that puts into motion intelligently researched marketing steps to get more customers.
Content marketing is about the goal of developing content assets that drive eyeballs to acquire more customers.
Watch the content marketing definition video:
Who and How?
Find out what your audience wants…
and provide content to answer
those questions..
…while you get them involved.
Where do you publish content?
Learn where they hang out and provide content within those locations with different media, different messages, and publish at different times (hourly, daily, weekly, monthly)
Why Content Marketing?
To get more customers while you build trust, authority and leadership for your brand.
Bonus benefits from Content Marketing work
Better conversions and engagement!
Prospects and customers see you as the go-to person/company!
