I researched for ages before I bought my cordless drill. Buying the wrong drill would not be the end of the world; I can live with a chuck that doesn’t take 13mm bits or a motor with a little less power. Or I can buy a better drill later.
Committing to the wrong brand is another story. Batteries only fit one brand and I’d be stuck with the wrong brand for all my cordless power tools or I’d end up with a mishmash of batteries and tools, each battery compatible with only one tool.
I’m not alone in this. People do lots of research before they buy.
Your future customers (and your current ones) are constantly asking for sound advice on every aspect of your products and services.
They ask you, your competitors, their friends and they ask Google.
Building Your Content Marketing Assets
Content Marketing is the process of creating that advice, making it easy to find and using it to draw the right kind of customers (i.e. profitable ones) into your business and through your sales funnel.
Articles on your website or blog attract people from search engines who are ready to buy. Articles make it easy for you to email a link to customers who have questions and they make it easy for your customers to spread the word about your business in a positive light.
We start by connecting your content to your keywords. Keyword research tells us what content people want. Instead of guessing a topic for a good article, we choose a keyword that is both relevant to your ideal customers and frequently searched by them, then we write an article that we know they are searching for.
We add the article to your website or blog and optimise it for the chosen keyword. This maximises your ranking in Google for the article.
Each time you publish an article your rankings get a boost for all related keywords. Over time your collection of content grows, along with your search engine rankings and the number of high quality enquiries or sales from your web site.
Google rewards constant improvement. Regularly adding quality articles to your website is a powerful way to build your rankings (and if you already have a collection of articles, optimising and publishing them is an extremely cost effective form of marketing).
Here are some more ideas for content:
- list of resources or how to guide
- FAQ or SAQ (should ask question) – what they don’t know they need to know
- checklist, cheat sheet, workbook or template
- video yourself presenting training or a seminar
- case study, white paper or report
- video of you explaining something
- ebook (PDF) created from existing book/articles/content
Leveraging Your Content Assets
Too often, people write great articles and don’t get around to promoting them thoroughly. You’ve done the hard work of writing the article; this is where you maximise the return on your asset.
Send the article to your mailing list. Start building a mailing list TODAY if you don’t have one – it’s easier than you think. Your happy customers will eagerly read your advice and look forward to each article.
Create a series of articles if your content is long. A series of articles (even 2 or 3) creates a mini web of high quality cross linked content that Google loves.
Post your article to social media. Use Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or YouTube for video blogs that Google loves. Use the platforms your customers use and ignore the ones you can’t stomach (did somebody say Twitter?)
Search engines see these links as social proof and it helps your rankings. Especially if people share them and comment on them.
Boost/promote your post on social media to get it read by more people. This can be cost effective when done well.
Run a competition on social media and give something away that’s of high value to your customers and costs you as little as possible. Ensure your competition links to a page on your website so you get the ranking boost.
Mention other people or businesses in your post if you can find a genuine reason to do so and tag them. This earns you more social proof, especially if they like, share or comment on your post.
Blog vs Article
There’s lot of debate over the difference between articles and blogs. Articles are supposed to be longer, more formal and have perfect grammar. Blogs can include your opinion, your personality and advice or interviews from a 3rd party. A blog is also social; it includes links for sharing in social media and a section for readers to comment at the bottom.
I’m more interested in how your writing can help your business than in formal definitions. If your advice needs to be shorter or longer to hit the spot then that’s that length it should be. If long, formal articles with perfect grammar or voicing your opinion help to establish you as the trusted expert then do it.
Oops, that was an informal opinion. Does that make this a blog? Who cares – as long as you get value from it!
To engage or not to engage? That’s the choice you need to make before you choose your platform. If you think people will comment on your writing then use a blog with a commenting feature.
If you think they won’t comment then it doesn’t matter what platform you use. Leave the comments off. It’s better to not allow comments than for everybody who reads your articles to see that you can’t get anybody to engage.
Close The Deal
Having attracted all these high quality leads who are itching to buy from your website, this would be a good time to sell them something!
Your website is a sales funnel. People typically find your content and pass through your pages in a similar sequence. Understanding that sequence and including a simple call to action at the bottom of each page means you influence where they go next.
Does somebody who has just met you and read your guide need to visit your about us or testimonials page before they are willing to buy? Or are they ready to buy now, after reading your article?
Add links to the bottom of your articles and encourage people to take the next action you think they are ready for:
- About Us
- What do our customers say
- Get a free review of your insurance
- Browse our range of power tools
When you start to see your content as an asset that improves your search engine rankings, establishes you as the trusted expert and then leads people through your sales funnel and convinces them to pick up the phone/complete your online enquiry form/give you their credit card number, then that’s exactly what it does!
Need help to figure out the content marketing process that will work best for you?
We give good advice.