It's 2013.
It's a new year in digital, and content marketing is much more
than just a buzz word.
It's the real deal.
My name's James Perrin, and I'm the Content Marketing Manager here at
Koozai, and today I'm going to be talking to you about broadening your
content marketing approach.
Now, if you feel that your current content marketing campaigns are kind of
lacking a bit of punch, that they're stagnating, or if you feel that they need
sprucing up and your general SEO campaigns need sprucing up, you need to be
thinking a lot broader in terms of your content marketing strategy.
Keep watching, because today we're going to be
talking about hints, tips, and some tools to really help you achieve this.
First and foremost, what I would suggest is if you are performing any of
the old techniques, such as blog spinning, article marketing, blog
networks, stop.
They don't work.
What you need to be thinking about is having the user at the heart of any content
that you create.
If you think about it, SEO is now inextricably linked with
social media.
Social shares count for a lot in terms of SEO value.
So the content that you create needs to be sharable.
People should be liking it, and from there you can build
links and traffic naturally to that content.
So focus on quality, not quantity.
It's all well and good saying this.
But how would you go about broadening your content marketing approach?
Well, there are two ways in which this is achievable.
First and foremost, you need to have a strategy, and then from
there you need to have lots and lots of activities in which you can create
this content marketing.
First and foremost; strategy.
The first thing you need to do is research.
Perform a content marketing audit, look at what content has worked before
and what hasn't worked.
I'd also look at what pages are achieving the best
hits.
It could be a particular product or service that people are
interested in, and in that way that can inform you and you can start to
create content off the back of that data and that information.
I'd also perform a competitor analysis.
Use tools such as Majestic SEO or Linkdex, and in this way you can look at what
links your competitors have got and the best performing content from those
links.
Secondly, you need to have lots and lots of ideas.
So contact your clients, speak to in-house teams, PR agencies, and
get as many ideas around the table as possible.
It could be anything to do with industry news or company
news.
It could be new products, competitions, anything like that which you
feel that you can create content off the back of.
If you're still struggling for ideas, I suggest using tools, such as
Ubersuggest, Spezify, SEOGadget's Content Ideas Generator.
These are all great ways in which you can just enter a keyword
and it gives you lots and lots of other keywords around which you can
create content.
Thirdly, you need to think about social.
So think about the types of content that is being created that works well
on social media and, specifically, who is sharing that kind of
content.
So tools such as Social Bro, Followerwonk and Google Ripples, these
work really, really well so that you can see the best type of content to create
that's going to get shared.
This enables you to create highly targeted and highly sociable content.
Then fourthly, you need to plan.
You need to create a 3-month, 6-month, or even 12-month content marketing campaign & content
marketing plan and factor in key dates & seasons.
I feel that a content marketing plan is a great way
to hold people accountable and makes them aware of due dates and duties.
So you've got your strategy in place.
Now you need to think about the activities.
First and foremost, I would get a website blog.
If you haven't got one, get one.
Especially with things like authorship and author rank
moving forward in 2013, these are going to be so important in terms of SEO.
That's only achievable with a website blog.
If you think about it, for a fully-integrated digital marketing campaign,
where you're going to be relying on social media content and SEO, the
website blog really acts as the glue that holds all of this together.
So if you haven't got one, get one.
Now if you build it, they won't always come.
That's very, very true.
So why not take your content to where it's most likely
to get seen.
Guest blogging done properly is invaluable to SEO.
I'm not talking about these kinds of PR0, PR1 sites.
I'm talking about sites that are getting a lot of
visitors that people are visiting that are relevant to your niche.
So websites, blogs, resources, anything like
that, approach them.
There's a huge SEO value in that.
Much in the same way, PR opportunities work as well.
So use tools, such as Gorkana PR or Help a Reporter Out.
Use #journorequest on Twitter.
And as I say, much in the same way that guest blogging works,
you'll get huge SEO value out of a link, but also you'll become an
authority voice, an authority voice in your niche, and that's hugely,
hugely valuable in terms of online marketing.
Fourthly, infographics.
Now for fun, sharable content you can't beat a good
infographic.
You just need to make sure that your content is unique, that
it's engaging, and that you promote it well on good sites.
That way it will work really, really well.
White paper.
Now when it comes to creating content, what better way to add
value to your users by telling them exactly how something works.
So if you've got a particular product or service
that you think needs clarifying or explaining and you want to give help to
your customers, create a free white paper or user guide.
That's absolutely perfect, and it will be downloaded and it'll be shared across the
web.
Again, it's just more promotion for your brand and your website.
Surveys.
Data is hugely important in 2013.
Well, it's always been hugely important, but for 2013 a lot of focus is
going to be on data.
So look to create surveys or questionnaires.
Host them on your website.
I'd suggest using tools, such as Survey Monkey, Survey
Gizmo, or OnePoll.
They're very, very good at collecting data, and then you
can create really unique content off the back of it.
Videos.
It goes without saying that videos have transformed the way that
we've consumed content online.
But a lot of people kind of think, well, to do that you need a big budget and whatnot.
You don't.
To do some good videos and to market it properly you can do
it on a shoestring budget.
Really from that you can kind of get traffic, links, some good branding.
So it works.
You just need to have a good idea.
Then finally, images.
If your company is going to events, or there are some
industry events, or there are some products and such like that you want to
share, just take some good quality images.
They still get shared.
Use sites like Pinterest, Flickr.
As long as they're real and interesting pictures, real people will
share them.
So that's just a list of some of the activities which you can do.
If you'd like to share any more, please do comment
on the comment section below.
Feel free to start a discussion about what works and what doesn't work.
And that just leaves me to say thank you very
much for watching.
For more information, please visit any of our profiles
coming up now.