Nathan Yerian
Content marketing needs more than great writing to yield results. Even if you’re generating blog posts, white papers, and video, your efforts may fall short in reaching the right prospects for your business. Along with creating engaging content, you need to focus your efforts on building a steady audience.
A blog audience is a powerful marketing investment. Your blog’s visitors are more than just readers and followers — they’re prospects, existing customers, and brand advocates who can share your content and help your audience grow. Your blog strategy should focus on these five elements for growth:
1. Conduct Keyword Research for SEO
Before jumping into writing, make sure that you have a plan — write smart content by focusing on the keywords and terms that are most relevant to your business. Organic search is a powerful tool for bringing visitors to your website and blog. Before you even begin writing, check into your search rankings for key terms and identify what needs a little extra boost. Are more people looking for “Houston based neurosurgeons” or “Spine surgery in Houston?”. Are you ranked 11th (top of page 2) for a key term and looking for a way to get onto the first page? Write a valuable blog post around that keyword. Remember that your high quality blog content will always be a powerful tool for improving your rankings in search.
2. Be Active About Guest Blogging
At face value, you may think that guest blogging is an unnecessary time sink. Why write content for another website when you could be investing time into your own blog?
The truth is that guest blogging is a powerful networking tool. For one, the practice is valuable for building inbound links that boost web traffic levels and influence SEO. By writing content for blogs with existing audiences, you get your name in front readers who are interested in what you have to say.
Blogging is all about a community. Guest blogging will help you tap into existing communities that can help grow your own.
3. Host Expert Interviews
Your content shouldn’t be all about you — make it about your customers, prospects, industry, and professional network instead. Develop your blog into a platform for thought leaders and experts to share their perspectives for the community.
Interviews are invaluable techniques for getting this process off the ground. Beyond adding valuable perspectives to your blog content, the experts you interview may link back to your post and share your content with their networks.
4. Seek Interview Opportunities
Interviews are not a one way street. If you are an expert in your industry, look for opportunities to share your perspectives through other media channels. Interviews are powerful tools for sharing your perspectives, reaching new communities, and establishing yourself as a thought leader.
Waiting for interview opportunities to come to you is the wrong approach. You need to be active in your search for industry blogs that may be interested in profiling you. Make connections with fellow business owners, blog managers, and editors. Don’t be salesy — instead, pitch the opportunity as a partnership, and look for areas of mutual value.
5. Merge Efforts with Your Social Strategy
Content marketing and social media go hand in hand. Make sure that you set up your blog and social media accounts as complements to one another instead of separate platforms.
If you’re active on Facebook, make sure to always share your blog content on your page — ask your community members to ‘like’ or ‘share’ your content, and consider using the promoted stories feature too.
If you’re active on Twitter, make sure that you share all content with relevant hashtags. Become a part of existing conversations so that prospects and readers can find your brand.
Final Thoughts: Be Patient and Persistent
The process of growing your traffic stream takes consistency, time, and energy. Don’t give up — when it comes to audience building, slow and steady wins the race.
Image Credit: Giampaolo Macorig