Content promotion is the step that most businesses tend to forget about. They might think their ‘job is done’ when they have created the content, and updated some of their social channels. However, unless you’re incredibly lucky, this is barely enough to reach a lot of people and more importantly, to get conversions.
There are many sites out there that publish awesome articles in the most interesting topics. Why aren’t they get noticed? Because Internet is such a crowded place, it’s hard to please search engines amidst high competition.
The power of content
Why do we need good content? Let’s be honest, online marketers burst out content to gain conversions. What is a ‘conversion’? According to MarketingSherpa handbooks, it’s “The point at which a recipient of a marketing message performs a desired action.” Conversion can be anything depending on your business: sign ups, purchases, downloads, etc.
Keyword-stuffing and low-quality/high-quantity content does not work well anymore with Google. Ver the past few years, there were many Google updates that, by now, ‘learned’ how to filter out poor quality texts and display the quality ones. While it’s still important to use meta tags and keywords, authoritative content is what truly stands out.
Since Google started to focus on this approach, you should also focus on creating powerful articles if you want to increase the organic traffic of your site. Content is the bread and butter of your website as that is what drives people in.
What should you write about?
Competition is high on the Internet. Therefore you have to make sure that your content is flawless, useful for your target audience, and stands out in a way. People are searching on the web because they need to solve a particular problem of theirs. Therefore, specific topics with long tail keywords tend to be better; if someone is driven to your site by these, they are more likely to convert.
PRO tip: E.g. Let’s suppose, a basketball player wants to order a new pair of trainers. Which keyword is the most likely to generate conversion? ‘Shoes’ or ‘best trainers for basketball’, or maybe ‘best Nike trainers for basketball in 2017’?
Not everything is about text content these days, as the internet is much broader than that! Embrace your creativity and develop a combination of audio, video, images, and text content, whatever you think would be the most appealing for your audience.
Why and when do we need content promotion?
After you’ve put so much time and effort in creating great content to engage your audience, give readers a chance to find you. In order to maximize those conversions, you need to get to the greatest possible number of people.
Lee Odden summarizes content promotion clearly:
“If you create great content and no one knows about it to link to it, you’re spinning your wheels. A combination of content as well as social networking, link networking, public relations and gaining editorial visibility as well as viral and individual link solicitations will all work together synergistically. Building a community of consumers of your content as well as relationships with the media in your industry is the distribution network necessary to gain the most link value out of creating great content.”
If you don’t have a large existing audience, even superior content may not be noticed on your website without a push. In fact, creating good content and not getting it recognized is an online marketing sin.
The line between spammy self-promotion and content promotion is very thin. Overdoing ‘promotion’ in a spammy way will quickly backfire on you, as people hate overly self-promoting websites. Just think about yourself; which type of promotions do you personally find overwhelming, and which one resulted in you clicking on their CTA?
PRO tip:Invest in establishing strong brand identity before starting promoting yourself. You need to stand out in order to differentiate yourself from the masses.
It is of utmost importance to know the most efficient practices of content promotion and to decide which one of them would work the best for you. Below, we’ve collected the most advanced methods for promoting your content like a boss.
Advanced content promotion tactics and methods
The great thing about traffic is that after a while it generates itself. Once a visitor has found out about your website, they help you with content promotion. Still, you have to pursue your traffic first, before your site takes off.
1. Use social media
The more shares and follows you get on social media, the more traffic will be driven to your sites. When your content goes viral, you engage a lot of people that results in higher conversion.
Tweet about your newly published content 3-4 times a day. However, make sure that only ~20% of your tweets are self-promotional, or else you might seem spammy. When you tweet, include numbers, benefits, hashtags, or engage your audience with a question. You can also let your followers peek into the article by quoting from the content.
PRO tip: Mind content promotion when creating the article – include catchy sentences that are easy to tweet. Include click-to-tweet and other sharing buttons in your article body that can be easily set up by plug-ins in your CMS.
Check when your followers are the most active on twitter and schedule accordingly. Mind, though, that ‘rush hours’ are also the noisiest ones – try tweeting during a quieter time period, as your post might be more visible then. This counter-competitive timing is especially good for you when you’re also targeting an international audience. What works for one business won’t work for the other – experiment which hours bring the highest visibility to your tweets.
You can also start promoting your upcoming content in advance. Be a little bit mystical, let followers take a glance ‘behind the scenes’. By this, you’ll establish some curiosity in your followers, and they’ll be waiting for your article to go live.
Google+
It’s a good idea to write an introduction for Google+ updates. This way you can optimize your post, so it’ll get a better place in the SERPs. Your intro accompanying your post should be engaging with questions, hashtags, and don’t be afraid of tagging any influencers of the article. In Google+, posting once about a new piece is enough, more than one can be considered spammy.
Make sure your article has a set featured image in your CMS and Facebook will take care of the rest. Earlier, it was a trend to post pictures on Facebook, then add the links in the comment sections. However, since Facebook constantly changes, nowadays simple link posts tend to drive more traffic to the promoted websites. Why so? Recently, Facebook started to use bigger thumbnail images for link posts – and that catches the attention of users.
Quora
Look for related questions on Quora; some users may have the exact ‘problem’ your article can solve. In this case, take the opportunity to answer their questions in details. Don’t forget to mention your article naturally, but don’t be overly spammy.
2. Email Marketing
Use a subscription box on your website so people can sign up to your list. Make sure to use the 3 Ps here: Prominence, Promise and Proof. Prominence, so it’s visible; promise, so you tell people what you offer; and proof, showing other people have subscribed, by a list size or testimonials.
Newsletter
The same day your content goes live, email it to this list you have built over time. These newsletters should have a sender name of a human, not from a company. Use a psychological hook in the subject to stand out from the other emails in the subscribers’ inboxes. This can be a number, a promise, or anything you know this target group is especially interested in. Send a teaser in the email body that focuses on the benefits you deliver in your new article and insert a visible CTA. Don’t forget to add a tracking code to these emails so you can check who have and who have not clicked on your link.
By doing so, you can send out a reminder email a couple of days later for those who hasn’t opened the first one, with a different subject line.
High-value contacts
You might have high-value contacts in your subscriber list. There are bloggers, influencers of your industry, journalists, or quality prospects. Take a minute to send a personalized email to these people inviting them to read your content, provide a feedback, and maybe to share it on their social media channels. Do not mix this step with link building, do not ask for a link inclusion. Here you’ll focus on improving your relationship, and to get noticed by these people.
3. Search Engine Optimization
You have to ensure that people can find you through Google search. Organic traffic is one of the most important attributes you should aim for. By optimizing your site, you establish a durable way to drive traffic.
Use keywords and expressions
Before you create content, do a little keyword research. Check which phrases have a good, if not the best search volumes, with a relatively low competition.
You can also have a look at the competitors’ websites; check what worked for them and what can you do better? E.g. if they rank high with a 500-word article, try to come up with a better and longer piece with a similar keyword selection. Mind, though, that your competitors are those people who have approximately the same domain authority.
When selecting keywords, you should also include expressions that are semantically linked to your topic. For this, you can use the related searches in Google, or use SEO tools.
PRO tip: With Google Search Console, you can see which pages rank for which search terms. When the initial promotional period is over, you can start re-optimizing your content based on all the info you gathered in the Search Console.
4. Link building
Bloggers usually have a love-hate relationship with link building, but it’s important to acknowledge its usefulness. Over the years, bloggers have developed efficient strategies, let’s get familiar with the basic ones.
First of all, find bloggers within your niche and check what type of content they have. They might be looking for something fresh to share, or complete/re-optimize their existing articles, so don’t hesitate to let them know about your newly published piece. This way you can save them some research time.
Also, if your content is similar, you probably have a shared interest in each other’s audiences. Invite the blogger for submitting a guest post, or offer your guest article for the blogger’s website. These articles you can both share in social media (see above). Either way, you equally get noticed by a lot more people.
Another great way to involve fellow bloggers is to include them in your article and email it to them, encouraging them to share. Everyone likes to get mentioned on a website! Mind the target groups of the bloggers and plan how you should expand your audience by possibly getting published on their social channels or websites.
Not to mention that building links to your brand new content will result in a better ranking in Google SERPs too, as it increases domain authority.
Conclusion
There are so many great websites out there and one of the main reasons they don’t get noticed is that they don’t promote their content to their fullest capacity. Of course, promoting will need some amount of planning, but don’t underestimate its power. Try these advanced content promotion tactics and see for yourself.