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The Benefits of Content Marketing

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content marketing

It has been said before that “content is king”, but when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), this is really the case. Regular high-quality content can help websites and blogs get better rankings online and also drive more traffic to a website. In addition, it also helps companies be seen as a resource and important resource in their field or industry.

Blog Posts

Blog posts are an easy way to continuously provide a website with fresh content. Blog posts should be published on websites 2-3 per week, on a variety of topics that are related to the industry or the company’s products and services. These are easy to find if marketers read online content daily. Companies that create publishing calendars for their blog content may find that they be more productive and organized, leading to better overall content.

To get the benefit from regular blog posts, the blog must be hosted on the same domain as the content. The blog can be on a subdomain, but most users and search engines are used to finding blogs at domain.com/blog.

External Content

Providing content to other sources is another great way to get the benefits of SEO, even though it’s not on the company’s website directly. Guest blogging, press releases, testimonials, videos, and other types of content are examples that can give links to the company’s website. Besides getting links, users see companies that have a wide reach (meaning that they are published/seen in a variety a different platforms) as being more reputable than those that aren’t seen anywhere else online besides their own website.

To find places that will accept your content or mention your company, do Google searches for “guest blogging + “industry keyword”” or look at guest blogging websites like MyBlogGuest and Hullabaloo. Use these platforms to create connections with other companies and website owners to help get your content and website out there.

Social Media

Google and Bing now include personalized search results based on a user’s social network, so being active on social media, for both employees as individuals and companies, is definitely key. Websites should also have social sharing buttons on all blog posts so they can be shared online easily.

Social media shouldn’t just be a place to share your own company’s information and content, but to also be a fun resource and industry news source. Occasionally post updates about current events, holidays, fun facts, and other information that your audience will find interesting.

photo credit: See-ming Lee 李思明 SML via photopin cc

Are You Sharing the Right Type of Content?

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social media content

Sharing and promoting content that your target users are going to be interested in is key when it comes to having a successful social media strategy. It is not a good use of time and resources to post any content that users won’t find interesting or may make you or your business look unprofessional. For example, including an unrelated or uninteresting link with commentary that is full of typos isn’t going to give your audience a good impression of your company online (and sometimes, as a whole).

 

To find the right type of content to share, check out competitors’ pages (but do not copy them) as well as pages that you yourself find interesting as a member of the industry you are in. Sometimes being aware of what you find interesting and sharing it is all it takes to get started.

 

In addition, asking coworkers and online users themselves what type of content they’d like to see can be a very enlightening experience. They may have ideas or suggestions that you haven’t thought of before, or they may say they like something that you thought wasn’t popular.

 

To find out the best type of content that is best for your social media marketing campaigns and publishing campaign, test different types of content to see what gets the most clicks or engagement. It’s also important not to over think it. Not surprisingly, content about improving your LinkedIn profile goes over great on LinkedIn, and comics or funny news pieces can usually be popular on Facebook. Additionally, on Twitter, content that has really interesting titles, such as “5 Mistakes You’re Making While Networking” will get more interest than something like, “Common Networking Mistakes”.  These are all over-arching factors to take into consideration, as well as finding more specific niche topics for your business.

 

When sharing content, use link shorteners that have analytics attached to them when possible (such as cli.gs or bit.ly links). This will help you track shares, clicks and referral sources from your shared social media links. This just provides even more information that makes it possible to have the most targeted social media publishing calendar that is possible.

 

Along with the type of content, timeliness is also important. Because social media is very focused on the now, be sure to only share content that is relevant and timely to that day. For instance, when Michael Jackson passed away, it just wouldn’t be in good taste to post a news story announcing his death two days later. Everyone already knew. It will make your business seem out of the loop and just struggling to keep up– not an image you want to promote.

 

How to Find Social Media Posting Ideas

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how to find social media content

Social media is a great marketing tool to keep up with current and potential customers. However, just with most other digital marketing mediums (like your online advertising or blog), it needs to be updated regularly. One hurdle that many employees who are tasked with the social media content publishing calendar fail to realize is the sheer amount of content their accounts may need each week.

Luckily, there are several places online to find great applicable articles and engaging content that can be used as posting material on sites like Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.

Google News & Alerts

Google is a great place to find fresh content to share. Set up Google Alerts to get an instant, daily, or weekly email of search engine or news results based on certain keywords. Additionally, you can search news.google.com for the most current event stories in your industry. Google Blogs can also be used in this aspect as well.

Message Boards & Forums

Use a message board or forum search engine like boardtracker.com, Omgili, or boardreader.com. Again using keywords relevant to your industry, you can find out what people are actually talking about online instead of relying on popular blogs or news sites to tell you.

Common Shared Holidays

One easy way to fill up a social media publishing calendar is to comment on fun or popular holidays that your target audience or demographic may be celebrating. This could include Groundhog’s Day, Labor Day, etc. Be sure to respect religions. Posting a fun image or trivia questions for holidays can be a fun and engaging way to interact with your social media community.

Other Employees or Community Members

Don’t let the burden of finding content always lay on your shoulders. Ask other coworkers or community members involved with your organization for posting ideas or questions. Many times, someone not involved in the day to day posting of social media content may think of something you hadn’t.

These are some of the places to find great content for your social media publishing calendar. Oftentimes, subscribing to blogs in your industry, creating your own blog posts to share online, and reading books and other materials about applicable issues and topics that are related to your business can also give you the content ideas you are needing.

When you do find a good idea to share, schedule out the social media on a service like Buffer or keep it in a spreadsheet. That way you have a list of ideas ready to go when you are feeling stuck.

Three Places to Syndicate Your Internet Marketing or Social Media Content

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If you have a blog with regular, great content, it may beneficial for traffic to get it syndicated on another website that brings in more traffic. There are several options for websites that syndicate content. To find one in your niche (if it isn’t internet marketing or social media), all it takes is some googling of industry keywords plus “blog syndication” or other variations.

Google News

Google News is a great resource to get syndicated on, but its process can be tedious, especially if all the guidelines aren’t followed. Once a website is syndicated, it must maintain the guidelines. The stories that are chosen by Google to appear on are by computer algorithm; websites cannot choose which of their pieces of content are going to get published on news.google.com.

However, based on the Panda update, having continuous fresh and unique content that makes an impact are most likely to get picked up by the Google News Algorithm.  Additionally, content may only appear in the Google News results for a month or so, depending on relevancy.

Business2Community

Business2Community is a great website that always has good content. There is sometimes a bit of a wait to get accepted for syndication as a Contributor, and once you are, your pieces of content are chosen by editors and you don’t have control over what gets published. Business2Community also allows its readers to contact authors through a contact form and always gives links back to the original article.

The articles on Business2Community get shared via social media regularly and the site has done a great job of promoting its contributors.

Social Media Today

Social Media Today is a lot like Business2Community when it comes to syndicating content, except it’s choosing process is more automatic and it focuses on social media-related pieces of content. If your blog covers anything about social media, it is easy to apply; once you have been accepted, you can also write unique pieces of content for the site fairly easily. This would be a great way to get exposure for unique pieces of content that are only published on Social Media Today.

Getting notification about acceptance is pretty fast and the site is vast, yet very easy to use.

When it comes to content marketing, especially if you are a blog or business offering related types of services, it is important to get as much exposure as possible. Syndicating your existing content can be an easy way to do this.

 

How to Curate Content without Regurgitation

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As a webmaster, coming up with creative, interesting and original content on a daily basis is no easy task. Sometimes it feels like it doesn’t matter how hard you try to beat other bloggers or webmasters to post great content first, because you somehow always manage to fell behind in Google rankings or page views. This can be a huge frustration, especially when you are all reporting (or regurgitating) the same content, and only some sites can take it further than others. There are, however, several ways to re-think the way you curate content to come out with, not only better posts than the rest, higher web traffic in the long run. You simply have to focus on the best ways to source what’s available. [Read more…] about How to Curate Content without Regurgitation

How to Get Your Content Shared Via Social Media

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content sharing via social media

Many companies and bloggers create content with the hopes of it going viral– that is, having it shared with thousands (if not millions) of online users around the country and the world. However, the so-called mystery of how to make content popular on social media sites and otherwise continues to be something to be solved. However, if a writer follows these guidelines, they are much more likely to have their content be shared via social media.

Make it Interesting

Content is successful only when it either answers a question for several users or entertains almost anyone who reads it. There is something to be said for content that is high-quality and content that is just there to fulfill a weekly blog post allotment. Forgo regular “fluffer” content for appealing and engaging content to make your linking ratio much more higher per post.

Make it Linkbait

This is similar to the guideline above, but there are certain types and formats of content that are much more successful online. These include top 10 lists, infographics, cartoons, tie-ins to current internet memes, mixed media posts, free widgets, and more. However, it is important to note that even though linkbait is content that is created solely for the purpose of going viral, it definitely still needs to be high quality and not something that is forced.

Make it Shareable

Offer several opportunities to share content for the readers. Include easy sharing buttons at the top and bottom or scrolling side of the content and check them regularly to ensure that they are always working (occasionally free social sharing plugins tend to be buggy at times). Besides offering sharing links to the top social networking sites like Pinterest, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, including buttons to print and email the content also offers additional opportunities for sharing.

Make it Graphic Heavy

Content that is broken up with photos, clip art, illustrations, or infographics further supporting or describing the text can help keep a reader’s interest. It makes the content more visually appealing overall without relying on the content alone. Additionally, graphics make content easier to share on social media sites like Pinterest and Facebook that offer an image preview of the posted links.

Getting your content shared on social media takes more than luck. It takes preparation, great writing, and an interest in sharing information rather than focusing on traffic. Making the quality of the content a higher priority than getting traffic usually achieves both traffic and loyal readers.


Tapping industry players for relevant, timely content

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Improving blog traffic means hooking visitors to your blog and giving them something that will make them go back again and again. One way to do this is to providing relevant, up to date information on topics related to the general theme of your blog.

Blogs are about information; it is one of its key elements. Providing good, relevant information takes work and dedication on your part. For example, providing relevant and up to date information means knowing where to go online to get the latest news and information. To do this, a good idea will be to identify the major players in the field you are writing about and follow their own feeds. [Read more…] about Tapping industry players for relevant, timely content

Killer content is crucial to blogging traffic

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Operating a blog is not as easy as some people think. The common belief is that a blog’s success will just happen just as long as you chug along writing articles. But that is not the case; building traffic to your blog takes a lot of work. And traffic is VERY IMPORTANT. It can make or break your blog.

One of the best ways of create blog traffic is taking care of content obviously. You should ensure that the content you push from your blog is exciting and will entice your readers to actually read it. You should take the time to think up of interesting topics for your blog and then do enough research so that when you write your article what you have is an article with a lot of value added to it. [Read more…] about Killer content is crucial to blogging traffic