Content is a powerful, and often underestimated, tool you can use to attract prospects to your website. It is a valuable channel to drive and encourage converting traffic from searches, social media and blogs. Furthermore content pushes your brand in front of your channel viewers and readers bringing greater awareness of your business and product.
However, it’s not quite as simple as setting up a blog and tapping away on the keyword as all the words magically unfold in great expectation of traffic that converts on your site! You need to think about the content you are going to produce so it attracts the right kind of visitor – a converting customer! The key is relevancy. So even if you have a great blog to write about your amusing dog’s antics that has the potential to drive thousands of visitors to your website, it has no point if none of them are in the least interested in what you have to sell on your website!
Where do I start to create killer content that works?
Firstly, create your buyer’s identity – a hypothetical representation of your ideal customer based on stats about your past real customer, and the type of customer you want to visit your website that needs your product and for which you have the solution to their problem! Some data could include their demographics, careers, challenges, objectives, sports, interests and important life events. When you have gathered this information, you can start outlining your content ideas.
Finding hidden treasure ideas for your future articles:
1) Google it!
There are strings of search URLs you can use to refine your blog searches. One I like to use for identifying relevant content blogs is:
site:.co.uk inurl:blog "post a comment" "subject"
This allows you to find blogs related to your search term.
Let’s say, for example, your audience is cyclists whose biggest challenge is keeping dry when cycling through unexpected rain showers. You could search “lightweight waterproof for cycling” and the inurl:blog search string would look like this:
site:.co.uk inurl:blog "post a comment” "lightweight waterproof for cycling"
Once you have a list of relevant blogs, browse through them and find the articles to find the ones with a decent number of volumes of shares and comments and create a research folder for this article content or term. Eventually, you’ll start to see which articles generate the most interest from blogs with a similar target audience.
2) Find influencers within your industry
If you aren’t having much luck in finding blogs that have significant shares or comments, try a platform like Klout. This website allows you to search for influencers by subject, as ranked by their social media following and volume of people actively engaging with them on social networks.
When you find an influencer, visit their blog. See which articles are shared most, and check the profiles of those sharing them too – remember your buyer’s identity and make sure they are relevant to your target. Don’t forget to add to your research folder.
3) Read comments to find unique angles
I’m not suggesting that you copy articles from other blogs as it is very important you create your own original content, but reading through comments can produce great content ideas.
Very often people ask questions on forums and blogs and this presents an opportunity for you to write a blog that answers the challenge. Offer the solution to their problem! You can even make that question your article heading or a sub heading within your article!
These are just a few ideas to help you along in coming up with some smashing content that will generate targeted traffic to your website. Happy writing!
Article by Natalie Eastaugh
photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ via photopin cc