You have a brand new website and now you need to populate it with exciting and rich content to attract an audience. There are many ways to direct traffic to your website, but how do you keep people coming back for more? It’s no good for people to visit your site once and never return; you need to build a loyal following that is invested in what you have to offer.
No matter what you are offering, the success of a website lies in the number of visitors it attracts and the quality of their interaction with your content. More page views mean more potential customers or opportunities for sponsorship and collaboration.
How do you begin the process?
We work with website owners to decide what type of content will work best for their goals and budget. Written content is free (if you do it yourself) but can be a bit boring for visitors with short attention spans. Infographics often require hiring a skilled designer but users love the format as it is easy to understand and break down facts.
Pictures and videos require heavy investment in camera gear or paying for a professional photographer, but they are the preferred format for most internet users. Watching a video requires no effort on the part of the visitor, so creating short videos can be a highly successful content marketing strategy.
Getting your content out there
Once you’ve chosen your media and have uploaded a few varieties to your site, it is now time to promote your content. There are two ways to do this – paid and free – each bearing pros and cons. We normally combine both for our clients to ensure the biggest reach.
The most common forms of paid promotion:
- Google AdWords – This is Google’s own advertising campaign where you can pay to have your website featured high on Google’s search results list. The results are based on keywords that you choose, and you only pay Google when someone clicks on your link.
- Facebook ads – You can pay Facebook to boost your post to a wider, targeted audience. You choose who you are aiming to reach (age, gender, income status etc.), how much you are willing to pay and Facebook will do the rest.
- Instagram ads – Instagram offers a similar advertising solution whereby you can pay to have your Instagram images appear on peoples’ timelines. These sponsored posts show up on your target audience’s feeds, even if they don’t follow you.
Ways to promote your content for free:
- Social media – By far, the most popular way of spreading content is through social media. Posting links to your website on all of your social media channels will spread the word and drive traffic. This is a great way to build an organic following and invite open communication with your audience. Be authentic and use the right hashtags to build the right community.
- SEO – Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about making your website more visible on Google’s search results (i.e. securing a position higher up the results list). Most people only click on the first few results on the list so the goal is to have your website featured on the first page of Google, at least. Use the right keywords, make your content easy to read and craft perfect headlines and subheadings. Adding in some well-written meta tags will also help your SEO efforts.
- In-person promotion – Face-to-face and word of mouth promotion is always effective as it connects your website to the offline world. Another pro to this method is that people can now put a face and personality to the website, so they will be more willing to visit your page and see what you have to offer. Talking to friends and family is also a great way to spread the word as they can help you market your site to their extended friendship groups.
How to track your progress
A key factor in any successful content marketing strategy that we do for clients is to track the performance of their website and content. This will give insight into audience’s behaviour on the site and will allow us to make adjustments and changes where necessary.
You can use Google Analytics to track various metrics and traffic on your website, from audience growth and who they are to how they find your site and which links they click on. Google Analytics is a powerful tool with virtually endless insights on your website, down to the finest of details.
You should also track the performance of your social media posts by using the channel’s inbuilt data measurement platform – most social media channels have this option. These platforms track your followers over time, show you the engagement on each post and how many people saw it on their feeds.
You can use this analytical data to measure your conversion rate (i.e. how many people are seeing your content versus how many people are actually purchasing or using your goods and services). You can also see if people are crossing over from your website to your social media channels and vice versa.
One of the most important things in content marketing is consistency – uploading content regularly and posting it to social media on a daily or weekly basis is vital. Constant posting leads to a stronger brand identity, increased engagement and more opportunities to reach your audience.
Don’t give up if you don’t see immediate results – content marketing can take time to build a solid following, but once the audience is established, they are likely to stick around.
If you wish to partner with someone who knows how to create and apply content marketing strategies, don’t hesitate to contact us at: zani@mobimeme.com.
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Mobimeme offers content marketing, SEO, analytics, social media management and expert direction in the digital sphere. Building and growing online audiences for your business is what we do best. Get in touch with us to find out more about our package offerings and how you can improve your website and following.
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