How to Develop the Best Content Marketing Plan
Does your business lack in the content marketing department? Here are ways to develop the best content marketing plan for great results.
The race towards bigger and brighter content online is more challenging than ever. Social sharing dropped by a staggering 50 % since 2015.
So how well is your content marketing plan working?
A solid plan is crucial in today’s online marketing era. What worked in 2016 won’t cut it anymore.
The bad news is you can no longer post a decent article or video and expect traffic to flow like wine. “Build it and they will come” no longer applies.
But the great news is calming: this means less competition at the top for those willing and able to do the work.
I’ve put together the top things you can do to stand out in the noisy online world. Content is king, and the right content marketing plan is its queen.
The great tidbit is that Google provides a lot of the tools you need to succeed.
Google Tools Are Your Allies
The first step to devising an effective content marketing plan is knowing which keywords to use. You need to determine how your site’s content ranks on Google. Does it bring you traffic and conversions?
To get this information, use Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner.
Let’s begin with Google Analytics. By using its Landing Pages report, you’ll see how your site’s pages are performing based on the clicks, conversions, impressions and the average position they’ve garnered from search results.
Don’t stop at using Google Analytics for these data, however. This tool doesn’t provide the precise ranking of each page. To get an even more exact ranking data, check out tools such as SEMrush, SERPstat, SpyFu, and Searchmetrics.
The next essential tool you’ll need is the Google Keyword Planner, the best tool to research keyword ideas for your site. Input the type of product or service you sell and the Keyword Planner will offer you a list of suggestions, along with important data to go with the suggestions. These include the number of monthly searches per keyword so you get an idea of its popularity.
Using these two tools to determine the keywords to target will reward your efforts in a huge way. 70 % of customers conduct research using their phones, tablets or laptops before making a purchase.
Never Ignore Your Competition
You’ve done your keyword homework, what’s next? It’s now time to zone in on the right keywords to crank up your SEO game.
Narrowing down on the best keywords is one of the most crucial steps in designing your content marketing plan. Your future articles, along with other content such as video and audio, will depend on these keywords.
But how do you narrow down when the Keyword Planner offers dozens and dozens of keyword suggestions? The answer lies in your competition.
Tap into the Keyword Planner’s data and popular SEO tools such as SEMrush’s Keyword Difficulty to see what you’re up against. The goal is to find out how challenging it is to promote your content based on your competitors’ efforts.
You’ll know which keywords are easy or difficult to target based on certain data. These include the number of people who search these keywords, how many links point back to your competitors’ domains, and how these keywords perform on actual search engine results.
Take note of the number of domains linking back to your competition. This will tell you how many domains linking back to your own site you need to topple your competitors off the SERP.
Quality Trumps Link Quantity
Not all links are equal. To paraphrase George Orwell’s famous line from Animal Farm, “Some links are better than others.”
What do I mean? Focus on the quality of links pointing back to your site, not the quantity. Gone are the days when you can simply spam the comment section of any website to increase the number of sites linking back to your own.
Google knows everything. And this includes the quality of websites and how relevant they are to your content. Thanks to Google Penguin, the search engine giant currently employs an algorithm and human reviewers to find out which links are artificial and manipulated.
When you’re devising your content marketing plan, there are actionable tips that are effective in the long-term. Networking with other content-creators within your industry is one amazing way to garner quality links. Offer to write guest posts, attend real-life networking events, and provide very high-quality content.
Original content that instructs and offers great value will have a huge chance of getting quoted by other websites within your niche. Using the keyword data you’ve farmed, brainstorm topics to cover. Next, work extra hard on producing content people will want to share.
Without a doubt, this strategy trumps spamming other websites any day.
Know Your Audience
Not all links are equal, and this applies to your audience as well. What works for millennials won’t probably work for baby boomers.
Ask yourself, who do I want to reach? Know their age, gender, hobbies, online habits and more. This is very important in devising your content marketing plan.
Let’s say you’re marketing to book-lovers. Chances are high you’ll have to produce well-written posts, posts that are more eloquent than the average articles floating around in cyberspace.
If you’re marketing to young gamers, it’s quite likely a colorful and high-energy video will catch their attention more than a magical piece of prose composed of 3,000 words.
Is your business new? Do you need help in figuring out who your customer is? You can use a startup checklist to move in the right direction.
Your 2018 Content Marketing Plan
A content plan is mandatory. It’s the only way to set yourself apart from the competition and garner the attention of your target market.
Not only will a specific plan work wonders for your site traffic, it means less anxiety on your end. The plan will help you steer the ship towards the right direction, allowing you to focus on the parts of the business that require your expertise.
I offer consultation services to help you achieve your online marketing goals. Get in touch and let’s get you on the road to Internet success.
