With the number of platforms and people in the world putting out information based on what they have read or their beliefs, content can become overwhelming. There is a lot to take in and figure out which topics are of utmost concern to you. As a business, this is not any different when you are sourcing for content that can help you can distribute on different channels to help you educate and attract new customers.

Honestly, I nearly gave up, because whenever I came up with the content, I felt was best for an audience, I was met with silence after publishing. With learning, I figured out that it was simply because I was not patient enough to understand how I could take advantage of content marketing to attract customers.

The simple thought is to find ways to integrate content marketing with search engine optimization tactics to be right in front of customers. If you need help to make your website/online pages move up and enhance your SEO efforts, we have a guide on how to write seo friendly articles either as a beginner or oldie in the game.

In this article, I will be discussing 8 strategies for content marketing that can help small businesses including independent owners attract potential customers. If you have not started publishing your content somewhere, that is alright and if you have, that is great! Main thing is you are not alone, there are others like yourself.

Before we begin, the reasons you might have for using content marketing to attract customers is to:

• Grow your email list
• Lure old visitors back to your blog
• Gain new visitors to your website
• Improve engagement with quality visitors in the comments section and shares to others
• Establish a trusted brand online

To develop a strategy that will work well for you and make your content perform better,

1. Research for Ideas

This is really the first thing you need to do for any marketing strategy you want to execute online. Find the ideas others put out that appealed to the emotions of people including yourself. This is the type of content that is shared effortlessly. You want to note down content that either helped people, made them cry, laugh, be surprised etc.  Doing this consistently will ensure you have old and new visitors to your website or blog regularly.

Think through

• What do I want people to know about?
• Which content/blog posts has garnered the most attention in the past? Can I use some tips from this?
• Is this related to the service I offer or product I sell?
• Is this funny or has the potential to stir up a conversation in my industry?
• Will a video or image boost this idea?
• What length of posts resonates better with my readers?
• What day/time do my readers love to see my content?

If you do not want to spend so much time brainstorming like myself, a tool you can leverage is BuzzSumo. Start with typing your keyword, an example “website design and app development” and click the “Go” button

You will be provided with results, then you can figure out the headlines that got the most shares online. If you recognize any of the headlines that went viral, you will know that it gained attention overtime not overnight. This will always be more valuable than content that goes viral and dies down quickly.

Use the ideas for a headline to create an effective one. Here is an example

Viral headline: 8 Strategies for Creating SEO backlinks to your Website

Original headline:

• 5 Proven Strategies to Increase Website Traffic
• 10 Ways to Drive Quality Conversions on your Website

2. Try to Join the Wheel

If you have noticed, when a new trend or post is released that goes viral, a lot of other people will naturally want to get on it. You want to do the same for your content, there is no need to try and fix what is not broken. Simply find content writers, bloggers in your industry that serve as thought leaders and dominate with every piece of content they publish.

The well performing content is what you should model after, be sure to do better if you can and do not plagiarize.

3. Create Clickable and Share-worthy Headlines

This is a proven way to get the attention of a potential reader. If your headline is compelling, it will be clicked. If not, say bye to your reader who will go to a competitor’s website. The goal is to ensure a reader keeps scrolling through each line of your article, so your headline needs to do its thing once a searcher is trying to find answers to what they want.

Spark curiosity with your headlines and as a reader clicks, make it easy for them to evaluate the value of your business to what they are reading about.

4. Write Genuinely Helpful Articles

Truthfully, this requires work. However, if you do it right, your readers and Google will love you for this. Your article should address the topic deeply and the sure way to ensure you do this is by carrying out extensive research. Also, make it long but not as long as a white paper. Though, this does not mean short form content does not perform well.

I noticed that the long from content on our blog Google Ads – What is Conversion Tracking and How-to Setup did good compared to some short form content we have published.

Storytelling is the key to get this done well. This is not about selling. Use this strategy to convey emotions and experience. Go beyond advertising your products and services.

With all these, your article will be shared, and you will naturally gain new visitors to your website. You get to improve your rankings on search engines which can generate leads for your business and help you grow online rapidly.

So, you can use these tips for guidance

• Select a Category based on the services you offer.
• Create a topic that is broad and can include valuable information.
• Use long tail keywords in your headline.
• Carry out research for legit facts and opinions.
• Create interesting content that is helpful
• Link to sites with high authority
• Have a call-to-action in your article that prompts readers to do something.
• Collect useful information as a reader navigates through your article.
• If you are not the sole owner of the article, give credit to whom it is due.

5. Use Call-to-action (CTAs)

This is an important strategy in content marketing especially if your business is focused on increasing conversion rate. CTAs stand at cross-roads between bounce and conversion rates for website pages and you should aim to avoid the former. So, pay close attention to the position, shape, color, and size of your CTA.

If you are unsure about which CTA will work best, test two variants out. Here are some relevant CTAs from some websites.

Magic Spoon

Bex IT Digital Solutions

Sennep

You do not want to sound bland with your CTAs, avoid using “Download”, “Submit”, “Call”, “Buy Now”. Instead try; “Get your discount code”, “Get an Instant Quote”, “Get a free consultation”, “Save 10% off your order”.

6. Use Guest Blogging

This is an alternative means to build a blog audience and enhance your content marketing efforts. You can create unique content for relevant blogs owned by others with a good blog name, SEO, blog design and URL. Also, you want to find blogs that discuss topics that are related to your industry.

Though you can build authority links/ trust flow through guest blogging, building links should not be the most important thing. Use guest blogging to build a loyal audience not just to get links for your website and improve your search engine rankings. Let these happen naturally.

7. Use the Comment Section on Other Blogs

Yeah, you want to get engagement and a loyal audience, well you are not the only one. If you want to get visitors to your blog, you need to comment on other blog posts and allow people to do the same for you. When curating your comment, think about capturing attention, including a call-to-action, building interest and a strong desire.

You can motivate potential clients to contact you and improve search engine rankings via your comments. If your comment is good enough and gives value, people will want to know who you are and what you are about,

8. Use other Media Elements

Content is not only written articles or blog posts, but it also includes multimedia like video. Video content is the king online today. Everyone loves to watch a good one. So, adopt multimedia channels in your content marketing strategy.

Use content formats that can simplify your information. Popular multimedia channels useful for content marketing are;

• Audio and Videos: Podcasts, audiobooks, audiograms. These serve as audio content you can put out and videos to reach your target audience
• Mobile Technology: We all know that most people are searching on their mobile phones due to how portable and convenient it is to stay connected to the internet. Your website pages should be optimized for mobile phones.
• Image Slide Presentations: Some people are visual readers and enjoy using pictures or graphics to get the help they need. You can look into this option to get this segment of readers in your audience.

9. Improve Old Posts

It is possible to keep creating new content and forget that you can optimize old posts with new ideas and new keywords you find that are useful for your business. Whenever I do a search, find the top 5/10/15/25 article posts, and add to this list using valuable information of course.

I just discovered this tip and implementing it. This post you are reading is one example. These tips are helpful:

• Type your desired keyword in the search bar with the suffix + “Top 10”
• Assess your results by reading through each content carefully so you can write or create a better article, respectively.
• Craft a better headline.
• Get factual data and opinions that are valuable.
• Write a longer article than the post(s) you discovered. Make it Top 15, Top 25 etc.
• Include relevant images with high quality.
• Link to sites with high authority.
• Use lists or bullet points to organize information.
• Collect useful information such as emails as a reader navigates through your article.
• Have a call-to-action

Find ways to repurpose your content. I am a firm believer that no valuable content is wasted.

10. Leverage Current Trends

Something new happens every day, it is either an update on an app,algorithm or a crisis.

You find that people complain about this, you should not join the crowd. Rather, take advantage and create content that centres around this and is beneficial to your audience. If you are amongst the first few to talk on a new topic, you will gain traffic instantly.

So, find ways to stay-up-to date. Either it is signing up to a newsletter for an industry expert, conferences, zoom webinars, seminars and more. These are some that have been helpful to me- Techcabal, Techcrunch, Nielpatel, Thebusinessaim, Search Engine Land.

Let’s wrap this up!

With content marketing, the bottleneck most people have is trying so hard to generate search traffic and attract customers. Well, if you offer helpful tips to make people lives easier along with a great service, your audience will naturally tell everyone they can about you.

This will make your content marketing efforts to improve and bring desirable results. Simply create what your potential customers, clients love, and they will help you achieve your online business goals.