The best digital marketing campaigns are fueled by specialized, high-quality content. After all, you have to share information with your audience in order to nurture them, educate them, and convince them to buy from you.

And you’ll need more content than you might think. Digital marketing campaigns require constant testing and iterating so you can see what will produce the best results. There are only so many things you can change about the tactics you’re using, so most of the time, what you’re testing and tweaking are messaging, different versions of content, and different formats of content. So to do all that testing and really execute on a long-term strategic digital marketing campaign, you’re going to need a lot of content.

Not sure where to start? Let’s dive into the subsections of a digital marketing strategy and how you can use content to fuel them.

What Subsections Should Your Digital Marketing Strategy Include?

Before you can add content to your digital marketing mix in a strategic way, you need to understand how content can be used in tandem with the different segments of your marketing machine.

Your digital marketing strategy is made up of many (if not all) of these pieces:

• Video marketing: This strategy employs written content in the form of scripts, as well as copy that’s used to introduce videos, share them across social and in emails, and more.

• Paid marketing: Not only do your paid promotions contain copy, but you’ll also need high-quality on-site content to direct people to from your paid ads.

• SEO: On-site written content, guest-contributed content that includes banklinks, and PR content can rank for keywords in search results so people are more likely to find and trust your brand.

• Amazon marketing: This tactic involves a collection of product descriptions and written product reviews that help convince people to buy from you.

• Social media: Your social channels require a regularly updated feed full of unique posts, image captions, and links to more in-depth on-site content.

• Web design and development: Your website is home to many kinds of content, from gated whitepapers to blog posts to evergreen pieces to the content that helps visitors navigate around the site.

• Email marketing: Emails include copy, and they offer you the opportunity to compile other pieces of content that can be shared directly with your audience so they can take action in their own time and be nurtured closer to becoming a customer.

• Conversion rate optimization: You can host different offer options on your landing pages to see what pieces of content are most valuable to visitors and have the best conversion rates.

• Influencer marketing: Unique pieces of your content on your site can be shared by trusted voices in your marketplace. You might also need to create educational resources to help influencers understand your brand.

As you can see, all subsections require content and use it in different ways to connect your audience members with your brand. Touch on most of these subsections with your content strategy and you’ll have an operational digital marketing ecosystem. But what about when you want to go further? How can you inject more content into your strategy to boost your overall performance?

Sample Strategy: How You Can Use Content to Fuel Your Digital Marketing

Let’s say your company is a B2B software-as-a-service startup. You have an operational digital marketing strategy, but your next goal is to generate more marketing-qualified leads.

To achieve this goal, your team is already trying a few things. You’re running Facebook ads that direct people to your homepage. You’re working with an SEO firm to fix some technical issues on your site and improve search rankings. You also have a 2,000-strong email list at the ready, but you’re not sure how to make the best use of it.

So where can you add content to your marketing strategy to augment what you already have and expedite your results?

Here’s a recipe for success:

• 4 landing pages: Create a selection of landing pages that you can use to test different offers and word choices. With four possible landing pages, you can direct your Facebook ads four different ways, experimenting with which kinds of messaging will lead to the best conversion rates.

• 4 monthly blog posts: You can boost your content strategy by establishing a regular cadence of publishing blog posts. Create four blog posts per month that are optimized for the keywords you want to rank for.

• 1 monthly guest-contributed article: Guest posts can distribute your content to new audiences and bring more qualified traffic back to your site. Creating one guest post per month can earn you valuable backlinks to boost SEO and potentially drive more traffic to those blog posts and landing pages you created.

• 1 quarterly press campaign: A press campaign brings multiple messages together in a coherent story and earns press mentions that hopefully include backlinks to aid SEO.

• 1 monthly email newsletter: Start using that email list for what it’s worth. Send out a monthly “hello” that incorporates other relevant pieces of your content, such as links to some of those blog posts or a snippet of your most recent guest-contributed article.

• 1 quarterly piece of gated content: Gated content is high-value and offers leads the chance to learn a lot in exchange for their email address. These pieces of content — such as infographics or whitepapers — can also be tested to see what information is most compelling for your audience.

Is content writing part of digital marketing? Absolutely; you can’t do one without the other. Any talk of content strategy vs. digital strategy in your office will be misleading and is likely to shortchange both strategies in the long run. Your digital marketing strategy can be fueled and fed by content; you just need to understand how the subsections of your digital strategy work together.

The post Why Content Is the Fuel for Your Digital Marketing Engine appeared first on SiteProNews.

So, how does one get started writing guest pieces? While there are a number of ways one can succeed at guest writing, here are some tips for mastering the art of the guest piece.

It All Starts with the Perfect Pitch

In order for journalists and publications to gain interest in your brand or company, you will have to pitch the idea of your guest piece to them first. To best find outlets that align with what your business provides, a simple Google search of  “subject matter or keyword + contributor” can help you find a wealth of resources. For example, if you run an organic skincare company, you may Google “organic skin care + contributor” to find outlets that have written about organic skin care or wellness in the past. 

Crafting and sending a well-written pitch specific to your subject matter expertise to your target outlet(s) can open the door for guest pieces that inform, entertain, or lead people to your site and services. You want your pitch to hold the reader’s interest and show off your writing skills. Even if you don’t consider yourself the best writer, you can still craft sound guest pieces that get the job done.

Your pitch’s tone should come off as professional and cordial. Research your target outlet first to find out what kind of pieces they typically publish, get a sense of their approach and tone, and discover their parameters for submissions. 

You don’t want to waste time submitting pitches to an outlet that does not publish content specific to your services or product. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the outlet to say yes to your pitch.

Perfecting Your Content 

When pitching an outlet, you should already have an idea of what content you would like to present in your piece. The topic you choose should be relevant to your product offerings or services. 

Once your pitch is accepted, you will then have to write your article. The outlet should provide you with some parameters for structuring your piece, which should help you along the way, especially if you are new to article writing. They will typically let you know how long the article should be, how to break up paragraphs, and what information, keywords, or backlinks they would like included. Outlets should also let you know how promotional (or non-promotional) they want you to be.

Above all else, remember to focus on making your content compelling — you want to write something people will want to read and ultimately share. Your primary goal is engagement and getting your name out into the world, so serving up good content is a stepping stone in the right direction toward reaching that goal. 

Make sure that any claims that you make are given correct sources, and that quotes are properly cited. While it should go without saying, don’t ever plagiarize any of the content in your guest piece. Many outlets will want a guarantee that content is theirs and theirs alone to publish, so you won’t be able to simply send them a previously-published article and call it day.

Keywords and SEO

One of the main reasons outlets want guest pieces is to help with their own search engine optimization (SEO). Learning how to leverage the most appropriate and highest-ranked keywords and backlinks for SEO purposes can be challenging at first, but once you learn how to best use these tools they can be invaluable for marketing. Additionally, many outlets will provide you with direction on keywords and backlinks for SEO purposes. 

For outlets that have issues with overly promotional content, craftily using keywords and backlinks can still make these guest pieces beneficial for your company or role as a subject matter expert, even without specifically naming your brand. Having your name as a byline and a bio that tells who you are and where you are from are all great ways to direct traffic back to your business.

Actionable Content 

Most outlets want any content that they publish to be ultimately useful and actionable for their readers. They want an engaged readership that is going to share content and, hopefully, help that content go viral — depending on the subject matter. 

While there is no guarantee that every pitch you submit will be accepted, once one is, you will soon see the benefit of getting your voice heard in an industry-aligned outlet. If you can dedicate yourself to crafting compelling, actionable, and shareable content, you will reap the rewards of increased engagement and more profit for your business.

The post Tips for Writing Guest Pieces appeared first on SiteProNews.

Research Keywords

In order to rank higher in Google, your articles need keywords. Keywords are search terms that will be found in the text of your post. If you have more keywords than other posts, then you are more likely to rank higher.

Keyword research is a key component in search engine optimization and provides valuable insights into what people are looking for on the web. There are many keyword research tools out there and they all serve different purposes depending on how much time and effort you want to put into it.

Write Well

In order to rank high on search engines, you need to find keywords that are relevant and are searched by many people. You need your content to be highly relevant for these keywords but also make sense for the context of the page. It is important that you use the keyword enough times throughout your content without overusing it because this will make it seem like spam.

Focus on Original Content

One of the ways you can improve your article ranking on Google is by providing original content. If you have a blog, take time to research and write about topics that are relevant for your audience. You will want to make sure that you spend enough time researching the topic before publishing it. You also want to make sure that you do not plagiarize any material from other sources because this could cause Google’s algorithm to penalize your page rank.

It takes time and effort but if done correctly, the original content will lead an increase in clicks and views over time which will eventually lead an increase in traffic and rankings on search engines.

Include a Title and Meta Description

If you are a blogger and you want to rank better in search engine results, the first thing you should do is create an optimized title. This will help your post stand out from the rest.

The next step is adding a meta description. It’s one of the snippets that shows up below your title on the search engine result pages (SERP). It should be between 150-160 characters and it should summarize what your post is about without giving away any spoilers.

Read the Articles You Link To

Reading these articles will help you get a better understanding of how the ranking algorithm works and what you can do to improve your ranking. This is especially helpful if your goal is to rank for an important keyword. If that’s not your goal, then there are other ways you can make sure people find your content. Make sure to include your keywords in both the title and in the first sentence or two of your post. These first few words are often used by search engines when determining which posts appear at the top of search results pages, so it’s important that they reflect what people would be searching for on Google.

The length of time a blog post has been up also affecting its rankings, with newer posts generally getting higher rankings than older ones. That means if you have an old post with good information on it but low rankings, try refreshing it by adding new information or commentary on what’s changed since it was first published. And finally, make sure to link back to relevant posts within your own blog whenever possible!

Add Backlinks

The first step is to find blogs in your niche and see if they accept guest posts. If you find a blog that accepts guest articles, the next step is to create a compelling title for your post. Try including keywords that your target audience might use when searching for information on the topic you’re writing about. Once you have an engaging title, write a compelling introduction paragraph and include a summary at the end of your post with links back to other articles on your site.

Use SEO Tools

If you’re looking to improve your ranking, it can help to use some SEO tools. There are many free ones that you can use on your own time and at your own leisure. One such tool is Moz’s Open Site Explorer, which allows for a more in-depth analysis of the competition and how well you are doing against them.

Be Consistent

The best way to improve your ranking is to be consistent. If you are writing daily, even if the content is not as high quality, it will build up over time and make a difference in the long run. Consistency also helps you stay motivated.

Conclusion

You have written an article, and now you want to know how to improve your article ranking on the search engine result pages (SERPs). Well, there are plenty of tips and tricks out there that can help you achieve your goal, but the most basic one remains: the more people link back to your article and tell other people about it, the higher it will be ranked in the SERPs.

The post How to Improve Your Article Ranking – The Beginners Guide appeared first on SiteProNews.

The Importance of Content Marketing

Content marketing, when done right, is a great way to build trust and engage your customers. Whether it’s blog posts, videos, infographics, or long-form content, a successful content marketing strategy can lead to long-term business growth.

No matter what stage a potential customer is at in the buyer’s journey, content marketing is vital. It can help increase web traffic, generate leads, and help convert those leads during the decision stage.

By providing relevant and valuable content that helps solve your customer’s pain points, you can form connections that were never previously possible with traditional marketing. Tailoring your content and experiences, as part of an inbound marketing campaign, helps provide even greater value.

As well as being extremely important for your customers, content is one of Google’s top-ranking factors. Not only will you be helping to give value to your customers, but a successful content marketing strategy will help your search engine rankings too!

74% of businesses experienced an increase in the quantity and quality of generated leads. Through successful content marketing, your business could be achieving 27% higher win rates and 18% higher quota attainment.

But with 82% of marketers using content marketing, there’s no room for making mistakes. To be successful, you need to get it right. Otherwise, you risk resulting in low traffic, fewer quality leads, and unengaged customers that may go to your competitors instead.

If you are just starting out, or finding your content marketing efforts haven’t had much success, here are some common mistakes where you could be going wrong and how to avoid them.

Content Marketing Mistakes

1. Not Knowing Your Customers

One of the most common content marketing mistakes is developing content without knowing who your customers are. How can you know whether you are addressing your customer’s pain points if you don’t know what those pain points are?

Now knowing who your customers are and who you are creating each piece of content for, can lead you into the trap of churning out material that means nothing to your customers. It’s a mistake made all too often, with 55% of customers receiving content from brands that are not relevant to them.

The solution is to develop your buyer personas. A semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer, a buyer persona will provide you with important details about your customer’s goals and challenges, their online habits, and traits such as behavioural and demographic.

To obtain this information, you’ll need to do some research. Using your analytics and information about your customers, combined with surveys, will give you all the information you need to tailor content and avoid creating content that doesn’t appeal.

Use HubSpot’s Make My Persona tool to get you started

2. Not Having a Clear Content Marketing Strategy or Goals

What do you want to achieve with your content marketing? If you can’t answer that question, you’re potentially making another mistake.

Not creating a clear strategy is like entering a dark cave without a torch. You won’t have a clue where you’re going. Simply coming up with ideas ad hoc is not an effective way to do content marketing.

You should always base your content marketing strategy on data. Data is the key to success. No content marketing strategy should be based on your gut instinct, but on the insights you gain through your data from previous interactions and feedback.

Once you have gained insights from your current data, you can start to craft goals for what you want to achieve with your content marketing strategy. These should be SMART; specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timebound, for greater clarity and focus.

You also need to regularly check and review the performance of your campaign. By doing this you can find out which content items performed well and which didn’t. You’ll also be able to see if you reached your goals and calculate your return on investment.

3. Creating Content That’s Too Promotional or Sales Focused

Another content marketing mistake is being too promotional and trying to push sales of your product or service. Trying to sell something every time you publish a new piece of content is a big mistake and a bore for your target audience.

Apart from the fact you are not providing relevant and valuable content, people have become very clever at blocking out promotional messages. Pushing content to directly increase sales is obvious and often has an adverse effect.

When you develop content don’t think about what your business can get out of it. Instead, think about what your potential customers can get out of it.

The golden rule here is always to consider how the piece of content you are developing will help your customer. If you can’t answer that question, you need to reconsider. Promotional or sales content is advertising, and that doesn’t give value to your customers.

The 80-20 rule is good here. Consider posting 80% of content that is helpful and useful to your potential customers, while 20% openly promotes or publicises your business. That way, you don’t run the risk of putting people off.

4. Not Developing Content for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

Another content marketing mistake you could be making is not creating content for each stage of the buyer’s journey.

You may be creating content that does a great job of increasing awareness and attracting potential leads, but then failing to create content that moves these leads further along the sales funnel. Without continuing to provide content that nurtures these leads, you’ll fall by the wayside.

To avoid making this mistake, consider these content options at each stage of the buyer’s journey:

Awareness

• Blogs
• Videos
• Guides and eBooks
• Interactive social media posts

Consideration

• Email
• Newsletters
• Podcast
• Whitepapers

Decision

• Testimonials
• Product comparisons
• Case studies
• Product literature

5. Using the Same Form of Content

Is your business putting out a new blog post every few months or updating social media once a week? If so, you are making another content marketing mistake. The content you develop should range between written, image, and audio based.

There are so many different forms of content that extend beyond just posting a new blog post or updating social media with a standard post. Many businesses make the mistake of thinking content marketing is all about updating a blog when there are many other avenues to pursue.

Blogs are a great way to drive organic traffic and boost your SEO, but it’s not the be-all and end-all. We’ve all probably created a blog post about something that may have worked better as a video or infographic.

When developing content, you should consider the range of types available:

• Blog posts
• Whitepapers
• Guides and e-books
• Videos (both short-form and long-form)
• Infographics
• Case studies
• Images and GIFs
• Podcasts
• Interactive social media posts
• User-generated content

Think about the different content forms when planning your next piece of content and try something new.

Creating a successful content marketing strategy is not easy and will take time to get right. But being aware of some easy content marketing mistakes and how to avoid them can get you on the right path.

Check out a step-by-step guide to developing a content marketing strategy

The post 5 Easy Content Marketing Mistakes and How To Avoid Them appeared first on SiteProNews.

1. Use the Power of Videos

Reading a wall of text can sometimes be boring, especially if it’s not the first article the customer reads that day. Longer pieces can take a lot of time to process, especially if they are filled with important information. One of the strategies that will substantially improve your blog is turning content into videos and posting them on a YouTube account.

New businesses need blogs with videos because they save time for your readers. Instead of reading for 10-15 minutes, they can put on their earphones and listen to your content while doing something else. Furthermore, a video is more engaging and interesting than an article.

2. Upgrade Your Old Content

If we look at how blogs function, it is virtually impossible that all of your content will be evergreen. Some articles will go out of date because everything constantly changes.

A good approach would be to update your old articles with new information. If someone opens an article from 2018, they will not close it and look for something more recent.

A clever way to do this is to create a redirect link to a newer post at the top of your old one. This will show your customers that you care about every piece of information on your blog. Still, have in mind that one of the reasons for not receiving traffic on your blog is posting duplicate content. This strategy could be treated as such. When doing this, you need to clarify that the new post is better and more valuable than the old one.

3. Use LinkedIn

LinkedIn is most definitely the largest professional network today. With over 750 million users, it represents a source of valuable business connections. It should be, by far, your best social media platform for blog advertising.

One of the reasons LinkedIn is so much better than the rest is that people who use it are always on the lookout for new information. Your posts will gain visibility much quicker than on other platforms.

4. Guest Posting

Guest posting is one of the older strategies that still work. Finding professional writers to write for your blog is an excellent way to build a network of valuable connections. Furthermore, you can also get a lot of quality content.

Just how other people can write for your blog, you can write for others. If you have a niche where you excel, use that to your benefit. Create content for other blogs, and advertise your blog with their permission.

5. Focus on Data-Driven Content

The process of content creation has completely changed over the past 10 to 15 years. Customers are the driving force and the source of all the information. Data-driven content is created by doing customer surveys and polls and collecting valuable information about their shopping habits, demographics, requirements, and so on.

The main goal of data-driven content is to create returning customers. This is what your blog should consist of. Each piece of information you create should have a purpose.

6. A Simple Newsletter Still Works

Once you start producing high-quality, data-driven content, the best way to let your readers know about it is through a newsletter. People still use emails, and they are needed everywhere.

Work on the design, make it simple and get straight to the point. People don’t have time to waste. That means you need to quickly grab their attention.

7. Speak to the Customers In-Person

This might be a bit more difficult to accomplish, but it can drive great results. Speaking at events or running a podcast is an excellent way to connect with your customers on a personal level. You can share the information directly and give a face and a personality to your blog.

Unfortunately, blogs may feel like spam websites because there are millions of them. You need a wild card to help you stand out in the crowd.

Starting with a podcast is a good approach. You can find guest speakers, lead interesting conversations, and even include audience calls. In this age, when information is the most valuable asset, we need to find engaging and interactive ways to share it.

A Few Blogging Tips to Have In Mind

Here are a couple of bonus tips to help improve your blog. Look at these as best practices for quickly grabbing readers’ attention:

• You need a powerful title. A title represents about 90% of the first impression.
• Get straight to the point. Do not waste your readers’ time by talking about unnecessary topics.
• Avoid creating walls of text. A well-placed image will break the boredom of an article and bring some color and personality to it.
• Carefully choose the images you will use. Even though many blogs resort to free commercial photos, custom images are always a better option.

If you follow these simple steps, your content will advertise the blog for you. People want quality, and they will gladly spend their time on your blog if they get something valuable in return.

Use New Strategies for Promoting Your Blog and Connect

Hopefully, now you know what it takes to successfully advertise your blog. However, remember that these new strategies for promoting your blog will not bring results unless you know who your readers are. Research your readers, and learn about them as much as possible. Let this be your key takeaway for today! Once you get that done, everything else will be a lot easier. Best of luck!

The post 7 New Strategies for Promoting Your Blog appeared first on SiteProNews.

That said, what’s in it for the host? Should you allow guest posts on your blog?

How Does Guest Blogging Benefit the Host Site?

The common practice of guest blogging is a system of equivalent exchange: You submit high-quality and original content to another site, and you get a backlink in return.

The one who submits content gets a quality backlink and exposure to the host site’s audience, while the host site gets fresh and original content.

Allowing guest posts can have other advantages, such as:

• It’s an opportunity to publish content from other industry and niche experts.
• You can provide your audience with a different perspective.
• You can build a relationship with other reputable sites and companies.
• You reduce the content you have to create for your blog.

In some cases, bloggers open for guest post submissions when they encounter changes that can potentially affect their writing schedules, like a company expansion, a rebrand, or traveling.

Why Do You Need to Screen Submissions?

If you’ve pitched a few ideas and manuscripts before, you might notice that some sites are quite strict with their submissions.

That’s because host sites also stand to lose and gain something from the exchange.

In most cases, allowing guest posts will get you a lot of submissions. Since it’s a well-known SEO strategy, people are always looking for sites willing to host content and give them backlinks. However, not all of those submissions will be high-quality, original, or relevant to your blog’s theme or content. Additionally, not every author is going to be qualified.

Remember, content and backlink quality are SEO ranking factors. This means hosts can’t publish low-quality content and link to low-quality sites. So you can’t just accept every submission that comes through.

This means you need to look out for two crucial things:

1. Submission Quality

The guest post itself should be high-quality. It needs to be relevant, original, well-written, and proofread. It needs to be free of rookie errors like spelling mistakes and bad grammar.

2. Backlink Quality

Since you’re getting content, you need to give backlinks in return. However, you don’t want to link to low-quality sites. Watch out for spam, duplicates, and plagiarized content.

3 Ways to Screen Your Guest Post Submissions

When it comes to submissions, you must have a system to check the content, the author, and their website.

Here are some tips to help you create a streamlined and effective screening process:

1. Have A Clear Guest Post Guideline

Screening guest posts can be a lot of work, but it’s only the first step to publishing guest posts. You still need to review, edit, and reformat them before they go live on your blog. However, restricting possible irrelevant content from the start should help reduce the emails and submissions you have to go through.

Since guest posts are a viable marketing tool, a lot of people are eager to get their manuscripts published. However, you don’t want to get gardening and maintenance articles clogging your emails if you’re running a digital marketing blog.

So, be clear about what you want from guest blogs and make sure they’re accessible through your website.

Here are a few crucial things you need to include in your guidelines:

• Allowable topics, themes, and content
• Minimum and maximum word count
• Acceptable document files (i.e., .docx, HTML, etc.)
• Desired writing styles (i.e., the tone, formatting, and delivery of your ideal submission)
• Details you want to be included in the pitch (i.e., author details, links, previous work, etc.)
• Submission instructions (i.e., links to forms, emails, attachments, etc.)

In short, be very detailed about what you want from the submissions. For example, if you need author headshots, brief bios, links, attached images, or other specific details, make sure to include them all in your guidelines.

If you’re getting a large volume of submissions, you can also include your estimated turnaround time. Some guidelines are even frank enough to say they’ll ignore and won’t reply to pitches they don’t like.

2. Ask for Title and Outline Pitches

Manuscripts can range from 500-3000 words. They not only take so much time for authors to write, but it’s a lot for you (or your editors) to read through.

One way to make it easy for both parties is to only allow title and outline pitches. This will enable you to look at the crucial parts of the pitch without going through the entire 1000-word manuscript. In most cases, the title and summary are enough to give you an idea of what the content will be.

Of course, don’t forget to look at the author’s website and do some research on their past writing ventures. An applicant or author’s credentials can hint at the quality of writing to expect. Fortunately, most authors will try to layout their qualifications, as they’re trying to convince you that they’re a reputable source who will deliver a great guest post.

Finally, make sure you set deadlines. Asking for titles and outline submissions means that the applicant doesn’t have to write anything until you’ve approved their pitches. Setting reasonable deadlines makes sure your publishing schedule is unimpeded.

3. Use Online Forms

Some hosts prefer that submissions are directly emailed to their editors. However, using forms can make it easier to sort data that are being submitted.

You can ask people to submit the title, summary, and outline along with an attached manuscript. Then, you and your editors can just look through the titles and weed out irrelevant content. On the other hand, if a title or summary sounds fantastic, you can immediately open the attachment and review the manuscript.

Additionally, you can also ask authors to fill in information about themselves. Ask for their names, website, a brief summary of their qualifications, as well as links to previously-published content. This will allow you to see whether it’s worth linking to their websites.

If their company or products are associated with thin content, plagiarism, link farms, or spam, it’s best to steer clear of them.

Bottom-Line

Like most SEO experts would tell you, your content should always prioritize “quality over quantity.” So even if you’re not getting as many submissions as popular sites, you still need to make sure your guest posts benefit your website’s SEO.

Otherwise, you’ll end up publishing spam and low-quality content, which can start to affect your rankings.

The post How to Screen Guest Post Submissions for Your Blog appeared first on SiteProNews.

In a nutshell, more traffic simply means more profit. If you have already learned to direct website traffic where you need it the most, the next thing you should ask yourself is how you can increase that traffic and keep on looking for new ways to perpetually attract website traffic.

Because this is so essential for every business person we bring you this article to give you some tips and some surefire strategies to direct website traffic to the pages that matter the most. 

This should be one of the core processes of your company and you really don’t want to be left behind or miss out on some easy pickings if at all possible. 

If the methods you are using don’t give you the results you are expecting then it’s time for you to start thinking of other ways to attract website traffic and you really should have started yesterday.

Blogging

Running a blog is definitely a powerful strategy for generating traffic to your website. On your blog, you will be able to talk about your website’s products and services, and also add some links to your website. It is also possible to respond to any queries that your prospective customers and buyers could possibly have. 

By blogging on a regular basis, you will have new content that can get your website indexed by search engines and also rank highly on these search engines. As a result, your website traffic will greatly improve.

Use WordPress recommended hosting provider Bluehost to host your website. This list of Bluehost pricing and plans can help you to get the best deal for yourself.

Start your own forum

Start a discussion board or a forum related to the products or services you promote on your website. Having a discussion board on your specific niche market, you become established as an expert in your subject matter. 

Simply by responding to queries or concerns and assisting people in your specific niche market on your own discussion board, you direct traffic to your website due to the fact that your website link is posted as part of your signature on the discussion board.

Publish your own e-newsletter

Having your very own e-newsletter where you can regularly offer no-cost ideas or tips and content can help increase your website traffic. Your own e-newsletter will have your website links posted on it, so those people who will read your e-newsletter will likely go to your website.

Trade links

Trade links with websites that have high popularity (PR) rank. Almost all you have to do is to locate websites that are related to whatever you offer on your website and trade website links with these sites. 

This really is a powerful strategy if the website possesses a high popularity rank on search engines. As a result, you will have traffic generation on your website through the sites you are linked with.

Give some freebies to your audience

Offer no-cost reports and content material. Handing out a few giveaways and including your website link within those giveaways is an efficient and affordable strategy for generating traffic to your website. 

You can write a few valuable short reports with your website link in them and give those reports at no cost on a website in which you request people to leave their email address prior to downloading the no-cost report, articles, or blog posts. 

Article Marketing

Articles enable you to turn into an expert in your specific niche market. By means of writing excellent and educational articles or blog posts within your specialized niche, you then become an expert. Additionally, you develop trust and confidence in your prospective customers. As an expert, customers will certainly feel comfortable purchasing from you and this also increases your sales and online business profits.

It’s an inexpensive method of website traffic generation. You can write your own articles or blog posts or you can seek the services of a freelance writer to write a number of articles or blog posts for you, and this is not very costly. 

You can then publish your articles or blog posts to numerous directories. There are several tools that can be used to automatically publish your articles to numerous directories and will increase the number of inbound links pointing back to your website.

Great Graphics and Web Design

An added attraction can be a good design and excellent graphics for your website. Providing an interactive capability ensures that your website can be used to communicate with visitors. 

Not only is this a clever marketing ploy, but also a way of receiving opinions/suggestions from people who wish to leave messages on your website. 

Web hosting providers provide a collection of free tools that can be used for setting up this kind of interactive capability. Setting up links across the website will certainly help increase website traffic. 

Constant participation in online community forums can also help you to show your interest in others and thereby show-case your own interest.

Paid Advertising

Generating free website traffic is not the only way to increase visitors to the site. You can also buy web traffic to drive people to your site. Whether you buy traffic or get it for free, you need to target the traffic effectively in order to be successful. 

If your website is not successful and is not able to get visitors, you will unnecessarily waste bandwidth and Web Hosting space. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to buy web traffic to benefit you in the long run. The consultants or firms from whom you buy traffic are experts in that and ensure that you get great results! 

If your website features a lot of videos, you can increase video traffic by advertising these videos properly. People are extremely fascinated by unique and interesting videos; therefore, providing interesting videos can increase video traffic and thereby website traffic to your website.

On-Page SEO

On-page search engine optimization is the first and foremost step to getting online traffic for free and as such it is critical. You really want to do this properly because if your on-page search engine optimization is messed up, then the free website traffic generator will be rendered useless. Even if it means outsourcing the task, it can be well worth it. 

On-page search engine marketing mainly deals with the meta tags, header tags, page description, and proper use and placement of keywords. Failing to do so has great consequences in the search engines and can waste all your effort.

Use tools such as Semrush to increase your online visibility. Activate a Semrush free trial and use the tool worth $119.95 for free.

Off-Page SEO

A free website traffic generator will really start to draw in some serious, targeted online traffic once you do off-page SEO. This is a critical extension of on-page search engine marketing as you attempt to gain web traffic successfully and that’s why it shouldn’t be missed.

Off-page search engine optimization involves commenting on blogs and forums, marketing articles and videos, document sharing, social bookmarking, social media marketing, press releases, podcasts, RSS feeds, and other efforts associated with getting as many one-way backlinks to your website as feasible.

Keep your website up to date

You need the data on your website to be current and relevant. This means writing material that won’t get dated or adding items constantly to keep it fresh. Both strategies are actually a good idea because you want to have return traffic as well as newer customers. 

The best strategy to keep visitors coming back is to continually update the site news so that there is always something new to read each time.

Posting on sharing sites

Articles on sites that are focused on revenue-sharing are also great for marketing and directing website traffic. Your articles are included in a roster of search engine results, which consequently improve your site statistics. 

You can create numerous links to your website in the articles posted on these sites and therefore increase the possibility of people being redirected to your page. Moreover, your articles are protected in that other writers cannot gain permission to duplicate or syndicate your material. 

This is because some of the income from the ad banners posted on the sharing sites will be given to you. Definitely, you would have to be the legitimate owner of the article.

Conclusion

Learning to attract website traffic is not an exact science because every niche has different preferences and different requirements. 

Therefore, care should be given in fostering any of these methods so that when you take the extra time to actually learn to direct website traffic properly it will reward you by continuing for months or years into the future.

The post Best Ways to Increase Your Website Traffic for Making More Sales appeared first on SiteProNews.

No matter how amazing your content is, it won’t get the attention it deserves if you don’t invest time and energy in letting people (as many of them as possible) know it exists.

There are literally dozens of ways you can promote your content online, but here I’ll focus on just one and show you how you can leverage different tactics to get the most out of it. I’m talking about outreach – a proven, highly effective way to get more traffic and more engagement for your content.

You could be reaching out to influencers, relevant blogs, business partners, potential or existing customers – anyone who has the power to give your content that extra push by exposing it to new audiences.

If your content is good and offers real value, outreach will not only amplify its reach but also generate new leads for your business.

It’s important to note here that “value” is in the eye of the beholder. You first need to make sure your content is valuable and relevant not only to your target audience but also to the people you’re reaching out to. Trust me, this will make all the difference in the results you’re getting.

Now, let’s see how you can leverage outreach to gain traction with your content.

1. Build a List Before You Publish Your Content

The key to a well-performing outreach is finding influential people who are a good fit for your brand and the type of content you’re promoting. Depending on your “ask,” you’ll look for people who either wrote, linked to, or shared articles on the same or similar topic.

These are the people you can reach out to and ask to add value to your content by contributing their opinions, link to your content, or share it out to their social following. Assuming that your content is high quality and that they see your ask as an exchange of value, they are likely to respond in a positive way.

You can make the process of finding the right people for your outreach campaign a lot easier by using a tool such as BuzzSumo. This tool can help you do content research and find the people that would be worth reaching out to to promote your content.

What’s great about it is that it’s quite easy to use – after you log into the tool, all you need to do is enter a topic for your article and then sort through the results to find the articles that are similar to yours and that had the highest number of engagements and shares.

To find out who shared each of those articles, click on the “View Sharers” button and you’ll get a list of people who’ve shared it together with the number of followers they have, retweet ratio and reply ratio.

Now you can create a list of people who are worth reaching out to. Just make sure to offer them something other than a “similar article” – your content needs to be more epic than what they’ve already shared! It needs to add a new perspective or add value to the topic of the article they shared or linked to.

2. Import the List Into an Outreach Tool

Professional outreach tools such as OutreachPlus allow you to import your list of contacts and then do everything from performing the outreach to managing the relationships with your prospects and tracking the campaign results.

Once you start your outreach campaign it’s going to be extremely important that you manage it properly. You want to make sure that you’re pacing your emails in a way that’s not too intrusive and that you’re responding to every email, positive or negative, you receive from the people you’ve contacted.

Outreach tools are great for helping you stay organized – you’ll have a history of conversation with each of your prospects so no email or contact gets lost in the shuffle. Ensure that all your campaigns will run smoothly by setting everything up in your outreach tool of choice.

3. Get on Your Influencers’ Radar by Promoting Their Content

You have the list of influential people along with their contact info in your outreach tool and you’re ready to send your first batch of emails. But isn’t there something you should be doing first to increase your chances of getting a positive response?

Of course, there is! You should get on their radar and the best way to do that is by sharing their content on your social profiles. This way you’re helping them expand the reach of their content, and if you’re consistent at it and you @ mention them or their blog, they are likely to take notice.

You can also comment on their blog posts and answer any questions they post on social media. Basically, use any opportunity you get to be helpful and show you follow and appreciate their work.

That way, when you send that first email your name will sound familiar to them and it won’t seem like you are emailing them out of the blue.

4. Pre-promote Your Content Before You Publish

Many successful bloggers are using a tactic called pre-outreach to promote their content. The concept is simple – you’re reaching out to the prospects on your list before you publish your article to ask if they’d be interested in it.

You send them a “teaser” or a preview of the content to spark their interest. If you get a positive response, then they are most likely to share or link to your post once it’s live.

The only negative in this tactic is that it requires a little bit of extra work from the influencer. They have to reply to your first email and then act again (share, link to, etc.) when you inform them that the article is published. It requires some level of commitment as well as an extra step which may be one step too many for busy influencers.

5. Promote Your Content to Your List Once It Goes Live

Using this method you’re reaching out to the influencers on your list after you’ve published your article. It requires less commitment from them than pre-outreach, and if crafted well, it can get you some pretty good results.

A key thing to remember here is that the more personalized your outreach emails are, the bigger the chances you’ll get a positive response. So spend some time writing a message that is aligned with the influencer’s interests and mention any previous interaction you had with them. Be short and to the point, add value, and write a clear, mutually-beneficial CTA.

6. Do the Necessary Follow Up

You’ve probably experienced this many times – you send an email to your prospect, you don’t hear from them in a couple of days, you send a follow-up or two, and they get back to you with a response.

Unless they’re using some email tool to manage their inbox, most people will miss a certain number of emails or read them and then forget to reply.

Imagine how likely this is to happen to busy influencers whose inboxes are flooded daily with sales pitches and outreach messages. If you don’t get a reply the first time around, just assume they didn’t get/read your email. Send them a follow-up to remind them that there’s something great sitting in their inbox that they can act on at their convenience.

Also, if you were performing pre-outreach, make sure to follow up when your article is published even if they didn’t respond the first time around.

7. Track your results

In order to be really effective at content promotion through email outreach, you need to track your results to see what is working or not working so you can optimize your efforts.

An outreach tool will help you track responses, document what people you reached out to were interested in, understand the type of messaging that’s working, keep track of the people who shared/linked to your content, and more. Only if you measure your efforts will you know if it makes sense to scale them.

Conclusion

Promoting content through outreach is hard work – it’s not a process that you can simply set and forget. At the core of outreach is an exchange of value and it is only sustainable over the long term if you build meaningful relationships with the influencers who agree to promote your content.

Arm yourself with the right tools and follow the above steps and you will get a much higher ROI on your outreach efforts.

The post How to Promote Your Content Through Email Outreach appeared first on SiteProNews.