Content marketing has long been proven as one of the effective online marketing strategies that can boost business growth. However, most content marketers may not be aware of this but the process of content marketing does not end in content creation. In fact, the real work begins after you have created your content.
Don’t be too fixated about your content creation. While this is an integral part of content marketing, you have to be aware that in order to utilize the full potential of your articles, you have to effectively optimize your content’s performance from creation to post-publishing.
So you might be wondering, what’s next after your content creation? Here are some considerations you need to look into.
Can Readers Find Your Content?
So you are done with content creation, but how will you make sure that readers can find it? This is where content optimization takes place. Quite frankly, it is a technical task but nothing you can’t handle. Through content optimization, you provide search engines with necessary data which will be used to determine some relevant information about what your posts is all about. How well you optimize your content reflects on how this is displayed in the search results.
Your keyword is the lifeblood of your content optimization. You have to learn how to play with it within your content, from text to images to videos using meta data.
Your keyword is the lifeblood of your content optimization. You have to learn how to play with it within your content, from text to images to videos. Let’s go over some tips to optimize the basic elements of your content.
Provide Relevant Meta Data.
If you have been doing content marketing for awhile now, this is not new to you. Meta data includes the following; title tag, meta description, meta keywords, URLs among others.
Let’s not go nitty-gritty with details but these tags are essential elements which you need to provide so search engines can understand what your post is all about. These are tags that describe your content and they are usually displayed in web search results. So ideally they are not only for search engines but it can also serve as some sort of a “teaser” for your audience so they will have an idea about your content.
Optimize Your Visual Content.
Similar to meta tags on text, image and video tags are important to optimize your images and videos. You need to optimize your visual content so that whenever users search for images/videos on the web, yours will appear in SERP. Alt and Title tags are two common tags which are used to describe your visuals but other tags such as location and file name are used as well.
Image and videos meta tags rely on the context of the page, thus meta tagging for images is important for the contextual meaning. It is important to use keyword-rich tags to describe your images and videos and your overall article.
You can’t ignore optimization for your content. It is a significant part of content marketing that is responsible for making your content findable for the readers.
In content marketing, making sure that your content is findable is the first step for the post-publishing process. It’s important that you make sure your readers can find your content so you can continue the process.
Note: Be careful though not to overuse meta tagging and content optimization. If you are using WordPress, you can use Yoast content analysis plugin to help you optimize your content.
Does Your Content Deliver?
Basically, unsuccessful content delivery might occur in different situations. First, users did not finish consuming your content. Second, they read your whole article but did not take further action and third, they consumed your content. You have directed them to your desired landing page but immediately left off. Either of the three, there are clearly some issues on how your content is delivered.
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Check your content’s performance through Analytics and other tools to clearly see which among the situations does your content belongs.
Lack Of Engagement
If you are experiencing a lack of engagement with your content, chances are your content has taken the wrong turn. Perhaps, you started right but in the middle of your content, it becomes less engaging and less interesting. Maybe it just right for you to go back to content creation, make some revisions to encourage readers to read from top to bottom.
High Engagement But Lack Of Referrals
If your readers have read and understood your article but did not take further action, perhaps you are not clear with what you want them to do. Are trying them to encourage them to buy something or avail certain services? You have to make your purpose clear. Your content is not merely to inform or educate but it also has to encourage action. Focus on providing solutions for your user’s needs. It is a lot easier for you to effectively send a message across and encourage them to do action if you can make them realize their needs and how you can provide solutions for such needs.
With Referrals But High Bounce Rate On Landing Page
Getting referrals from your published contents means that you can actually drive your audience to do action. That’s pretty good. But what happens after that? If you notice high bounce rate on your page from your published post, perhaps there are some problems with the relevancy of content to your landing page.
You might be overdoing your content that readers assumed it to be more relevant than your landing pages revealed. Because of this, they instantly lost their interest on your page. Unknowingly, you might be using clickbait, which makes your target users leave your pages.
Relevancy is important for your content. It is not enough that you are making your content interesting and intriguing; they also have to be relevant to what you offer so you can lead your audience down the marketing funnel.
Gathering data and analyzing what they imply are vital to boost your content’s performance. You got Google Analytics handy so maximize its use for your benefit.
Does It Gather Fair Amount Of Shares?
As a content marketer, we have to admit that we cannot do all the promotions to maximize audience reach on our own. Somehow, we need the help of our current users and influencers to share and distribute contents to different social media channels. So the question is… how can you make others share your published articles?
A research revealed that consumers are most likely to share “list” and “why” contents. It is perhaps because most digital readers seek for a post that is concise and easy to read. Moreover, your content also needs to invoke the right emotions. You need it to be something that readers would like to share because it is useful and helpful. Your article must stir the excitement of the audience. Offer them something new which will make them proud sharing it to their channels.
Another opportunity to can take to maximize your article shares is to tap into influencers which you use as sources. When your source influencers think that your content is highly relevant to their followers, it is easier for you to convince them to share it with them.
Visual set up of your posts in social media also hold some bearing in gaining more shares. Make sure to use visually appealing images and videos and concise but appealing social media titles and descriptions to make it catchy for social media users.
There is no secret sauce to driving more shares to your content. It all about how you understand your readers. Knowing what they will feel after reading can help you focus on content that is worth sharing.
Last Words
Content marketing is a process. It is not just about content creation then you’re done. Truth is you are far from getting done. You need to make sure that your content performs the way it is intended to work.
You can only do this when you go beyond content creation and get into marketing. Take look into your content’s performance and ask yourselves the questions above. If you can positively answer these questions then you’re content strategy is going the right path.