Welcome to another awesome tutorial on content marketing and how to build momentum without having a budget to spend on marketing campaigns. Content marketing is something that is NOT going to disappear any time soon because the ingredients are exactly what Google and other search engines are looking for in terms of quality. Content marketing provides quality, relevance, visibility, high conversions, and increased user engagement. This is perfect for search engines that want to continue building a name for their company by increasing the ultimate user experience. However, content marketing can be very expensive so it’s important you have the resources available when starting out. From my experience, it’s tough, especially when you are starting out, so let’s focus on what you can do if you don’t have a budget.
Let’s get started and your feedback will be greatly appreciated.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is the best way to build momentum quickly and will always be great for content marketing. By focusing on authority bloggers within your niche, you are able to leverage their traffic and momentum, driving it to yours. Even though guest blogging has been said to not count as backlinks, you can still use it to build brand awareness and get backlinks through others visiting your blog. Start by finding relevant blogs within your niche and continue to build momentum from there. I have written extensively about guest blogging, but here are some steps to keep in mind:
- Search relevant blogs
- Check to see if they accept guest posts
- Pitch the best ideas
- Follow the guidelines
- Ask for feedback
- Submit content
Social Media
Social media is amazing and should not be avoided for any reason, but I’m surprised at the amount of people who simply don’t use Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Social media is FREE and can generate enormous buzz for anyone looking to get started within the industry. You simply set up an account and add some social share buttons to your blog and let others do the work for you. You can use tools like hashtagify.me, Bufferapp, etc., to automate the entire process, making sure things get done right and that your content stays visible.
Start small, then you can increase after you find out what works. For example, here are a few networks I pay close attention to when starting Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
Remember, social media is free!
Networking
When I first started out, I was nervous about reaching out to authority bloggers, fearing they wouldn’t help, but was shocked when it was 90% successful. Why network? The answer is simple…
You can to talk to people who have been in the industry longer and can provide you with some serious feedback. Next, if you work hard enough and really impress these bloggers, they’ll be more than happy to share your content on social profiles with some of them having 50,000+ followers. This can be awesome traffic for someone who is just starting out in the industry. How do you network? I like writing content based on experts within my niche, which can be any of the following:
- Expert posts
- Ultimate guides
- Blogger mentions, which means write content and mentioning top bloggers within your niche
Email List and Landing Page
This strategy is very effective if you want to drive revisits to your site. Many of my conversions come from people who have been on my site before and know the quality I provide. This means each time I write new content, I can shoot my email list a quick follow-up and send them to my page. These same people will share my content on their social profiles, which will drive new people to my page. My goal should be content marketing to increase conversions and this can be done through existing strategies and the other strategies mentioned above. As long as you can get content in front of current people who want to share, you’ll be able to keep driving new people to your content.