Content marketing is a multi-faceted practice that involves everything from landing pages to home page language, from product descriptions to photos and headlines. However, one of the biggest, and most underutilized, components of typical content marketing strategy is your blog. Why?
Your blog is the place you can share your story, answer your customer’s questions, show them why they need your product or service, how to use it, and where you demonstrate your expertise in your field. If you are engaged in content marketing, it is important that you have goals, and then structure your blog to reach those goals.
For instance, if you have started a fitness blog and developed an excellent design and polished it with the perfect photos, you will still need to have a goal with your content. Whether that is to gain more readers and subscribers or to motivate someone to buy certain products through your site store.
So what are some content marketing goals, and how can you use your blog to achieve them? Here are a few examples.
Increase Organic Traffic
One of the biggest ways to measure return on investment from a digital marketing campaign is to measure organic traffic. A steady increase in organic traffic indicates that link building, content creation and other strategies are working to draw users to your site.
Generally, this means you are increasing in Google ranking for the search terms associated with your site and posts. While there may be spikes from a post or two going viral from time to time, steady growth will come from long-term efforts. Your blog is a big part of this. Relevant topics shared there, and optimized for searches you want to rank in, make a huge difference to your site traffic.
The difference in ranking on the first page in Google from second page and later rankings is huge. Ranking in the top five for key searches means a huge spike in traffic for your website or blog. Increasing organic traffic should be one of your primary goals, and your blog is one of the biggest tools you have to do so.
Boost Your Conversion Rate
Once people get to your website through search, what do they do? What do you want them to do? Conversion means that those visitors are doing what you want them to, whether that is subscribing to your blog or email list, downloading a free eBook, or starting a free trial of your service. Your blog can have a huge impact on this.
Each post should have a clear subject and focus, and that focus should relate to where the visitor who sees it is likely to be channeled into the sales funnel. Once they have made their way through the post, there should be a clear call to action that tells the reader what to do next.
The rate at which people do what you want them to is your conversion rate, and is usually expressed in a percentage. The numbers are usually low, in the single digit of percentages, but well written blog posts, along with great calls to action and a simple checkout process, can boost those numbers so they are much more respectable.
Bulk Up Your Subscriber List
One common call to action is for a user to add themselves to your email subscription list or to subscribe to the RSS feed of your blog. Why is this important? Because then you will be in touch with that person on a regular basis, always reminding them of who you are and what you do.
Your blog can help do this, because if you are regularly sharing useful information and tips, the reader will not want to miss what you have to say next. We can all think of blogs and sites that we visit regularly for new posts and information on our industry.
You blog can be among those that influence your industry. As a result, you can reach new content marketing goals for both traffic and conversion. It will also lead to gaining new followers and subscribers.
Increase Free Downloads
Another method to get people hooked on your company and your site is free downloads. When you give someone something useful, it activates the law of reciprocity, and they will be more likely to buy from you rather than your competition.
How do you get them to download your free stuff? Your blog has a huge influence on that, because it is a place where you can share teasers and excerpts, illustrating to the reader the value of what you are offering.
Just be sure that your downloads have real value. Don’t make them just long ads for your business, but offer customers real tips and tricks, and be sure the download enhances their ability to do business. Done correctly in conjunction with your blog, this method will increase your followers and subscribers, increase conversion rates, and even increase organic traffic.
Retain More Customers
Just as important as, or more so than, gaining new customers is to retain the ones you have. Newsletter subscribers are one way to do this, as it entices customers to follow your RSS feed for your blog. For either to work though, you need to be posting new and valuable information regularly.
Essentially, you want to be the go-to place in your niche for information, ideas, and help. Your blog used the right way can help you retain customers at amazing rates and put you light years ahead of your competition.
Your blog is often the key to achieving your content marketing goals. Post often, post valuable content, and spread the word about your blog, and you will gain organic traffic, subscribers, increase conversion rates, and improve customer retention.
