6 tips to boost your Content Marketing and your traffic

Everyone does it Content marketing. At least everyone thinks they do it, often empirically, and without obtaining the expected results. A blog must be read and it must convert, otherwise you lose something in your writing and publishing process.

So, if you wait days and your article is completely ignored, no one shares it and it brings no traffic, then it’s time to think about your content: What are you doing wrong? ? There is no magic formula, no recipe that guarantees the success of Content Marketing but keys that can help you not miss what your audience expects from you.

The first step is to put everything back together. Here are some questions that may help you pinpoint what’s wrong:

1. Who is your audience?
2. What is their purchasing process? Does he take time to decide, should he come and return to the site to start the purchasing process?
3. What content do they want first? I’m surprised at how many sites offer me a free trial when I don’t have enough content to understand their offering.
4. What problem does your product or service solve? What are the benefits for your customers? If you can’t formulate your offer without hesitation, go back to working on your added value. Don’t smile, I realize more and more how we go into action without having clearly defined our product. You need to be able to explain in one sentence what your offering brings to your potential customers.
5. What is your marketing plan? Your Content marketing it must adapt to it in perfect harmony.

Once you complete this first step, re-read your articles and ask yourself honestly: what do they really contribute? Do they really live up to your readers’ expectations?

For the success of your Content Marketing: be regular

Why regularity in the first place? Maybe because it’s the problem we all encounter sooner or later! Maybe because it’s my problem in particular. Caught in our work for our customers, we often forget that our blog is also written for them. Moreover, this can become yours first commercial toolyour first source of contacts, so take care of it!

Listen to your audience to fuel your Content Marketing

Listen to your customers and your audience. What is being said about your business sector on social networks, how can you join the conversation or respond to certain information? Social networks bring you closer to your targetof your audience, they allow you to listen to their questions, their dissatisfactions, their expectations, etc. It is an endless source of themes and an incredible opportunity for those who take the time to delve into them.

Satisfy a need

With what you’ve learned from social networks, you can now create quality content that meets your customers’ expectations. What benefit do we get from reading your article? What will we learn, how will we be entertained or inspired?

How will you convince your reader to click the “Share” button at the bottom of your article? Furthermore, what do we share on social networks? First, Internet users share content that will make them stand out in the eyes of their audience. Even if they are not the authors, they are the ones who found the content and are sharing it. A Hubspot study found that the most shared articles are:

• the “how-tos” that describe a procedure
• lists (what is this article)
• articles like «Why?» » (e.g. Why is your Content Marketing a failure?)
• Items like “What/who…?” » (e.g. what types of content are best shared?)

These article categories inform and transmit know-how in a clear and quickly readable way everywhere.

So, internet users largely share articles they haven’t even read and this brings us to the next point:

Work on your titles

Your title should be a promise ! The promise of valuable content, a secret revealed, a moment of relaxation, new learning, etc. You have about ten words (plus an image most of the time) to inspire your reader. If these few words aren’t enough to convince them, Internet users won’t go any further. Your title will always be in competition, on social networks, on content aggregators, on your own site. It must capture attention and stand out.

When writing a title, if you don’t have a sense of the «hitting formula», you can limit yourself to these few ingredients that work quite well to increase the virality of your content:

• a name
• Strong adjectives
• Teaching (How, When, Why, etc.)
• A profit

An example:
A number + an adjective + keyword + benefit = 10 incredible tips to increase the benefits of your Content Marketing.

Sure, this may seem a bit opportunistic, but since it works, it can be interesting to create this type of article from time to time that generates good engagement if the content follows. In fact, make no mistake! If in the introduction at this point I wrote that your article must make a promise, the content must keep it! Readers will soon remember a site that only sells them dreams. Nobody likes to be disappointed!

Make sharing easier

Having share buttons at the bottom or side of your article is the minimum. Make it so your reader only has to click a button to share, regardless of whether the tweet or Facebook post is already written for them. In short, let him do his job.

How do we behave on the Internet? We jump in quickly and, despite all our good will, if things don’t work out for us, we give up. In addition to share buttons, add images to pin on Pinterest, quotes to tweet as below.

Ask for sharing

Sometimes we implement all kinds of Machiavellian strategies to get our visitor to produce an action when we could simply ask them to do it! The simple mention “Please retweet” would increase sharing by 160%!

This sharing request has a double action, known as the Ben Franklin effect:

“Someone who has already done you a favor will be more likely to do you another than someone who you yourself have obliged.”

To summarize, someone who does you a favor by sharing one of your articles (if you take care to thank them appropriately), will be more likely to repeat this experience to help you again. This creates a sort of emotional bond. I’m not talking about taking advantage of your readers, far from it, but simply encouraging this practice and building real connections with your community.

Conclusion:

If there is no miracle recipe, there is common sense, simple actions to implement and these few tips could already allow you to take a step forward and attract more readers to your blog. And we all know it: more readers, more potential contacts!