12 Proven Content Marketing Tips That Bring Explosive Results

Did you know doing content marketing CORRECTLY can potentially boost your:

• SEO rankings — traffic
• Click-through rates
• Conversion rates — Sales

That’s all an online business wants — and so do you. Right?

But the intense competition makes things hard…

Your content must stand out among the 4.4 million blog posts published every single day.

4.4 Million! Oh my,

But how do you do that?

In this definite content marketing guide, I will be revealing some effective content marketing tips based on:

• Content creation strategies
• Effective and engaging content formats
• Best content marketing trends (of 2021)

If you’re willing to get the most out of your content, this guide is for you. Let’s start…

1) Create Exclusive & Throughout Content

Gone are the days when 500-word articles used to work out very well. Today, Google cares about user experience.

And what user experience says? Users love throughout content!

Everyone who searches on Google wants to get his problem solved. Or find the right product for him. Or service.

So, there is a demand for comprehensive content which covers everything that revolves around the specific topic.

As mentioned, numbers shows over 4.4 million blog posts are published per day:

Now that there is an abundance of content on the market, you need to craft something that stands out — and is valuable to your target audience.

This is so far the only way you can be superior to your competitors.

Here are some helpful tips you can use for crafting such unique content (to help you stand out):

a) Use Infographics, Visuals & Data

Yes, the use of infographics, visuals, and data is rapidly increasing in today’s modern age.

So rapidly.

In fact, over 87% of marketers use visuals in their content.

Visitors need to be attracted and that’s where such things come into play.

Image source: neomam

For example, this is how Brian Dean uses infographics for engaging visitors:

Source: Backlinko

Besides the numerous other strategies, he says that visuals are helping him drive millions of traffic every month.

So, why don’t you try doing the same for your website or blog?

b) Content Formatting

Remember only a few of the visitors read your content thoroughly.

In fact, data shows that people remain at sites only for some seconds.

Content formatting is something that can efficiently keep them on your website for longer.

You organize content by:

• Breaking it down into different paragraphs
• Using sub-headings
• Reducing sentence length
• Firing bullets where necessary
• Highlighting the important pieces of text (bolding, italic, underlining, etc)

And once the visitor finds content engaging and easy-to-read, he’s more likely to read it thoroughly and end up buying your product or service.

For example, suppose that you search for a topic and open 2 webpages; a and b.

Their content formatting looks something like this;

Which one are you going to prefer?

Probably the left (a). Right?

The point is simple,

Your content must be easy to read, understand, and digest.

2) Assign a Team

Now that you might have consumed, content creation isn’t easy.

So, you do need to hire professionals to create amazing content that can stand out.

Then, you can create a content marketing strategy and assign specific roles like who is going to manage:

• Keyword research
• Writing
• Formatting — Editing
• Visualization (infographics, featured image, descriptive images, etc)
• Proofreading
• SEO
• Publishing
• Newsletter announcement
• And so on…

3) Use a Content Calendar

Using a content calendar saves a lot of time and is helpful in many ways such as:

• Publishing on time
• Saves time & gives you plenty of time to find ideas
• Keeps you organized
• Cheers team management

Since it has various advantages and helps you remain consistent and on-time, I definitely recommend using it.

Want to know more about a content calendar, and how to get its template? Click here

4) Craft Catchy Title and Meta Description

Since your click-through rates depend upon them, it is important to craft an attractive title and meta description.

While doing so, keep the following instructions in mind:

a) Insert title in the H1 tag

Since H1 Is the perfect and ideal format for the Title, make sure to insert the title into it.

b) Keep the primary keyword at the beginning of the title

Your Title plays an important role in helping Google understand what your content is about.

And the faster Google finds your primary keyword in the title, the better.

Thus, it’s better to keep the primary keyword at the beginning of your title tag.

c) Use title tag modifiers (such as “best”)

Using title modifiers like “The Best” is a great SEO practice as it helps you rank for long-tail keywords.

d) Always write meta descriptions

What are meta descriptions?

Meta descriptions are the pieces of information of your content that appear below the title on Google.

For example,

While writing content in WordPress, you get the option for meta description.

You can either craft one or leave the box empty.

But remember, once you’ve ignored writing a meta description, Google is free to choose any part of your content as “meta description”.

So, writing one is beneficial.

With that said, let’s see what to write in a meta description.

e) Meta description shows how your post is going to help the audience

Just like the title, meta descriptions can effectively boost your click-through rates.

When someone searches on Google, he doesn’t click on the 1st or 2nd webpage blindly.

Instead,

He is more likely to read the title and meta description for having a clear understanding of what the article is about.

So, instead of leaving it for Google, make sure to craft a catchy meta description showing how your article is beneficial.

For example, have a look at the following image. It shows the exact purpose of the article.

5) Optimize URLs

Optimizing the URLs of your blogs is an important aspect.

In fact, creating SEO-friendly URLs can potentially improve your SEO rankings.

Crafting SEO-friendly URLs doesn’t require any rocket science. Just keep the following tips in mind, and that’s it.

• Keep it as short as possible
• Include the target keyword

For example, see the image.

Instead of writing long URLs, produce them to look short.

But make sure that the target keyword is still included.

6) Internal Linking

Internal linking is a traditional method we use to drive traffic to other articles on the same website.

For example, LaptopMag has linked to other related articles in their post “Best Laptops 2021”.

This is called internal linking. This way, your visitors are more likely to click on other webpages as well.

What’s interesting?

It still works…

But keep the following instructions in mind, when linking to other articles:

• Insert links naturally (that are natural for readers)
• Use relevant links
• Use a reasonable amount of links

Since most of the marketers are using this strategy, why don’t you try it for yourself?

7) Target Keyword

A target keyword is the main keyword of your article.

Point to note, don’t mix up the title with the keyword. They’re different.

A keyword is a more specific form of the title:

So, your target keyword is the specific words your content revolves around.

In most cases, these are the particular words people Google search for.

What you have to do is sprinkle target keywords in your article.

Plus, make sure to include the target keyword in the introduction, ending, title, and meta description.

This will help Google find out what your content is all about.

Hence, you’ll be more likely to get better SEO rankings.

8) Replace Your Blog Feed With a Homepage

Most of the blogs come with an old-school homepage like:

In fact, people love hanging the best (or the latest) blog posts right on the homepage to get more traffic.

But did you know that you can do something creative to drive in even more visitors?

Hmm, What’s that?

Well, try replacing your blog feed with an email subscriber widget. Now, your blog might look something like this:

Or if we talk about a real-life example, here it is:

Image Source: gaps

This way, the email subscriber automatically draws public attention.

This strategy has worked out very well for many bloggers by boosting their email lists.

So, try it for yourself.

9) The newsletter is Equally Important

Now that you’ve grown a great email list. What’s the succeeding step? It’s about developing your blog-post newsletter.

In fact, the newsletter is what decides whether your email subscribers click on your link.

So, you need to compel your subscriber to visit your blog, through the newsletter. But how do you do that?

a) Keep it short

b) Explain how your blog is going to benefit them

c) Organize it instead of a single paragraph

For example, I would be sending a blog post newsletter in such a way:

10) Optimize Images

Optimizing images is an important aspect of blogging and content marketing.

If you ignore this step, your page might take ages to load.

With such a load speed, you are more likely to see your website buried on the never-seen pages of Google.

Here are the simple steps for optimizing images for the web:

a) Lowering the resolution

While capturing screenshots, preparing infographics, etc, you need to take care of the resolution.

Different websites have different themes of distinctive widths. So, they have their own standards of image resolution.

But the ideal size for images on the web is 690 pixels wide.

You can use tools like Adobe Photoshop, Fotor, etc for size customization.

b) Image format

Image format plays an important role in developing image quality and size.

You get to see a variety of image formats used on the internet.

But the most popular and recommended ones are PNG and JPEG (JPG).

Either way, let’s come to the next step where we reduce image size.

c) Reducing image size

Reducing image size is highly important as it directly affects your page load speed.

A higher collective image size of a page means more loading time and vice versa.

You can comfortably use a tool for decreasing the image size.

The one I personally use is compressjpeg:

It’s very comfortable and convenient to use, and effectively gets the job done.

11) Work on Page Load Speed

Since people hate slow websites, page loading speed has become an important SEO factor.

For having a presence on the top of Google, your website must load within 2–3 seconds.

Does your website load completely within a while?

Don’t worry, the following are some simple steps you can take to boost your page loading speed.

a) Find a better web hosting

Fast web hosting equals fast websites.

A2 Hosting is primarily defined for their 20x faster servers which help your site load at a lightning-fast rate.

b) Switch to an SEO-friendly theme

c) Optimize images

d) Enable compression

12) Use Mobile-Friendly Theme

Since 55% of traffic on the internet comes from mobile phones, you need to switch to a mobile-friendly theme, if haven’t yet.

Otherwise, Google is more likely to never rank you because your website isn’t compatible with mobile phones.

Wrapping It Up

It has become challenging for various online businesses to survive.

Google algorithm keeps changing.

Since Google has started caring about “user experience”, you really need to market your content according to it.

That’s exactly what this comprehensive guide was about.

I’ve covered the important content marketing tactics that would be holding you from getting the best out of your content.

Hope you enjoyed it…

Anyway, let us know which strategy are you going to apply first?