The New Year. A time for fresh resolutions, fresh goals. A time to evaluate what’s working and what’s not. A time to implement a content marketing strategy for your new webshop, or revamp the current strategy for your existing online business.
Modern online customers are a discerning bunch, so it takes a lot to impress them. If you want to build a following, increase your traffic and generate solid leads, you need to serve up some serious quality content. This article tells you how.
Know your audience better than you know yourself
Depending on what you are selling or promoting, you will want to attract a certain type of customer. A website advertising sports gear, for instance, will want to target a younger, more athletic age group. If you are selling software, such as an online bookkeeping tool, you will probably target small to medium businesses with a manageable revenue. Getting to know your audience, however, requires more than mere guessing. In order to truly understand your audience and implement an effective content marketing strategy, you will need to research your target customer.
You will have a better idea of your customer base if your online business is already established. What type of customers do you usually attract? How do they find themselves on your landing page? What type of feedback do you receive from past and existing consumers?
If you are new to the the e-commerce scene and are unsure where to get this information, your safest bet is to look at the information you have available. Factors such as age, location (and time zone), as well as language will help you build a customer or buyer profile. Other details, including interests, your customer’s spending habits and their current stage of life, will continue to strengthen this profile.
Your customer profile will help you target your audience better with your social media marketing – you will be better informed as to what type of content, and when your content should be angled at your target audience.
Be mindful of your SEO
You may have heard of the importance of optimising your site for SEO so often it borders on the cliché, but we really can’t emphasise it enough when it comes to implementing your content marketing strategy. For the user whose first point of reference is Google (40,000 searches per second to be exact), the ranking or visibility of your website can certainly affect the number of visitors to your website, and will ultimately affect your conversion rate.
Put very simply, there are a number of factors to consider when optimising your website for SEO:
- Titles. These include your headings and subheadings. Keep your titles brief and to the point. It’s best to aim for simple and clear. Modern readers don’t have the time to read between the lines.
- User-friendliness, including site speed and mobile-friendliness. This will help minimise your user bounce rate.
- Keyword usage. Using the right keywords will increase your site visibility. Using synonyms and related keywords will mark it out as high-quality.
- Your website format. Cluttered websites look highly unprofessional and will do nothing to entice visitors to click. Make sure your page design is clean and professional, and keep the user experience at the forefront of your mind.
Good Bad
- Content value. Concise, effective, targeted content can make or break your content marketing strategy. Make sure that every word you aim at your audience is useful to your customers.
Be consistent
It takes plenty of time, effort and considerable cost to build your brand, so consistency is ultra-important. Site characteristics such as your logo, slogan, tone of voice, motto and overall user experience are all part of your brand. Your customer will expect, for example, for your favicon to match your logo and your social media account. This will help build your website credibility and enhance your reputation. Subconsciously, this consistency will also reinforce your relatability to your customers.
Important factors to take into consideration when incorporating brand consistency into your content marketing strategy include:
- brand perception
- using emotive content
- stressing customer experience
- standing out from the competition
- cautious re-branding
Update existing content, or present new content, regularly
Timing is ultra-important when it comes to content. Keep in mind that any content you publish quickly becomes outdated as it is replaced by new content from similar sites. It is therefore essential that you make a point to regularly publish new content for your website, be it on your social media, website blog or other webpages.
A good way to keep track of this aspect of your content marketing strategy can be to keep a content calendar. A content calendar sees all your content through from the first to the final draft, straight through to publication. You can also use it to observe patterns in your readership, and check out which type of content generated the most leads.
Bonus tip!
At Topcontent, we breathe content every day of the week. Whether you are looking to break into the world of e-commerce, or revamp your existing online business, our writers have all the necessary tools and knowledge. Read through a Topcontent review or two to see what we are talking about!
Check out online content writing services to see how we can help you bring your business to the forefront, or contact us for a free quote.
