Content marketing is the backbone of your startup’s online performance.
It gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, build trust with your target audiences, and nurture strong relationships with them. Above all, it helps you position yourself as an authoritative online resource.
Well-researched, original and insightful articles can also boost your SEO efforts. Once people see the value your content brings to them, they will be eager to share it, link to it and, most importantly, return to it again and again.
However, the online marketing landscape is expanding at an impressive rate. The 2017 study shows that 3.3 million Facebook posts, 500 hours of YouTube videos, and 1,440 WordPress articles are published online in 60 seconds. So, getting your blog noticed in such a competitive digital ecosystem can be difficult when starting out.
Now, you’ve probably started optimizing your blog posts for Google, creating converting opt-in forms, designing subscriber landing pages, and promoting your content on social networks.
If these tactics are not enough, here are 3 additional steps to take to boost blog traffic.
1. Focus on attracting local audiences
Many young businesses focus on attracting leads internationally. However, to do so, you first need to build brand awareness among local audiences and build trust with them. So, here is what you need to do.
Invest in local SEO
Did you know that 46% of all Google searchers are looking for local business information? Moreover, 97% of them use the internet to find out more about a local company.
Given these figures, it’s obvious that localizing your SEO efforts should be your priority.
For starters, optimize your business blog for local keywords with your city/area name.
Claim your Google My Business listings.
Register on all relevant local business directories.
Build and nourish relationships with key bloggers in your niche to get them to link back to you.
Most importantly, focus your blogging efforts on creating local content, such as local industry trends, news, events, businesses, product releases.
Attract offline customers to your blog
Your small business also has an army of loyal customers that come back to your store every day, but they know nothing about your online presence. Those are people that would be more than glad to follow you on social networks, sign up for your newsletters, or read your blog regularly. So, make sure they know you’re online.
This is where traditional marketing and digital marketing intertwine.
For example, your customers love free stuff. And, this is a great opportunity to promote your website. You could design unique promotional products with your website address and give them out.
Add QR codes to your business cards, flyers, and window decals that would immediately lead a user to your blog.
A live Twitter wall at your physical store that lets users track your and your customers’ tweets in real time is another awesome way to inspire them to follow you. Once you build a solid social media following and start promoting your blog posts on these channels, your blog traffic and subscriptions will also grow.
2. Use viral content as lead magnets
One of the most common blogging mistakes startups make is focusing on quantity rather than quality. Blogging just for the sake of SEO is never a good option. You need to create content that speaks to your customers.
Understand your audiences.
Analyze your keywords to understand what kind of search results they expect to see.
Pay attention to Google’s “People Also Search for” feature in the SERPs.
Observe your target audience’s comments and conversations on social networks, forums, Q&A sites, and blogs.
These are all invaluable sources of customer information that will help you create highly personalized content- one that interacts with your customers, addresses their needs, and helps them solve specific problems. This is the type of content that generates lots of links and shares and has an opportunity to go viral.
Keep in mind that, to sign up for your blog and start following you regularly, your customers sometimes need an additional reward. This is where opt-in bribes, aka lead magnets, step in.
In other words, you need to inspire a customer to give you their email address in exchange for your top-notch content. These could be whitepapers, ultimate guides, checklists, templates, or cheat sheets- anything that delivers value.
3. Hold a webinar
One of the main reasons why people visit your site is that they want to learn something new. This is why holding a webinar is a great idea. It is super helpful to your audience and, at the same time, drives massive traffic to your site.
Picking a topic for your webinar is key. It needs to be original, relevant to your audience and, above all that grabs people’s attention.
Next, plan it strategically. Your slides need to be short, easy to follow, and packed with relevant information. Use short and clear sentences, bullet points, and visuals. Infographics, charts, videos, and relevant photos can always spruce up your content and make it more engaging.
Finally, make sure you promote your webinar extensively. Create a strong call to action, build hype on social media, create a teaser video to hook people’s attention, connect with an influencer to promote it, and use social media ads.
Creating a solid webinar is a great way to boost your blog traffic, collect your audience’s emails, and position yourself as an authoritative source of information. Above all, people will see the value of your content and keep coming back to your blog for more valuable information.
Do continuous audits and tweak your strategy
Content marketing is not all about content creation. This is only half the job done. The other half is, of course, spreading the word about your blog among wider audiences.
That’s why it’s called content marketing and not content creation.
Above all, don’t forget to test and tweak your marketing tactics continually. Your goal is to see what’s working and what’s not. Only this way will you be able to focus on those tactics that will increase your blog and help you convert these visits into leads and, ultimately, conversions.
