7 Secrets To A Killer Content Marketing Plan
Penguin...Panda...What do these two have in common? Well, if you answered that they're both cute little animals, you're right. However, if you're a website owner who's trying to pull traffic to your site, these two could either be your friend or your worst enemy.
Both Penguin and Panda are Google's latest updates. When these updates happen, people who have tried to "game" the system usually discover that their websites have all but disappeared. And, unfortunately, sometimes people who are just trying to get ahead are caught in the cross-fire.
This is why it's important for website owners to create a strong content marketing plan that is flexible and yet allows a quick change of direction.
It's important for any business to create a business plan -- and there are dozens of books, software programs and information about how to write one. Indeed, even banks and other lending institutions won't even consider supporting a business financially without a business plan. And it makes sense to also create a marketing plan. The marketing plan roadmap shows you where you're going, how you'll get there, as well as the costs involved.
One of the things that the search engines look for when spidering your website is content -- but not just any content. According to the Google blog, Matt Cutts, Google's lead engineer states, "We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling websites..."
So that's what the search engines are looking for: Amazing, Compelling Websites. So take a page out of your business and marketing plan books and create a content marketing plan -- with a roadmap to developing an amazing, compelling website.
Here are seven secrets to creating a killer content marketing plan for your site.
1. Do your research. As with any kind of business or marketing plan, it's critical to know and understand your target audience. This includes demographics. Every website (even Facebook and Twitter) have demographics and target audiences. By understand your target visitor, you can create content that appeals to them.
2. Keywords. Creating lists of keywords to pull visitors into your site is critical. Weaving keywords into your content is important, however here is where many people fail. If your keywords don't sound natural, the search engines will pick up on it and your site will fail.
3. Update regularly. As Matt Cutts has stated time and time again, Google is looking for higher-quality sites. He's also said that one of the things they look for are sites that regularly update and publish fresh content on their sites.
4. Vary the content. Your website content doesn't have to be just blog posts, or sales pitches. Vary it. Here are some ideas about different content you can add to your website:
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Blog posts
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Articles
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Sales copy
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Editorials
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Whitepapers
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PowerPoint presentations
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Video
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Visitor comments
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E-books
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Testimonials
5. Limit the ads. People visit your site for specific information (which, I hope you're providing), not to be bombarded with advertisements constantly trying to sell them. Unfortunately, if there are too many ads, people become frustrated and leave your site. So look at your site the same way a visitor would and remember that you want people to stay on your site, not leave it because of frustration or to go to someone else's site because of ads.
6. Engage your audience. People love being entertained. Often websites are boring -- so vary the content by adding the following:
7. Add social media elements to your site. Give people the chance to share on Facebook, Tweet about it, Pin to Pinterest or use other social media to help you spread the word about your site. Allowing your visitors to use social media will bring other visitors to your site and increase the content of your site naturally. Note: It is important for you to monitor the information for inappropriate comments.
One of the things that both penguins and pandas have in common is that they're both black and white. Which means that, for Google, and the other search engines, have increasingly started seeing sites as either black or white, good or bad.
By creating strong, relevant content, your site will be picked up and will rise in page ranking and in the search engines.