Successful digital marketing campaigns rely heavily on consistency, but this is especially true for content marketing. Even if you just want to attract more people to your website, regularly uploading blog articles will go a long way to driving traffic to your site from Google. This is why planning and sticking to a consistent blog rollout is key to website growth.
There are a number of ways to craft a solid marketing strategy, but articles should form a major part of your efforts. Start by deciding how many articles you can write per month for the next year, and what you’d like to achieve through these blog posts. Do you want to educate the audience, tell them about your services, share industry news or simply create entertaining pieces of content?
Like any business goal, your marketing strategy should include SMART goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-constrained. Setting such goals for your blog rollout will help you craft more effective articles on topics that the audience wants to read. Once you have outlined these goals, you can start to write and upload the content to your website.
Understand your audience
Before you start writing your blog articles, understand who you’re writing for. Keep your target audience in mind and try to put yourself in their shoes. This will help you create content that they are interested in, which will improve the performance of your posts.
Of course, your target audience will comprise hundreds or thousands of people, so you’ll need to narrow it down by creating audience personas. This is a list of four or five ideal personalities or people that you want to target; they could be the ideal buyers of your product or people who match the job role of your intended audience.
Create a matrix of these people, their jobs, interests, behaviours and personalities. You can even name them. This will help you place yourself in their shoes and craft content that piques their interest. It will allow you to fundamentally understand them on a more personal level and your articles will automatically become more approachable and relatable.
Create a content calendar
Now it’s time to plan your topics and set up a regular posting schedule to keep things consistent. With your target audience personas in mind, think of topics that they’d like to read. Sometimes answering questions that they might have is the best way to structure article topics.
Plot your proposed topics in a spreadsheet and include any reference websites, videos and other visual elements that you can use when writing. Once you’ve found enough topics, choose at least four for the month. This means you’ll upload one article per week, which is manageable. More content is great if you have the time, so decide now how many you can handle and stick to it.
Remember to diversify your content so your audience doesn’t grow tired. Include news articles, opinion pieces, lists, reviews, how-to guides and interviews. Having your audience personas in mind will allow you to choose the best format for articles. You can colour code these formats in your content spreadsheet to visually see whether you have too many of one type or a nice mix.
Next, turn your spreadsheet into a calendar. You can create a new tab for each month. Plot your articles so that you can upload at least one per week and post it on social media. This will keep your website and social feeds fresh with new content. You might also want to highlight public holidays or special events on the calendar to inform your topics for the month.
The purpose of the content calendar is to spread blog posts out evenly and ensure a consistent and regular posting schedule. Stick to your deadlines to ensure optimal audience retention and growth. You can even refer to social media analytics to determine the best time to post articles when your audience is most active.
How to come up with blog topics
This is an important step in the entire process as it determines the success of your audience growth plan. Having irrelevant or boring topics will serve no purpose, so you need to spend some time researching what your audience wants and looks for on the internet.
Start by looking at competitor websites and social media channels. This will allow you to see how well their posts perform and might give you some insights into what works and what doesn’t. It can be an inspirational exercise or simply show you what not to do and where you can fill in gaps. Avoid copying articles and topics as these will already be indexed by Google, so your articles might struggle to show up higher in search engine results pages.
Use online tools such as AnswerThePublic or Google Trends to see what your audience is searching for online. This can inform your article headlines and keywords. It will show you how popular topics are performing over time and who is searching for what online.
Another great tool to use is Google News. Type your keyword into the Google search bar, then click on the News tab to see what the latest news is surrounding your industry, product, service or country. News stories are a great way to generate more pageviews but they are also time-restrained, so be mindful of whether your topic will be considered fresh or old by the time you post it.
Lastly, consider writing interview-style articles for your website. These could be with employees or other industry experts. The point is that people respond well to content that is backed by an authoritative voice and a human face. Interviews can be a great way to disseminate information and generate interest at the same time. It builds the trustworthiness of your blog and lends credit to the topicality of the article.
Once your content calendar is created, your topics are chosen and your target audience is defined, you can get to work. Always refer back to your calendar and update it whenever an article is uploaded. This will help you keep track of your progress and stick to your schedule. If you simply don’t have the time to do all of this but still want a consistent blog rollout for your website, then chat with us. We’re content specialists with years of experience in digital marketing in South Africa. We can create unique content for your website and turn it into a full-service digital marketing campaign. Contact us today if you need assistance with your digital marketing, content creation and social media output.
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