It's one thing to provide the best quality content for your potential customers, but it is another story to place that content where it will bring you the highest possible results for your business. Now, it's time to explore the marketing side of your content strategy. Here are some ideas to help you make the most of your content.
Article Directories
Article directories are sites you should already be utilizing. If not, then you should be considering it. These sites are where you publish your informative articles that show your prospects that you know what you're talking about and establish you as an expert.
Links to your business website as well as your name and business name will be placed in the article. This is how potential customers will find your site. In addition, article directories are well liked by the search engines, so you gain an edge by having your articles published on one of these.
To create a prime article for an article directory site; here are some tips:
Make sure the article contains true facts
Make sure the article is free from any spelling or basic grammatical errors
Write an article that's different than what your competitors have published
Avoid inserting too many keywords as they can cause it to not make sense to your reader
Follow the article directory's rules on submitting with them- If you don't, the article won't get published on their site.
In order to increase your chances of being indexed in the search engines you should choose the more popular article directory sites. Also, make sure that you check with your chosen directory site to see what articles have already been published on the topic you want to write about.
Then come up with your own unique view or twist to stand out from all the other articles.
Blogrolls
Blogrolls is a feature that blogs have that include links to other blogs from other people. Search the blogosphere and find other blogs that have some relation to the topic of your blog and start participating in the comments.
Once you've established yourself with the owner of the blog, they will add your blog's link to their blogroll. The people that like what that blog has to offer will check out the other blogs that are recommended on the blogroll.
Social Media Sites or Micro-Blogs
The easiest way to gain the most exposure for your blog or website from the highest amount of people is by using one of the many social media sites. These sites are simply Internet based communities of like-minded people.
People who share the same interests tend to group together to get to know each other and to share ideas, thoughts, and information with each other. These people are going to be within your target market, so you can share your website links as well as get into the minds of your target audience.
Micro-blogs, like Twitter, are great ways to have conversations with your audience. The brief messages that you convey to your niche market helps update them on what's going on with your business or new items of interest to them.
Since millions of people use social media sites and micro-blogs, you have prime business exposure that you should be utilizing in your content marketing plan.
Use Squeeze pages for newsletter sign-ups
Squeeze pages are website pages that sell people on the idea of signing up for your email marketing messages or newsletters. These squeeze pages use content that sells the readers with the benefits they will receive by signing up with your opt-in list.
You can simply have a sign-up feature placed on your site that simply says, "sign up for more updates, newsletters….". This may work, but to get more people to sign-up for your lists; you should use squeeze pages to sell them on the idea of signing up for your newsletter.
You can also offer something as a gift for signing up, this a great place to offer the reports you create for your prospects. Free reports are great attention getters for people who like to get things free.
Message Boards and forums
Message Boards are another way to get together with your target market and share ideas and thoughts. They can also be great ways to market your e-Books, reports, websites, and blogs. Your forum posts will be strictly conversational with your fellow members, but your signature lines can contain links to your websites or blogs.
Check with the message board rules and regulations before you try to put a link in the signature lines. Not all forums allow links in the signature line.
Affiliates
Get people to sign up to be an affiliate for your e-Book that you're trying to sell. They will be paid a certain amount from each e-Book sale they bring your way. Since e-Books are inexpensive to create, you can afford to pay them to sell your book.
You can pay to have an affiliate manager help you out with the affiliate process or browse resources to learn how to use your affiliate program to your advantage. People who want to make money selling other people's products will aggressively sell affiliate products of their choice. If they like your product, then they could be bringing you a lot of business.
This technique can be a little complicated, but it is very successful when implemented correctly. The affiliates would be assigned a special link that will help determine which sales need to be credited to them, so you don't have to worry about trying to keep track of everything in an affiliate program.
You now know what other online business owners have learned from their rough paths to success.
With all the tactics they tried in their years of business; content marketing has proven to be the most effective pieces of the marketing pie.
Now it's time to let yourself loose and take what you've learned about creating the best content possible and using it in the best marketing avenues. If you want to see your business become the success that you dream of, then utilize a content marketing plan in your business.
Final Thoughts
As a business owner who wants to market their company on a shoestring budget, you should look into using a content marketing strategy. Creating and marketing content is the most inexpensive way to get the best result in the marketing arena.
Content marketing has been shown to be the best tactic to use because not only is it inexpensive, but it also gives your target market what they crave. This happens to be information. Information comes in the form of content.
So, what better way to market your business then to give your potential customers what they want? Get their attention, their respect, their trust, and ultimately their business by using a simple content strategy for your marketing plan.
If it has worked so well for others, why wouldn't you want to use it in your own online business marketing strategy? Don't let your competitors get the best of your target market. Use your content to get way ahead of the pack and bring the customers to you.