How To Increase Traffic with Content Marketing

If statistics are anything to go by, adopting content marketing is the way to go if you are going to make any significant progress in growing traffic as part of your SEO strategy.

One thing you should not forget though is that everyone is doing the same.

So, with about 2 million blogs posts being published every day, what will make your content stand out enough to attract the kind of traffic you are looking for?

Below are several guidelines on how content marketing can bring more traffic to your website.

Create High Quality Content

High quality content not only makes you stand out as an expert but also gives you an edge against your competition because it is meaningful, informative and comprehensive.

Here are a few tips that can help you pull it off;

• Find out what your audience really needs by doing surveys, researching your competition and checking out sites that they like to spend time on.
• Figure out the most relevant primary keywords using tools like KeywordTool.io and build your content around them.
• Organise and lay out the body of your content using long-tail keywords to notch up your key word usage.
• Verify the validity of your topics with the help of tools like Buzzsumo and Quora.

Connect With your Audience through Relatable Stories

Content without a personal touch may sometimes sound aloof and judgmental. When you give examples that your audience can relate to, then your content becomes real and actionable.

Stories are captivating; they catch a reader’s attention and they are likely to be remembered over facts. They also help your audience transition from what they already know to the unknown stuff.

It is even better if you can share real life experiences that others can identify with, speaking in your own voice, and in a conversational tone. This brings you out as a person and it cultivates a relationship between you and your audience.

Create Catchy Titles

What good will high quality, beautifully written content amount to if nobody clicks on the title? The title of your content should spark a need to find out more and entice your readers to click. However, it should not be a summary of your blog; keep it short and to the point.

Since it is just a tip of what to expect, include your keyword or keyword phrases for relevance and also to help with SEO. Whenever you can, make your title a list post or a ‘how to’ post; these have been proven to endure and remain relevant longer than other types of posts.

Enhance the Readability of your Content

There are worrying statistics on how much people are reading online. One of them is that only 10-20% of readers go all the way to the bottom of posts.
Is there a way that you can encourage your audience to linger more on your content?

Indeed; keep your sentences short and your paragraphs 3-4 sentences long. Long sentences and bulky paragraphs tend to put people off.

Use headings to help people skim through the main parts of your post and bullets to highlight important points at a glance. Another important feature is the use of visual media to make content more appealing and easy to digest.

A 2016 Social Media Marketing report shows marketers voting visual content a close second to blogging in terms of importance. Also, people are more likely to share content with pictures and videos compared to plain posts.

Make your Content Easy to Share

One way that visitors to your website can help to increase your site traffic is by sharing your content. You should therefore make it so easy for them so they feel guilty if they don’t.

A plug-in like SumoMe can set you up with preferred social sharing buttons and gives you liberty to choose when, where and on which posts to use them.

Insert Click to Tweet boxes to help your reader share your content on Twitter and Image Sharer to enable image sharing. Remember that search engines cannot read what is on your away images but embedding alt text into them helps. Then it will be a matter of time before your content starts moving right left and centre.

The Final Take

Content marketing is fast taking over leadership in marketing strategies. However, a little extra work is required in making your content stand out in the content dominated web. Adopting any of the above tips gives you somewhere to start. One final tip; content marketing is just about capturing people’s interest and keeping it there!