Post by Marketing Matters on Dec 24, 2015 16:31:53 GMT
1. Test Headlines and Above-the-Fold Content
How can you get more first-time and repeat visitors to stick around? For starters, craft short, catchy headlines that attract the attention of visitors and fully display in search results. Most engines display a maximum of about 60 characters – enough for about seven to nine words with spaces. Your headlines don’t have to be uniformly sensational, but they should be intriguing enough to convince people to keep reading.
You should also focus on engaging graphics, images, video, text formatting, and navigation features in each page’s “above the fold” area. Traditionally, the “above the fold” portion of a website is the area visible without scrolling once the page has completely loaded.
2. Go Deep!
Nothing conveys authority and subject-matter mastery like a 2,000-word whitepaper on a particular aspect of your business or trend affecting your industry, particularly if you’re the first thought leader to write at length on the subject.
3. Offer Something of Value
Get in the habit of putting together a major piece of authoritative content – a comprehensive series of case studies, an exhaustive white paper, even a professionally produced video.. Then use secondary content, such as shorter blog posts and email marketing blasts, to promote the primary piece of content extensively.
Unless content creation is a key part of your business model, you don’t have to charge a fee for users to access the content. However, you shouldn’t make it freely accessible from an unrestricted site page. Instead, offer it up as a downloadable PDF and require users to provide their name and email address before viewing it. If your organization puts on admission-only events from time to time, consider offering the content to anyone who purchases a ticket to your next get-together.
4. Make Sharing Seamless
In the age of 24/7 social media, nothing holds users’ attention like seamless sharing capabilities. Depending on the nature of your company, you’ll want to include sharing buttons for your strongest social platforms.
Whereas B2B companies typically feature LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Plus buttons prominently, B2C firms may have more success with platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. Share your own content, plus relevant curated content from other sources. And don’t forget to ask your audience to share your content with their friends and followers as well.
5. Sharpen Your Calls-to-Action
Some businesses find success with campaign-specific calls-to-action directing the website visitor to take a specific action on the website i.e. download a white paper, read a blog article, subscribe to an email newsletter, etc. All of these can be useful for segmenting different customer groups into parallel email marketing lists that you can nurture into leads through ongoing email marketing.
6. Don’t Discount Guest Blogging
While the subject of guest blogging has been debated whether or not it’s a valuable SEO tool, it’s still a critical component of content marketing. Instead of link-building, guest blogging is now primarily used to build authority among target audiences and indirectly drive traffic back to a particular website. As long as your guest posts use “nofollow” links, you’re likely to see a qualified traffic boost from a sustained campaign.
How can you get more first-time and repeat visitors to stick around? For starters, craft short, catchy headlines that attract the attention of visitors and fully display in search results. Most engines display a maximum of about 60 characters – enough for about seven to nine words with spaces. Your headlines don’t have to be uniformly sensational, but they should be intriguing enough to convince people to keep reading.
You should also focus on engaging graphics, images, video, text formatting, and navigation features in each page’s “above the fold” area. Traditionally, the “above the fold” portion of a website is the area visible without scrolling once the page has completely loaded.
2. Go Deep!
Nothing conveys authority and subject-matter mastery like a 2,000-word whitepaper on a particular aspect of your business or trend affecting your industry, particularly if you’re the first thought leader to write at length on the subject.
3. Offer Something of Value
Get in the habit of putting together a major piece of authoritative content – a comprehensive series of case studies, an exhaustive white paper, even a professionally produced video.. Then use secondary content, such as shorter blog posts and email marketing blasts, to promote the primary piece of content extensively.
Unless content creation is a key part of your business model, you don’t have to charge a fee for users to access the content. However, you shouldn’t make it freely accessible from an unrestricted site page. Instead, offer it up as a downloadable PDF and require users to provide their name and email address before viewing it. If your organization puts on admission-only events from time to time, consider offering the content to anyone who purchases a ticket to your next get-together.
4. Make Sharing Seamless
In the age of 24/7 social media, nothing holds users’ attention like seamless sharing capabilities. Depending on the nature of your company, you’ll want to include sharing buttons for your strongest social platforms.
Whereas B2B companies typically feature LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google Plus buttons prominently, B2C firms may have more success with platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. Share your own content, plus relevant curated content from other sources. And don’t forget to ask your audience to share your content with their friends and followers as well.
5. Sharpen Your Calls-to-Action
Some businesses find success with campaign-specific calls-to-action directing the website visitor to take a specific action on the website i.e. download a white paper, read a blog article, subscribe to an email newsletter, etc. All of these can be useful for segmenting different customer groups into parallel email marketing lists that you can nurture into leads through ongoing email marketing.
6. Don’t Discount Guest Blogging
While the subject of guest blogging has been debated whether or not it’s a valuable SEO tool, it’s still a critical component of content marketing. Instead of link-building, guest blogging is now primarily used to build authority among target audiences and indirectly drive traffic back to a particular website. As long as your guest posts use “nofollow” links, you’re likely to see a qualified traffic boost from a sustained campaign.
6 Content Marketing Hacks: A Cheat Sheet for Marketing Managers:
Scott Lambert/Business 2 Community
Don't forget to Follow More From Scott Lambert at Business 2 Community
Scott Lambert/Business 2 Community
Don't forget to Follow More From Scott Lambert at Business 2 Community
These tips seem excellent for gaining peoples attention.