Content marketing has quickly become one of the most effective marketing strategies for websites today. It’s an incredibly effective way to bring the right audience straight to your site. So, what exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of content with the goal of attracting a specific online audience and increasing beneficial customer action.
Done correctly, content marketing can lure in the target audience, increase traffic, earn quality leads and improve conversion rates.
Great news for all the bloggers out there – blogging is a huge aspect of content marketing. Content marketing can help you build and grow your following. You’re already doing half the work, so you might as well get on board.
If you’re interested in creating a blog, WordPress is one of the best options available. It’s beginner-friendly, highly customizable, and free to use. WordPress offers a huge selection of plugins and themes available to users.
Read ahead to learn how you can use content marketing to boost the success of your blog.
Here are some tips you should know (For WordPress bloggers)
1. Stick to a niche:
Creating a strong niche for your blog is a powerful tool that should not be ignored. This is especially true for beginner bloggers.
This makes all the sense in the world– topics that are more general simply have more competition.
The best way to raise the value of your blog is to offer advice and information on a very specific topic. Focusing on a niche encourages readers to turn to your blog for questions related to a topic that other blogs do not address.
So, how exactly do you find a niche? Here are some pointers:
- Consider your passions and interests. Even if you’re not an expert, a passion to learn more about your topic is a great start.
- Make sure it’s a profitable niche. Find out how much traffic your topic gets with a keyword research tool. You want a topic that hits the sweet spot between super popular and super obscure.
- Look at the competition. Is there a gap that your blog can fill? Are they neglecting to answer certain questions? Use this information to narrow down your niche if possible.
At the end of the day, creating a niche is imperative to rank higher and gain more quality leads.
One thing to be aware of is that a niche blog may actually get less traffic, but the quality of the traffic will increase. By presenting a niche, you will attract an audience that is much more likely to engage, return to the site and make a purchase.
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2. Use “X vs Y” posts:
Once you figure out your niche, it’s time to face the true challenge: content creation. Of course, content creation is the bread and butter for both content marketing and blogging.
The question is, what type of content should you focus on?
One commonly overlooked blog-type is “X vs Y” posts. This type of post compares and contrasts two similar products or services. There are a few reasons why these posts are so great for a new blog:
- It’s less competitive.
- You’ve got twice the material to write about as opposed to a single review.
- You’re answering a specific question for the target audience.
- People searching for this answer are often looking to make a purchase.
You’ve likely read a few of these articles yourself. That’s because they’re genuinely useful to people deciding between two products. For that reason, it’s also important to do good research and provide a knowledgeable answer.
Here are a few examples of X vs Y posts:
- “Ahrefs vs SEM Rush”
- “WordPress vs Squarespace”
- “Siteground vs Bluehost”
You get the idea– compare and contrast the best features of each product. Provide some pros and cons and see how the pricing packages stack up.
3. Use a mobile-friendly WordPress theme:
I’ve already mentioned the vast benefits that WordPress can offer you. When it comes to choosing a theme, you’re going to want one that’s mobile-friendly.
In an era where mobile browsing has been steadily rising for the past decade, it’s super important to have a seamless mobile website for your blog.
Here are some options for mobile-friendly WordPress themes:
- Themeforest: this website offers tons of mobile-friendly themes that are ready to go right out of the box.
- Beaver Builder: this is a good option for drag-and-drop front end design. Beaver builder is perfect for beginners and anyone intimidated by website building.
Whatever theme you go with, just make sure your mobile site is easy to navigate and aesthetically pleasing so that you don’t lose out on those valuable mobile users.
4. Use Yoast SEO:
Remember all of those great WordPress plugins we mentioned earlier? Well, Yoast SEO is one of the most useful plugins available for bloggers. Yoast SEO is actually the number one SEO WordPress plugin, and it’s for good reason. Here’s what Yoast SEO can do for your blog:
- Attract more visitors from popular search engines.
- Increase reader engagement
- Optimize keywords and key phrases
- Keep your content relevant and up-to-date
- Improve the readability of your content
- Optimize meta-titles and descriptions
Yoast SEO offers free and premium versions. The free version allows you to focus on a single keyword or phrase, so you have to make it count. Upgrading to premium gives you access to related keywords. This will get your content out to a wider audience and better optimize your blog.
Whether or not you choose Yoast SEO, it’s crucial that you utilize an SEO tool. If you plan to use content marketing to improve your WordPress blog understanding SEO practices is absolutely necessary for attracting the best audience.
5. Clean up your permalinks:
If you’re already on WordPress, you might have noticed your permanent URLs are long and unsightly. Those URLs – the ones that link to your individual webpages and blog posts – are called permalinks.
When you use WordPress, your permalinks are not automatically formatted in a clean, appealing way. Those super long, ugly permalinks are not only unattractive, they’re hard to remember. So, here’s how you can clean up those permalinks:
- Click on the “Settings” tab on the righthand side.
- Scroll down to “Permalinks”
- Select “Post Name”
The “Post Name” option works well for most bloggers. It changes your permalink to a unique key phrase relating to the post title. Keep in mind, if you’re posting multiple articles a day about the same topic, this option might not be ideal for you. For most bloggers, however, this is the easiest way to get a pretty permalink.
6. Use clean affiliate links
While we’re on the topic of links, let’s talk about your affiliate links. Let’s make one thing clear – if you’re blogging and not taking advantage of affiliate marketing, you need to start immediately! You’re doing all of the work to pull in a target audience and they’re likely willing to purchase the product or service you’re writing about.
Most of you, however, are probably aware of and participating in affiliate marketing. If that’s the case, you need to make those links beautiful. And guess what? There’s a WordPress plugin for that.
Thirsty Affiliates is a great WordPress plugin that takes long affiliate links and transforms them into simple links that include your own URL. Here are a few of the features that make Thirst Affiliates so great:
- It’s easy to access. After you download the plugin, it appears as a button in the visual editor.
- It helps to organize your links. You can put links relating to similar themes into categories to help better manage your links.
- Add images and banners to links. This feature helps with customer engagement and encourages more clicks.
- It’s free to download.
7. Add FAQ Markup schema on important pages
Have you ever Googled something and noticed a convenient list of quick questions and answers on the results page? Those are FAQ results and they’re a great way to increase click-through rate for your blog.
Google allows up to 3 pages on the first page to have a FAQ markup. So how do you become eligible for FAQ results? First, you’ll need to add a FAQ schema on your WordPress site.
Here’s how to add a FAQ schema:
- Download the Yoast SEO and make sure you have the latest version of WordPress Gutenberg.
- Open the WordPress page where you want to add a FAQ
- Navigate to the FAQ content block.
- Fill out the questions and answers.
Adding a FAQ schema is often overlooked but it’s an incredibly simple way to gain visibility on a search results page. You don’t need to overthink the FAQ, just provide simple, accurate answers to questions you’re target audience is likely to have.
8. Use a social sharing plugin:
Last, but not least, you should incorporate the power of social media to boost your blog. It comes as no surprise that there is a handy WordPress plugin to do just that.
The Social Snap plugin is a social media plugin that beautifully displays your social media links on all of your pages.
This WordPress plugin also provides an auto-post feature that automatically posts on all of your social media accounts whenever you create a new blog post. You’ll also widen your audience by allowing them to visit your website via their own social media networks.
Advanced analytics give important insights into how your audience is sharing and engaging in your content. One of the best things about this plugin is how user friendly it is. Utilizing this app takes absolutely no coding skills.
The one downside to this plugin is that it’s not free. However, the starting pack is very affordable at just $27.30 for an entire year. That’s a great value considering the features you’ll receive.
Final Thoughts
Content marketing and blogging are like two sides of the same coin – if you’re doing one, you should be doing the other. So, if you’re a WordPress blogger, take some of these tips into consideration and start attracting your target audience.
The great thing about WordPress is that there are plugins for virtually any problem. This comes in especially handy for content marketing. Make sure to check out Yoast SEO, Thirsty Affiliates and Social Snap to access some great tools for your blog. Incorporating these tools and tips will no doubt increase the success of your WordPress blog.