Running a business on the internet is unique in many different ways. One of the most exciting and beneficial components of it is that anyone can start a website or blog, and have it turn into something quite amazing over time. This has happened time and time again, no matter if it’s an individual, a team of entrepreneurs, or even an established business.
This all ties into the fact that content matters. However, with there now being more than a billion active websites and blogs on the internet today, it’s less about creating ‘more’ content, and more about making sure your content has a direct focus, call to action, and promotional strategy once it goes live. At the same time, gone are the days when it was easy to rank in the search results. With so many websites and blogs pushing out content daily, it’s very hard to rank on page one of Google for anything — and if you aren’t on page one, you might as well not even rank at all. This is also why so many bloggers, brands, and marketers are investing their time and money into email marketing. It’s simply a better, faster, and more effective way to grow a brand or business through direct email relationships.
Even with email marketing in focus, you still need to have a solid content creation and marketing plan. In this article, we are going to cover five basics of creating high-quality content, knowing who your target audience is, and how to best get your content right in front of them.
1. Creating Content with a Purpose
One of the biggest problems that people have when starting a new content-focused website or blog is that they are simply in it for the money. While this is a legitimate reason to get started, it’s also one of the biggest fumbling points. Blogging is a slow process and if you want to stick with your blog and topic, make sure it’s something you have an interest in or at least can outsource the writing process.
With this in mind, if you are going to create a website or blog with the focus on making money, you need to have a solid foundation and business plan in place before you get started. This means knowing why you are starting a blog in the first place, the niche topic of your site, who you are creating content for, how they are going to benefit from it, while also having a solid monetization plan in place.
Before even registering your domain name and setting up your hosting account, be sure to map all of this out. It’s much better to spend a few hours on the pre-planning process, then trying to fix everything or readjust later on.
2. Building Backlinks to Your Sites
With so many websites and blogs creating content, it’s really just filling the internet with a bunch of junk. The majority of it will never be read, and even less will ever be linked to from other sites. Backlinks and references on other sites are the best way for Google to measure the value and quality of content someone creates. The more authority sites that link to a site, even better.
In short, you need to have backlinks going not only to your main page, but also your individual articles as well. It’s also not just about the number of incoming links, but the relevancy and quality of the sites that are linking to you as well. Your site will rank higher and faster in the search results if you are building links on sites that have high page rank and relevancy to your site.
Some of the best ways to accomplish this, is through the use of guest blogging, creating infographics, and also contributing to expert roundups or interview style posts.
3. Getting Active on Social Networks
Even with over a billion active sites online, that’s nothing compared to the number of social profiles on the internet today. Just Facebook and Twitter combined have well over 2 billion users. If you aren’t currently sharing your site content through social media, you are likely missing out on a lot of traffic and potential social shares.
Search engines also love social media as well and rank social profiles very high in Google. Since social platforms already have extremely high trust and authority rankings, it’s easy to rank for individual names, brand names, and your site name. To improve the rankings of your social profiles, be sure to link back to each of them from other articles or websites.
Content Creation + Email Marketing = Winning Strategy
As you can see, when it comes to content creation and reaching the right audience online, there is a lot of work. Content creation is always going to play a huge role in the success of any business, but it also comes down to how effectively you can promote it and get in front of the right audiences. This is why the combination of content creation and email marketing works so well — there isn’t a need to wait and guess where your site traffic is coming from. With email lead generation and marketing, it’s an instant and direct engagement factor.
Be sure to follow these tips and stick with the content generation, link building and social interaction of your blog. After all, people are visiting your site to find value in it, so make sure you are doing exactly that.
To learn more about how to set up your first email lead generation campaign with AfterOffers, contact us today.