Content marketing has become a necessity for almost every company looking to succeed in today’s competitive environment, and is now an essential part of any successful digital marketing campaign. The goal of content marketing is to create valuable content that attracts potential customers and encourages them to take action, and if you want to increase traffic to your site or boost sales, then this is an area you need to be investing in.
Wondering why content marketing matters, and why you need to be tracking your metrics? We have all of the information you need to take your business to the next level in no time.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is the process of creating and publishing relevant and useful content on your website that will attract visitors and encourage them to convert into leads and eventually customers. It involves using different types of media (such as blogs, videos, ebooks, and infographics) to reach out to target audiences through the likes of paid advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing.
A digital PR agency would use content marketing as part of the campaign strategy, but this is an important skill for any business looking to boost and enhance their traffic and build a solid content marketing strategy.
You may already know that content marketing can help drive more traffic to your site, but did you know that it also helps you measure how effective your efforts are at driving conversions? Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of any online marketing strategy because it allows you to track whether or not your efforts are working.
What makes a good content marketing strategy?
As you can see, there are plenty of different ways to measure success with content marketing. However, what makes a good strategy? We took a closer look below at everything you need to include.
- Good content
Learning how to write SEO friendly content is an important part of any successful content marketing campaign, and you can choose to write your own, or invest in specialist ecommerce SEO services.
Quality content means more than just having a high-quality product. It also means providing useful information that your audience wants to read. So, instead of focusing solely on keyword optimisation, you should be thinking about the overall user experience.
This means making sure that your content is concise, interesting, and relevant. When you create content that meets these criteria, you increase the chances that your visitors will engage with your content and ultimately convert into customers.
- Targeted audience
Another key factor in developing a successful content marketing strategy is targeting your audience. As mentioned above, the goal of content marketing isn’t only to attract new traffic to your site. It’s also to provide value to existing visitors.
To accomplish this, you’ll want to make sure you’re producing content that aligns with your target market. For example, if you sell fitness equipment, then you might consider creating blog posts related to exercise routines. Or, if you run a business selling dog food, you could post articles focused on pet nutrition.
By tailoring your content to meet the needs of your specific audience, you’ll have a much greater chance of converting them into customers. Specialists such as those at our own SEO agency in London can be extremely useful in helping you highlight your target audience.
- Content length
While it may seem obvious, the length of your content matters as well. Longer pieces of content tend to get more attention than shorter ones. This is because people generally prefer reading longer stories over short ones.
However, too long a piece of content can lead to boredom, so it is important to strike the right balance between quality and quantity.
In addition to writing for your target audience, you’ll want to keep in mind the time frame of your content. If you plan to publish regular updates, then you’ll want to ensure each one is at least 500 words. But, if you’re planning on publishing once every few months, then you can go ahead and use shorter content.
- Metrics
Finally, when working on your content marketing strategy, you’ll want to think about measuring its success. While it may seem obvious, most businesses don’t actually pay attention to their metrics until after they’ve already failed.
So, before you start investing heavily in content marketing, it’s worth taking some time to figure out what kind of results you expect from your efforts. And by tracking those results, you can determine whether or not you need to adjust your strategy.
How to measure success with content marketing
There are many ways to measure success with content marketing, including:
- Traffic generated
One of the best ways to measure success with your content marketing campaigns is by measuring the amount of traffic generated from each piece of content. This includes both organic and paid traffic.
If you’re doing things correctly, you should see an increase in traffic over time when you publish new pieces of content. If you’re seeing a decrease in traffic, it could mean that your content isn’t resonating with your audience, or that people aren’t finding your content organically. Either way, you’ll want to look into what you’re doing differently so that you can improve upon your content marketing strategy.
- Lead generation
Another great way to measure success with content is by measuring lead generation. This means that you can determine which type of content is generating the most leads for your business. For example, if you find that certain blog posts are converting better than others, you can use those same blog posts to generate more leads.
This is especially helpful if you’re trying to optimise your content for specific keywords. By analysing which content is performing well, you can make sure that you continue producing similar content that is optimised for the keywords that bring in the most leads.
- Conversion rate
Another way to measure success with your efforts is by determining the conversion rate for each piece of content. Conversion rate refers to the percentage of people who visit your page and then take some sort of action such as signing up for your newsletter or buying something from your store.
You can easily calculate your conversion rate by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visits to your page. The higher your conversion rate, the better!
- Social sharing
It’s easy to forget about social sharing when you’re creating content, but it’s actually one of the most powerful ways to measure success with a piece of content. Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest, allow users to share your content across their networks.
When someone shares your content, they’re essentially telling their friends and followers that they found your content valuable. In turn, this increases the likelihood that they will come back to your site to check out additional content.
So, how do you know whether or not your content is being shared? You can track this information using tools like Google Analytics. Such tools offer analytics that show you where your readers are coming from, how often they’re visiting your website, and even how many times they’ve shared your content.
These insights can help you identify which types of content perform best, and which ones need improvement.
Final thoughts
Content marketing is all about providing value to your target market. It’s important to remember that there’s no “one size fits all” approach to content creation. Every company has different needs, goals, and objectives – and metrics and measurements will offer the insight you need to take your business to the next level.
