You can publish content all day long, but if no one knows it’s there…
Crickets.
Nothing.
No traffic. No engagement. No impact.
But it’s not as hard as you might think to get eyeballs on your content — and enjoy all the benefits of a smart content marketing plan.
Keep reading to learn 5 surprisingly simple things you can do to make your content discoverable, so it gets the results you need from your content marketing.
1. Create Good Content
Good content can cause a reader not only to come back to your site, but to share your information with friends who may, in turn, continue sharing with others.
A single reader can turn into hundreds of others from around the world who are now introduced to your company.
If your content is truly captivating, they may share it with hundreds more each, creating exactly the kind of advertising that every company wants but can no longer achieve with banner ads and pop-ups.
So what makes content captivating?
There’s no single answer to it. Generally speaking, content is “good” when it contributes something new and valuable to the web. This can be a new perspective, a new style, a new way to explain something, etc.
Embracing a higher standard for your content can make all the difference to the world.
Here are some ideas for you to turn your ok content into great content:
- 10 Tools To Skyrocket Your Content Marketing Performance
- Writing Checklist: How to Create and Use One (+Free Template)
- Five Types of Content that Converts
2. Optimize Your Content to Rank
Google is the ultimate journalistic research tool. Bloggers and journalists all over the world use Google to find sources, definitions, and data.
Making your content discoverable by Google users is the most effective way to generate natural links out there.
To improve your content’s organic search visibility, use Text Optimizer, a search intent optimization tool making your content more likable by both search engines and readers.
It uses semantic analysis to extract related concepts and terms from Google’s search results and forces you to expand your content to cover some of those.
Including these related concepts in your content naturally helps Google classify your content properly and consequently rank it higher.
3. Links Bring Links: Build Connections through Linking
I can directly pinpoint the most exciting day in my blogging career. It was early morning, and I was still having coffee and ambling through my Facebook feed.
I hadn’t even checked my email yet, and really didn’t want to. You know how it is, sifting through the spam, the constant guest post pitches, the fan and hate mail… it gets exhausting.
But then I got a notification, and it caught my eye.
According to my Gmail Notifier, a blog I read pretty much every day had come up in a WordPress notification email. I hurried to my inbox to check it out, and nearly fell out of my chair.
This blog that I subscribed to, loved, and devoured had backlinked me!
Somewhere, in some post, they had referenced me as an example of something. Traveling from the link to the original post, I found that I had been featured as part of a roundup of the best posts on a particular topic hot at the time.
Not only was this exciting in and of itself, but it changed my life in a couple of ways. First, it was the icebreaker I needed to begin communicating with the head editor of the blog, leading to me becoming a contributor. Second, it introduced me to the real power of blog roundups.
Other bloggers are like that too!
Linking builds relationships with other bloggers. Link freely and frequently to fellow bloggers, and you’ll see them linking to you soon enough!
Want to see a good example of this? 11 Examples of Top-Quality Content from 2016
4. Give Your Blog a Face
Your blog needs to have an identity so that you can offer a truly personal experience through marketing. This involves showing your blog’s human side.
- Show your personality throughout the site: Use pictures, videos, etc. to show who you are
- Spend a lot of time creating a detailed and memorable “About me” page: Talk about your personal life, hobbies, and achievements. Tell your personal story and don’t be afraid to be funny.
- Invite readers to leave feedback and ask questions. And include an address that can be used to reply to in automated emails.
- Use templates and plugins showing your personality in the best possible way. Here’s a good variety of those.
5. Get Your Content Out There
There’s nothing wrong with being discoverable. There’s nothing wrong with being pro-active about being discovered.
And I don’t mean asking someone for a link. I mean being pro-active about letting more people see your content (and possibly link to it at some point).
Engaging your current readers in sharing your new content is the first step. (Be sure to align your email marketing efforts to new regulations though.)
The most obvious way to do this is social media. You want people to share your work. Targeting your user base is one way, but jumping on someone else’s coattails is a great boost for visibility, and increasing chances of even more social links.
A new term has been coined recently: “ego-baiting.”
Ego-baiting is the process of mentioning someone in your content, as well as quoting, praising or even scorning them. In theory, they should fall victim to their ego and choose to share out that content, or link to it as a reference for their own post.
It sounds a lot shadier than it is. If you have a genuine statement to make about someone else or their work, there is no reason you shouldn’t write about it.
Here’s a good example of what I am talking about here: Very First 5 Steps When Starting a Blog: Expert Mastermind
Chances are, you have taken part in ego-baiting without even realizing it.
You know those top ten lists you make that link to people’s content or websites? Those mentions potentially catch their attention, leading to those “Hey, a shout-out to (Your Name) for including me in (Article)!” social media posts.
It’s an ego-baiting tactic that aims to attract influencers to your content for shares and links.
MyBlogU is a great way to attract people to your content who will then help you promote your content on social media and link back to the articles they got featured in!
There’s also this handy step-by-step guide on promoting your content on social media.
If you make one of these posts, or anything else that heavily features another blogger, send them an email letting them know they are in it. Maybe they will share the link, maybe they won’t. But at least you will have taken a shot.
Make Your Content Discoverable
There’s no point in creating content if you don’t get it in front of the people who will benefit from the information you share.
So don’t be bashful!
It’s not hard to make your content discoverable — attracting backlinks, social shares, and recognition of the value your work brings to the table.
If you have any ideas for building links as a blogger, let us know in the comments. We would love to hear from you!
About the Author: Anna Fox is a freelance writer helping fellow freelancers find jobs via her blog hirebloggers.com
