Every good content marketing campaign starts with a meticulously framed content strategy. When you’re just starting an online business and generate little to no organic traffic, you need content marketing efforts to get to that stage.
For this reason, we’ve created a guide to starting a successful content marketing strategy for driving traffic to your online business.
We’ll provide actionable insights on how to boost traffic to your content and build an online presence fast. Fortunately, there are dozens of tactics to help you do so, and all of them are suitable for marketing newbies.
Jump-Start a Content Marketing Strategy for Driving Traffic
As you might already know, there’s more to marketing than the content itself. Much more thought goes into the planning of content creation. This is where content marketing strategy is born.
To run a successful marketing strategy, you need to set a goal beforehand. That can be anything from driving more traffic, increasing sales, gaining influence, obtaining more signups, etc.
Here are some general things you should consider when creating your content marketing strategy.
- The reason behind the whole process. Ask the “Why” and “What” questions here. Why is this campaign necessary? What problems are you trying to solve for your audience?
- The content you’re going to create. What is it that you want to achieve with this content? Will you be using blog posts, videos, or maybe start a webinar?
- The target audience. Who is your target audience, and why? Does your content cater to different kinds of audiences? You can choose various channels for delivering content to separate audience types.
- Resources and channels. What will your resources be, and where will you post the content?
- The time. When do you plan on starting the campaign? Why? Could there be a better time?
- Content management. If you’re on your own, schedule every strategy component and set milestone deadlines. If you’re working with a team, split roles, so everyone knows what their task is.
- Content authenticity. Is your content unique? What makes it so? Your customers should know why your product is better than your competitors or how it’s different.
In this guide, we’ll focus on driving traffic to your content, which is one of every marketing campaign’s main goals, and what keeps a business alive. We’ve prepared a list of tips, tactics, and resources you can use to jumpstart your content marketing strategy for driving traffic.
Use Social Media
Not that this needs much further explanation, but if you’re not on social media, it’s like you don’t exist in the online world. Make a Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest account and start cross-sharing content.
You can also add the social media sharing buttons next to your blog post. This will help boost social mentions.
Below, we’ll explain how to use each of the leading social media platforms to generate more leads and drive traffic.
Promote on Facebook
Here is the experts’ advice on promoting your brand on Facebook to drive more traffic.
Be Proactive
Engage with your audience through the comments section and by answering their messages. The more engagement there is on your page, the more Facebook’s algorithm will make your content visible to others.
Choose Timings Carefully
General practice says that late Wednesday mornings and early afternoons are the best periods to post on Facebook. You can also post on weekdays between 9am and 3pm.
Include a Variety of Posts
According to SproutSocial, most users prefer links to more information as to their preferred content type. Image posts and videos take second and third place on the list. These three content types help your posts get more shares, resulting in higher traffic.
Run Facebook Ads
Focus your ad campaign on relevancy and cost-effectiveness. Your ad has to serve a specific purpose and should be relevant to your audience. Also, set a monthly budget and stick to it.
Use Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are a powerful asset in distributing your content to the target audience. If you’re selling vintage jewelry, join groups about that. If you create fitness and wellbeing content, share it in Fitness groups for more leads. There are tons of public and private Facebook groups you can join, so make sure you use them to your advantage.
Promote on Instagram
Instagram is the world’s leading social media platform for sharing photos. According to Statista, there are currently one billion monthly active users on this platform.
We’ve prepared some tips and tricks to help perform better on Instagram and drive more traffic.
Make a Business Profile
This will give you precious information about your followers, their demographics, interests, and behavior.
Create Product Teasers
What better way to spark your customers’ imagination than making a teaser about your future product?
Use Sponsored Ads
One of the most valuable features for building an audience is sponsoring your post. This tool gives brands the possibility to target audiences outside of their followers’ list. You can support photos, videos, dynamic ads, or even stories.
Post Instagram Stories
This feature does wonders for all brands. You can share behind-the-scenes information about your product creation process to bond with your followers.
Add Links to Your Bio
Use the “Bio” section of your Instagram Business Page to add links to your website and other social media platforms.
Create Branded Hashtags
Hashtags are a must-have if you’re looking to increase traffic. You can include your brand’s personalized hashtag next to one or two more general ones.
Go Live Stream
Like stories, live streams are a great way to engage with your audience and provide a behind-the-scenes look at your work.
Use Twitter to Your Advantage
Twitter is yet another powerful social media platform that helps boost traffic. There are a few ways Twitter can drive traffic to your business.
- Use keywords in the same way you do for your blog posts
- Use hashtags. Promote your online business by adding hashtags to your Twitter posts. Including them will get you twice as much engagement
- Keep things short. Even though tweets can be up to 280 characters long, try to keep them around 120. According to Buffer, they tend to have the highest clickthrough rates.
- Tweet on Monday through Friday for the most engagement
- Use content such as text, graphics, videos, or GIFs
- Analyze your competition for valuable insights on what content your audience is into
Start Using LinkedIn
While content marketing on LinkedIn wasn’t quite so important before, it’s recently been gaining popularity. LinkedIn currently has around 740 million members from over 200 countries. The company now has its blog platform where you can promote content to your target audience and beyond.
Here’s how to use LinkedIn to drive traffic to your brand.
Make Your Company Page
This will be the core of your content distribution, and you want to take time to present it in the best possible way.
Create Valuable Content for Your Target Audience
You want to focus on your core business strengths.
Write two to three posts per week. While this depends on how much content you have and how relevant it is, you should keep it active if you want to see results. You want to write on topics such as company news, trends, or business-related advice. Use hashtags to help your content become discoverable.
Use Pinterest
Create an engaging account with a short username, a keyword-rich bio so that users can find you and a “Pin it” button leading to your website.
Pinterest is an excellent solution for creating online businesses centered around DIY, crafting, culinary, lifestyle, and entertainment niches.
Millions of active users take advantage of Pinterest’s engaging posts to create their boards. Why shouldn’t your content end up on someone’s board? This will lead to new followers and bring more traffic to your website.
Buffer says you can pin anywhere from five up to 30 pins per day, depending on how much content you have.
Promote on Reddit
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who’ve never heard of Reddit and those who exploit it for every little piece of information. Luckily for you, there are millions of people in the second category.
You can make subreddits for your niche and start posting content there. The sole action of making a Reddit account and reaching to its audience can get you up to 11% more traffic.
Design Quality Graphic Content
Graphics are essential in engaging with an audience. As digital marketing becomes more sophisticated, it’s becoming harder to impact an audience accustomed to top-quality content.
Fortunately, there are a few free solutions for making quality graphic content. Our top recommendation is Canva. With this platform, you can create professional designs in just a few clicks. Whether you want to design a logo, create a video, a poster, an Instagram post, or an infographic, they’ve got you covered.
Write Killer Blog posts
Whatever your niche, you have a much higher chance of driving traffic to your website by starting a blog. However, this is easier said than done. Creating a revenue-generating blog takes a lot of effort and know-how.
Here are some article types that usually generate more engagement.
How-to-Dos
People love articles that teach them how to do something or solve their problems. That’s why how-to-dos are some of the most engaging article types you could write.
Lists
Make an article made of lists of helpful information. For example: “Proven Strategies to Improve Website Traffic” or “9 Reasons We Love [Brand name].”
Guides
Show people how to do something in detail. Use words such as “Ultimate” or “Advanced” or even “Beginner’s guide” to make them more appealing.
Review Articles
Review or comparison articles are becoming more popular these days. You can compare opposing viewpoints and help your readers make better decisions.
Here are some other tactics to help write blog posts that drive traffic.
- Research your keywords. Knowing what your customers search for will help you learn what content might be more profitable. If they’re searching for a solution for a specific problem, build a blog post around that problem and offer various solutions. You can use Ahrefs or SEMRush, which are both free keyword research tools to get you started.
- Focus on your opening line. Most readers will drop the article if they don’t hook up right away. Write catchy opening lines that will intrigue your readers and keep them engaged.
- Add graphics. Add images, infographics, or videos to make your content more visually appealing.
- Keep it organized. Write short paragraphs (no more than four lines) and use bullet points or numbered lists to explain or number things.
Use Catchy Blog Headlines
Let’s be honest here – in the sea of web content, no one wants to waste time clicking on dull headlines. To make your headlines more clickable, take the following into account:
Your audience. Include words relevant to their interests. Don’t include words such as “cars,” “lazy,” or “flowers” for an audience of runners.
Keep your headline short (less than 70 characters.) Search engines will love you for that.
Include numbers. We love numbers because we feel comfortable around them. They’re also a good indicator of how long an article might be. For example: “7 Ways to Organize Your Living Space You Never Heard About” will tell the reader they’re about to read something innovative and that it won’t take too long. You can check how engaging your headline is with Headlines Sharethrough.
Post Daily
Uploading daily posts on your website, blog, or social media pages will do wonders for driving traffic. This is especially true for social media platforms. If we consider that each Instagram user has 150 followers on average, and their followers have 150 each, one post can reach more than three million people within four generations.
Some influential marketers will even share the same blog post twice a day. They’ll just rephrase the post so it looks authentic. You can use this trick when you lack content.
Link to Related Articles
An old-school content marketing strategy involves linking your latest post with the previous one. You can use one or more links (try not to overdo it) to drive traffic to the related content.
Adding external links to back up your arguments is a great way to add value and build trust with your audience. Internal links, on the other hand, serve the primary purpose of driving traffic to your old content.
Optimize Your Content for SEO
There’s not a tool as powerful for driving traffic as Google. This technology giant has been holding the monopoly on search engines for years now, and it’s no wonder why most online businesses strive to rank high on their search results page.
A recent study shows that 78.2% of bloggers get traffic from search engines. This result is only topped by social media, which drives traffic for almost 86% of bloggers. You see why investing in SEO is a must for every successful content marketing strategy.
Here are some tips worth knowing when optimizing your content for SEO.
- Do keyword research first. This is usually one or more words you build content around. Use Google Trends to explore popular content.
- Analyze your competition. Does the keyword you picked have too much competition? If so, you might want to switch to a less competitive option.
- Always include the keyword in your blog title and a few more times throughout the text.
- Make plagiarism-free and authentic content. This is the only way to go if you want to rank high on Google.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still one of the most prominent channels for driving traffic. Here’s what you can do to start getting more leads with it.
- Start email campaigns. Great software to get you started is MailChimp
- Promote your blog posts. Send your latest blog posts as part of a newsletter. You can also send roundup emails with a list of your top-performing posts for the past week
- Make use of the email signature. Add a link to your website in your signature so that every time someone reads your email, they can visit the site for more details
- Write catchy subject lines. Start your email with an action verb or include an element of surprise
- Send monthly newsletters. A staggering 46% of poll takers say they’d prefer email/newsletter content from the brand they support. The only content type that topped that is video, with 54%
Try Google Ads
If you have a unique product worth showing off, Google Ads should be your starting point. By investing in this powerful tool, customers can find your online business when searching for related services.
Whether your goal is to get more signups, increase store visits, or drive traffic to your website, Google can help. You can focus on a global scale or keep it local; the decision is all yours.
The best thing about Google Ads is that you’re in charge of the costs. You can set a monthly budget and won’t have to worry about breaking the bank.
Host a Webinar
In the past year, webinars have become one of the most common ways for brands to engage with their audience. With many public events being redirected to online conference platforms, these have become a trendy way for driving traffic.
Webinars are an excellent way to engage and educate your audience, attract new customers, and convince people to buy your product. This marketing strategy is especially effective for B2B companies.
FAQs
What Types of Content is Best for Driving Awareness?
You want to choose content that will increase your organic traffic and make it more effective. The best way to do so is through content that drives awareness.
Here’s a list of the top seven most engaging content that drives awareness:
- Blog posts
- Videos
- Infographics
- Case studies
- White papers
- How-to articles
- Webinars
How Do You Create a Good Content Marketing Strategy?
The more thought you put into your content marketing strategy, the better your chances are for a successful content marketing campaign. Here are some tips that can help jumpstart your campaign.
- Set goals. What do you strive to accomplish with this campaign? Do you want to generate more sales, traffic or gain influence?
- Set a mission. Outline your target audience, collect the demographic data, decide on the content you want to use, and outline how it will benefit the viewers.
- Set key performance indicators (KPI) by setting milestones. For example, maybe you want to receive more signups or subscriptions or hit a certain sales number.
- Use Google Analytics and Buzzsumo. These powerful tools will show you popular social networks where your content performs well, how many shares you get per content type, and more. These can help decide on the content type for your marketing campaign.
- Identify roles and resources. At this point, you want to answer questions such as:
- Who will manage the content?
- What resources will you use to make the content?
- When will you be scheduling the content?
- Create content. Put some thought into creating content that reflects your brand, speaks to your audience, and potentially helps them solve problems. Always keep SEO in mind.
Tip: You can use Canva, which is a free tool for creating engaging images, social media posts, infographics, and more.
- Distribute content and measure its success. Share the content on your main media outlet. You can use other resources such as email marketing to make sure your content reaches more people. Finally, recheck Google Analytics to see how your campaign is performing.
What is the Difference Between Content Strategy and Content Marketing?
Content strategy and content marketing are interdependent and are useless without one another. You can think of content marketing as the tip of the iceberg, while the strategy is everything below the water's surface.
Some of the primary questions content strategy solves are:
- What content type will you post?
- Why are you creating that content?
- When will you post the content?
- Who is your target audience?
- Who will create the content?
Once you answer these questions, you can start your content marketing campaign. Some of the most popular content marketing types in these campaigns are blogs, infographics, videos, eBooks, webinars, social media, etc.
Should You Send Paid Traffic to Your Content Marketing Campaigns?
If you notice that your content struggles to reach its content audience, it might be a good idea to invest in a paid campaign. Promoting content by making ads can help small online businesses thrive. Other than Facebook and Instagram ads, you can use Google AdWords to generate more paid traffic. Some of the paid traffic benefits include reaching a broader audience and helping earn highly targeted viewers.
Boost Your Online Business with the Right Content Marketing Strategy
Probably one of the most challenging parts of starting a new online business is getting traffic. Whether you’re looking to increase sales or get new subscriptions, you need to create a robust strategy. Hopefully, our detailed guide on content marketing strategy for driving traffic to your new website or social media page will help you get there faster.
On a final note, use engaging content such as videos, images, or blog posts, and don’t be afraid to invest in paid traffic. Remember that the only way to succeed in content marketing is to build a comprehensive content marketing strategy.
