‘Inbound Marketing’ is all about creating valuable content and reasons for your target audience to come to you. Thus, an effective inbound marketing strategy should include innovative and appealing materials. In this post, we will highlight six inbound efforts or ideas to get you started!
1. Take Advantage of SEO
One of the simplest and fastest forms to make sure your content reaches your desired audience is by using SEO or ‘Search Engine Optimization.’ Simply create a list of words that match your business’ main categories and features. For instance, if you are selling Antivirus Software use words as protection, antivirus, software, spyware, infected, Internet security, computer, etc.
Once you have created your list, complement it by using similar terms or phrases. Draw on your own experience and think as a consumer would! We all have searched Google when we are looking for an answer, products or services. The most efficient way to do this is checking the keywords suggestions in Google Adwords (you will need to use the advanced version) and the website Answerthepublic.com.
Now that your list of keywords is bulletproof (or at least close to being) start using those phrases and terms to get new ideas to write about. Ideally, one keyword can suggest you one different blog post.
2. Include FAQ Within Your Keywords… and answer them!
Above we mentioned that creating a list of ‘keywords’ for SEO is a great way to drive traffic to your website or blog. An efficient practice that becomes even more effective when you add frequently asked questions to that list. Remember that you must think as a consumer to be able to reach them.
Adding ‘Question Keywords Optimization’ appeals to semantics and how people usually look for answers through search engines. Whenever someone searches using a question phrase, Google (for instance) tries to respond to the question by getting the most appropriate response to the asked question.
An easy way to get ideas for this kind of blog posts is to apply question words to your topic such as what “your keyword”, who “your keyword”, etc.
Thus if you are writing a blog post, article or tweaking your website’s content, you should ask (and answer) a lot of questions. If we go back to the Antivirus Software example, a good headline for a blog post would be “How to get rid of spyware on my computer?” or “How can I improve my Internet security?”
3. Think Negatively
When you are looking for ideas as to what to write on your company’s blog and what would be the best way of making that content relevant, think negatively. Believe it or not, people are more prone to click on a headline or link that includes some negativity.
You shouldn’t always have negative headlines as that could position your company or brand as a ‘downer,’ and you wouldn’t want consumers to associate you with only negative terms. But if you can write down a list of common mistakes or ‘Don’ts,’ this can be an effective way to drive traffic.
Another great way of weaving in negativity without sounding like a pessimist is to include articles that show data or facts. For example, “9 out of 10 computers get infected with spyware, find out how to avoid it.”
4. Do Your Homework
Yes! Make sure you are constantly researching what your competitors are doing, what clients are saying, what people are posting on social media, and what is trending. All of these are excellent sources of inspiration.
You also can research blog comments. Many user make questions in the comments and you can answer that questions in your blog. If someone made the effort to write a comment, you can be sure that there are many other that had the same question even when they didn’t wrote it.
Research is also a very effective method to find contributors that may help you fill gaps whenever you have writer’s block.
5. Get advantage of what other have to say: allow guest posts
People working their own SEO will be happy to post in your blog in exchange for a link. If you allow guestpost, they will write you with some pitches about they could write. This allows you to offer other expertise in your own site, adding a good diversity and breaking the routine.
Working with guest contributors is also a great way to make connections or establish relationships with experts or influencers within your industry.
6. Give them your secrets!
Sometimes you just need to explain how you do something in your business to have a new blog post. People like people stories, so from time to time, you can explain that your company made a party o collaborated with some NGO. Of course this should be punctual, but it makes the company more human and the clients will empathize better with it.
All of these inbound marketing ideas will help you to increase your number of visitors, leads, and buyers – and remember there is always room for improvement. To keep up with your audience, you should be continually innovating. Your worst enemy when it comes to posting is predictability.
What other ideas are you using that could help others improve their content?
