There’s plenty of great information about content marketing available today.
The problem is “too much to read, too little time.”
So I’m sharing some of my favorite content marketing articles, and highlighting the information I think makes these articles special.
All these come from the Content Marketing Institute (no surprise there).
The Ultimate Blog Marketing Checklist: 65 Tips, Tools, and Resources by Mike Murray
The author’s tips cover everything from developing a strategy to marketing your blog.
Here are a few of my favorite tips:
- Define a niche.
- Create a plan for tracking your key performance indicators (KPIs).
- Stick to a schedule.
- Make sure your search boxes are clearly visible on your blog page.
- Fight and manage comment spam by monitoring the conversations that take place on your blog posts.
- Draw inspiration for your posts from your personal experiences.
- Use numbers and adjectives in headlines to grab attention and convey the specific value provided by a post.
- Have a primary keyword phrase in mind as you write.
- Write an alt tag for your images.
- Integrate your social media accounts with your blog pages, so you can easily share your new blog content across your networks.
Get Control of Your Content Marketing Ideas So You Can Take Action by Michele Linn
The author outlines four ways to get control of your ideas.
- Make a list of all your ideas.
- Delete ideas that are no longer meaningful to you.
- Prioritize your ideas.
- Remove distractions so you can truly focus.
I found the last section particularly interesting. One way to remove distractions is to list the three to five things you want to accomplish in a day, and then just focus on them.
Another approach is the Pomodoro Technique whereby you turn off all distractions and work on a dedicated task for 25 minutes. Take a five-minute break and repeat throughout the day. It’s basically how I’ve worked for years (way before I learned there was science behind the process). It works well for me.
Get a Jump on 2017: 11 Can’t-Miss Content Marketing E-Books by Jodi Harris
I’m not going to list the books, which range from hard data (Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends) to inspiration (Get Inspired: 75 More Content Marketing Examples). Check the list out. Chances are you’ll find something of interest.
4 Ways to Make Your Content Stand Out by Neil Patel
The article describes four ways to get your content noticed, and provides excellent examples of how these strategies have worked. The four ways are:
- Establish a strong story angle.
- Shoot amazing photographs. (Go beyond stock photos to take pictures that “ring a bell.” Think angles, perspectives, concepts, situations, sets, colors, focus and lights.)
- Leverage your expertise and network by using your connections to provide valuable content.
- Make sure your content is trendy. Cross-check its popularity with tools like BuzzSumo or Google AdWords.
Does Your Content Answer Searchers’ Questions? by Ben Steiner
Focusing on answering questions is especially important today since Google is placing more emphasis on Q&A with its “instant answers” and “people also ask” boxes. The author points out that, by “making questions a major part of your content marketing strategy, you get an opportunity to rank for more phrases, generate more exposure from search results…, build trust, and become a valuable and linkable resource.”
Good goals. On the practical side, the author explains how to use Serpstat and Quora effectively, and how to search questions on Twitter and archive your results. Finally he recommends including an FAQ section on your website.
I hope you find this information helpful. What are your favorite content-marketing articles?
