Remember article marketing? Ten years ago, writing a few articles and spreading them far and wide could do wonders for SEO and increasing your business. But content marketing strategies have changed.
That doesn’t mean articles are dead. Far from it! They have changed names, though. Now, people call them “content.” And the distribution channels have changed too.
Article directories, the few that are still around, are a shadow of their former selves. This is true especially when it comes to generating traffic – and to showing up in Google search results. But you do find plenty of articles, or pieces of content, in LinkedIn where they do a lot of nice things for their authors.
New options for content marketing strategies
And that’s not all. There are other new options, the biggest among them being Medium.com. Medium has great visibility in the search engines, and it has millions of regular readers!
Plus, there are the articles on your own website, whether they are blog posts or more formal articles. So content marketing is still alive and well. The only question is how to make the most of it and use your content to grow your business.
1) Publish your content on your blog
If you want to get the most from your content these days, you use it on your own website first, and specifically on your blog. That’s where you establish your authority and where you can use it to attract visitors and followers.
In order to get it to rank well in the search engines, you need to blog regularly, at least once a week, and preferably more often than that. The blog posts must also be high quality pieces of content so their readers will feel compelled to come back for more.
2) Repurpose your content
But don’t stop there! Take your content marketing strategies to another level! Once your content has been indexed, you can repurpose it and publish it in other places, preferably after rewriting it. If you’re trying to attract a business audience, your best place to publish it is LinkedIn Pulse. Another great place is Medium. Make sure you include a link to your original blog post or other content.
3) Change up the format
You can also turn your content into different formats, from PowerPoint presentations to podcasts to videos. A few people did that even back when article directories still reigned supreme, but now it has become much more important. In fact, if you’re trying to get free traffic, it’s a must.
4) Combine your articles
If you’re planning your content well, you can later combine several of them into longer pieces of content. One or more articles can easily be turned into a special report that can serve as a lead magnet. Add a few more articles, and turn them into a Kindle book. And Kindle books, of course, are an outstanding way to get your name out and bring people back to your website.
5) Publish a book
Finally, you can turn your articles into a full-sized hard copy book, the kind you can put on a bookshelf! They have to be longer than Kindle books, but why not take several Kindle books, add a foreword and other materials, pull it all together to make it flow, and voila! You’re a “real” author!
Being the author of a book will position you as an expert and earn you enormous respect. You can use it as a calling card and when you do speaking gigs, you’ll be introduced as the author of [Name of your book]. People are very impressed by authors. You can even sell your books in the back of the room!
Content marketing strategies these days are all about getting your name out there and establishing yourself as an expert. So if you start with articles and then build your content from there, you’ll attract prospects who have a chance to get to know, like and trust you. And many of them will sooner or later turn into customers or clients.
How to get content without writing it yourself?
Just in case you wondered… What if you don’t like to write?
As it turns out, you don’t have to write (all) your content yourself. Why not hire a writer to do it for you? You can hire someone who writes your blog posts. A writer could even turn your blog posts into Kindle books, and eventually into a full fledged “real” book.
Another option is to have someone interview you and then turn your answers into articles. There are so many ways you can create content without actually having to write it yourself.
But whether or not you plan to write your content yourself, the key is getting started! So when are YOU going to get started? Why not power up your content marketing strategies this year? Imagine what that will do for you in 2021 and beyond!
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