2011 is the year that you better start producing high-value content! Seriously – it’s the first few days of the new year, but it’s time to get busy.
Effective content has to be created, launched, shared and repurposed – but we all want the latter two, yet don’t give our consumers enough high-value content to share. And 3 months into the new year, if you don’t produce content, you’ll still be wondering, “How do I get more traffic to my site?”
Effective content can be a powerful magnet for traffic that ultimately results in sales!
Content can be:
- blog posts (read this very effective post from John Jantsch about blogging)
- self-published articles
- ebook, white paper, resource booklet
- videos
- audio podcasts
- webinars recorded and archived
- photos
- etc….
The above are simply ONLINE content. You might create supporting OFFLINE content as well:
- face-to-face seminars
- speaking engagements
- trainings
- resource book
- etc….
CREATE THE CONTENT – get on a calendar, set a time each week and just write, speak, or outline something of high-value. Think not about what you DO, but what your target market is NEEDING from you. This instantly makes your content more valuable to them to consume – and the higher the possibility that your content will be shared by them to their wide circle of friends. Also, for SEO purposes, write naturally, but also strategically make your content keyword-rich (just don’t stuff the article with keywords so much that it’s unreadable by your audience – write naturally).
LAUNCH THE CONTENT – post the article to your blog, upload the video or photo to a media-sharing site, upload that article or press release to a free distribution service, etc…get it out there in the place that offers you the highest level of exposure.
SHARE THE CONTENT – you can do this, but it is so much more effective if your audience does this for you. But encouraging them to do it certainly helps – ask them to do it and more will. Put a “share” button on your blog that can facilitate the sharing over to Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon, etc.
REPURPOSE THE CONTENT – one of the coolest thing about keyword-rich, high-value content is the ability to reuse it over and over. Post a “REPLAY” of an old blog post that got you alot of traffic – assuming it’s still relevant, play it again and see if you can restimulate some activitiy on your blog. Articles can’t be posted again to the same article marketing site, but you can certainly draw from old articles when producing new stuff – and those internal links offer your new audience a look back into some of your older content. Facebook and Twitter users are constantly asking, “what do I post now?” On those days when you just can’t think of anything, pull from an old blog post or article and you have an easy tweet or status update.
Happy New Year everyone – may 2011 be your very best!
-Randy & Donny