Making Lead Generating Content Work For You

How To Create Lead Generating Content :

If gaining leads through your website is the Holy Grail then web content is the map that takes you there. In a world of thousands if not millions of websites jostling for attention. Quality content is what defines you and makes you stand out in a crowded marketplace.

While there are many companies who claim expertise in content generation, not all content is created equal. If you miss, then you miss big. Getting the right tone, the right keywords and the right goals are vital tools in the world of lead generation.

What Does Content Do For You?

Mainly three things, it gives information and knowledge about your product. It asks customers to dig deeper and find out more. Lastly it asks customers to take action, to engage with you.

With these three points to consider, how do you go about getting your content just right?

Adele Miller, a content writer at Studydemic has this to say: “Writing great content is not something you can just sit down and tap out without a great deal of research and planning. There is a huge difference between good writing and great content writing that drives leads to your website and hopefully converts them into action”.

The Most Important Thing You Have To Do Is:

Create a documented content marketing strategy. Without it, you could potentially get lost along the way. A content marketing strategy is something you and your team can reference in the tie of need and also something that can help you in your future endeavours.

Getting Seen

The first thing to consider is how you will bring attention to your site and figure out how your targeted audience will even know you exist. One of the buzz words flying around marketing offices across the world is SEO driven content. In short, this Search Engine Optimisation technique means content built around carefully selected keywords will help drive your website to the top of a search engine. Let’s face it, Google is that search engine. Appearing on the first page of a search, is the ultimate goal.

When you’ve got your keywords figured out by looking at competitors’ websites and conducting Google searches yourself. Make sure you include these terms across your websites, while maintaining the natural flow of your copy. If in doubt, ask an expert and avoid making your SEO content sound clunky and unnatural. It will put people off reading your content and worse still, drive people away from your website.

Test It Out

Make adjustments where needed. Be prepared to update and adapt to the needs of your audiences.

Of course there are other ways to garner attention and one sure fire method is through the creation and regular updating of a blog. These act as vehicles to express your knowledge and expertise and answer basic customer questions with a sense of authority that comes from a personal touch. Don’t leave your blog languishing in a corner of your website. Make sure it’s updated regularly and any comments are responded to.

Use Your Blog

Issue a call to action, solve a common problem experienced by the reader. Make yourself heard as the go-to authority in your field.

Take your presence even further out there by using your blog as a platform for other social media interactions. Live stream a Q&A session with the boss, make a YouTube video demonstrating a product referred to in your blog. Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are all there at your fingertips for different content, all of which drives people back to your website. Turning visits into positive leads.

A Long Blog is a Good Blog

It demonstrates your passion for your product and gives you the chance to insert your keywords and searched for phrases much more naturally. Use it to link to other pages on your site, special offers and contact information.

These gains are generated through an investment of your time. For a greater outreach it might be necessary to consider an investment into a marketing campaign. If you have budget, think about using it for advertising on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or other social media spaces.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

There’s also the possibility of paying to appear at the top of a search in Google through Pay-Per-Click advertising. This requires a more long- term commitment. Once you stop paying for your website to appear high up in searches, it’s entirely possible to plunge back down the pages into relative obscurity. When’s the last time you scrolled past page three in a search engine?

Think about where your audience is most likely to see your campaigns. Consider how a targeted advertising strategy might work in tandem with the presence you already have on that platform.

Guaranteed Quality

Now comes the nitty gritty: once you’ve driven up the number of visitors to your site, it’s time to turn their curiosity into something deeper. Now is the time to determine how the quality of your content will be tested.

David Trewlis

A Content Marketing Manager with Simplegrad, says: “This is the stage where you need to really know your target audience and write as if it were your ideal customer reading your content. Don’t try and attract a general readership, be selective and careful in your targeting. This way, you’ll find that any leads generated are far more likely to be of a higher quality”.

Make Sure You Know Who You Want Contacting You

Do your research and find out where this segment of your audience spends most of its time online. Create content that mirrors the style of social media they use. Think about their values and what’s important to them and translate that into content. You can do this by creating an ideal customer persona. Give he or she a name and fill in the gaps of their personality, likes and dislikes, which industry they work in and so forth. This will give a much clearer steer to your writing.

If you’re looking for readers to sign up to a newsletter, email marketing campaign or just to find out more information, then sweetening the offer with a free download, a discount code or other such promotion will help towards prompting an action. Challenge your reader to take part in a survey and send results by email, capturing an email address and getting your visitor engaging with your website.

The Quality Of Your Writing

As mentioned up post, there’s a yawning chasm between great writing and great content. The two things do not always necessarily align, although elements do of course overlap.

You might consider turning your content writing over to the professionals at this point if there’s no one in your team qualified to do the job. This might even be an opportunity to send a team member on a training course. Consider it an investment.

Going Solo?

There are several points to bear in mind: we’ve talked about keywords leading to Search Engine Optimisation and writing in a style geared towards your customer base. Now also consider the quality of your writing.

Draw up a content map, pinpointing exactly which areas of content are going where on your site and why. This will help to paint the larger picture and make your writing more strategic. Once you’re up and running, it’s time to check, and double check and then triple check.

Great content is more than just pithy phrases, it’s making sure your dangling modifiers are tidied up, your paragraphs are just the right length and your grammar is impeccable. If you’re not confident in this area, then take the time to run your copy through a grammar and spelling checker. Such as grammarly and ViaWriting.

Analyze and Act

Then, of course, it’s time to sit back and relax. Well almost. You can spend your time guessing how successful your content is or you can take a bit more time tracking, analyzing and noting down which content is attracting more hits and which is performing less strongly.

There Are Several Ways To Do This

Some may require investment and others that can be utilized through your own analysis.

Some web sites offer a full analytics service, looking at how each of your pages has performed and how much traffic has passed through. Alternatively you can add Google Analytics to your site for free. Once you have these figures, it’s once again time to act.

Use these statistics to prompt content upgrades on these pages, rewarding returning customers with up-to-date information and giving you the option to hone your message. Perhaps consider using a more popular page as a platform for a call to action, asking customers to opt in to a promotion or a mailing sign-up.

All these things alone don’t make for a great marketing content strategy but combined and used correctly, you’ll be surprised at the powerhouse lead-generating content can become. Whether you plan on going it alone and crafting a tailor-made website for your audience or have decided to get the professionals in to help, make sure you know where you want to go.

Finally, great content will help drive your passions and goals forwards. It will give you the kinds of leads your growing business deserves.