#053 Content Marketing Newsletter
“Content strategy shouldn't start with SEO. SEO should just be one input in your content strategy.” – Mark Rogers (Director of Strategy at Animalz.co).
🎯 Actionable Insights
💡 1. ‘Show, Don’t Tell’- Tip To Improve Your Landing Page
One of the biggest reasons many landing pages suck is the lack of clear communication.
You may have CTAs like subscribe, start a free trial, get a demo, etc.
But if your users find it difficult to evaluate what using the product is actually like, they’re less likely to convert.
The challenge?
Products with complex features are difficult to explain without using too much text.
The solution?
“Show, don’t tell.”
Help users visualize the product features or the benefits that users will experience once they sign up.
An example?
Here's the image used on the home page of Wynter Games (provides message testing services).
Instead of writing all the features, Wynter decided to add a custom screenshot of the platform that show all the possible features of using their service.
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💡 2. A Content Go-to-market framework for your entire funnel [insights from Tracey Wallace]
Step 1: Find topics that competitors are ranking for
Start your keyword research and find topics relevant to your business offerings. Ensure that you're not ranking for these topics, but your competitors are.
Step 2. Hiring the writer
It is preferred to get the content written by writers with real experience in the niche. This ensures the accuracy and depth of the article. Focus on long-form content that covers the relevant topics within the article.
Step 3. Include internal team members
Ask internal team members to gather:
POV
Statistics/ exclusive data on the topic
Data
Also, share the target keyword, audience, and search intent with the internal team and ask them to share an outline. This document will help the writer understand the requirement and differentiate the content from the rest.
Step 4. Editing
Edit the draft for Context, scannability, and brand adherence.
Step 5. Optimize for SEO
Run the draft through clearscope or any other similar tool to optimize the content for SEO
Step 6. Include gated assets in the content
Again, align internal team members to look for sales enablement material such as slide decks, how-to guides, etc.
Step 7. Launch and update
“Hit publish, and activate the launch plan across social, partners, and lifecycle.”
Consider at least annually updating the content for freshness and relevance.
Repeat the same process for a new keyword.
👉 Follow Tracey Wallace for more insights like this ⭧
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💡 3. Google Analytics Tip To Improve Underperforming Content
First, let’s understand some common acronyms of Google Analytics.
Exits = This denotes the number of times a user exits your site after visiting any specific page.
Exit rates (%) = (number of exits)/ (number of page views)
“High exit rates and low page views is a sign of under-performing pages that don't match the search intent.” – PaperStreet.
High page views are great, but high exits aren’t (In most cases).
Again, pages with high page views and low exits indicate that users are satisfied with the page content and intent.
Likewise, pages with low pageviews and high exits are the opposite.
Difference between bounce rate and exit rate:
In the case of bounce rate, the user only visits one page and exits from that same page. But in the case of exit rates, the user visits at least more than one page of your site and then exits.
Here’s how to find the pages that need improvement:
Step 1: Follow your Google Analytics dashboard path: Behaviour → Site content → Exit pages.
Make sure you’ve extended the date range for at least 3-6 months to have enough data to measure. Also, increase the row numbers to get a list of all your site's pages.
Note the average exit rates of your pages. In my case, it is 50.08%.
This average exit rate can be considered a benchmark where pages with above 50% of exit rates will be scrutinized, and lower than 50% is comparatively good.
Step 2: Export The Data Into Google Sheet
Export the data into Google Sheets and sort the column from largest to smallest.
Since our average exit rate was 50%, we’ll remove the pages having higher exit rates than the benchmark (here, it is 50%).
That means these pages (with exit rates lower than 50%) are performing above the average in terms of exit rates.
Step 4: Study Underperforming Content Pieces
Now, you can see pages (here, >50.08%) that aren't satisfying users' needs.
Also, you can further narrow down the list by sorting the pageviews column from largest to smallest.
This will highlight the pages with high exit rates and low pageviews.
But is always high exit rates bad in terms of user engagement?
No.
It's always better to manually check the intent of these pages. Certain types of pages will always have low pageviews and high exit rates, such as contact us, thank you page, etc.
👉 Learn how to perform a content marketing audit ⭧
💬 SEO & Content Marketing Wisdom
💡 1. Don’t Start Your SEO Project With Keyword Research
You're starting an SEO project; take initial weeks to understand the business models, products, vision, and goals.
Once the basics are clear, it will be easier for you to start with Audience research, site audit, competitor analysis (& everything that makes sense).
💡 2. Copywriting Tip To Make Your Copy More Readable
“Whenever you wanna use a comma, opt for a full stop instead. Long sentences are hard to read.
Short sentences are easy to read.
If you wanna list 3 things in a sentence, better to list them as bullets for improved legibility.” — Wynter.
👉 Insights From Wynter (B2B message testing platform)
💡 3. AIDA Copywriting Formula In Action
You’ll never meet a copywriter who is unfamiliar with the ‘AIDA copywriting framework.’
Here’s what AIDA stands for →
Attention: Grab your reader’s attention in the first few seconds
Interest: Give them reasons to keep reading
Desire: What’s in it for the reader?
Action: What action do you want the reader to take?
Here is an AIDA copywriting example:
👉 Insights From Content Marketing VIP
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🗓️ Learning Resources & Tools
💡 1. Try This All In One SEO Tool For Free [Ahrefs Alternative]
Recently, I started using SE Ranking to perform keyword research and backlink analysis for one of my side projects.
SE Ranking has almost all the necessary features for your SEO projects.
Here's a screenshot of the keyword suggestions tool:
With SE Ranking, you can perform:
SEO audit
Backlink analysis
Keyword research
SEO reporting with pre-built templates
Domain overview
Traffic analysis, and more.
👉 Get Your 14 Days Free Trial of SE Ranking (no credit card required)
💡 2. Track The Latest Google SERP Feature Changes
Want to know the latest changes to Google's SERP features? Use Brodie's notes as a timeline to keep on top of the latest updates & tests.
Best part?
Track the SERP feature updates for specific categories such as eCommerce, desktop, people also ask, etc.
💡 3. Outrank Any Competitor with Micro-SEO Strategies
Outranking competitors in Google SERP is one of the dreams of every SEO professional. But it is not always that easy due to many factors such as backlinks, topical authority, and many more.
In this webinar, you’ll learn the concept of Micro SEO, developed by Chris Raulf, founder of Boulder SEO Marketing.
You’ll learn:
How to implement Micro-SEO strategies
Tools and technologies that support the process
Successful SEO case studies, and more.
👉 Register for the SEO webinar
Quote of the day
Content marketing is a simple way of informing the B2B customers about your products without pushing them to buy it. — Srikanth Acharya (founder of corporate gifting company, OffiNeeds)