Innovation & data-driven digital marketing.

Content marketing is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, drive organic website traffic, and establish credibility and trust with your target audience. In fact, it’s so important that 66 percent of marketers plan to invest more in their content marketing efforts now than in years prior, according to a recent State of Content Marketing Report.    

With so many businesses increasing their content marketing spend this year, it’s vital that your strategies you implement to stand out from the crowd. It’s not enough to churn out a handful of blog posts or social media graphics each month. You need a creative content marketing approach that will hook the audience’s attention and keep them wanting more.     

Even if you’ve had success with content marketing already, there is still room to grow. To that end, here are some actionable tips for scaling your creative content marketing plan:

Optimize Your Blog Posts to Increase SEO Performance

The first “answer” in Google search results has an average click-through rate of 28.5 percent, while the tenth only has a 2.5 percent click-through rate. How do you snag that prime slot of online real estate? Optimize your blog posts to improve SEO ranking and performance. You can take your SEO to the next level with these strategies:

  • Integrate keyword research: before you write a blog post, research the search queries your target audience uses to find content. Platforms like Google, Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz offer keyword research tools to help narrow down specific words or phrases users enter into search engines. Armed with this information, you can create more blog posts on the topics your audience wants to read.
  • Optimize meta descriptions: while you’re weaving keywords into the copy of a blog post, don’t overlook the meta description either. A meta description is the HTML tag that summarizes the content as a 160-character snippet beneath the search result headline. When crafting a meta description, make it concise, specific, relevant, and solution-oriented. Use the main keyword at least once, and insert a call-to-action that will motivate your audience to click.
  • Create a backlink campaign: link building is essential to any creative content marketing plan because it will increase your blog post visibility and credibility. A backlink is an anchor text URL from an external website that directs users to your content. You’ll want to obtain backlinks from sites with high domain authority to boost traffic and improve your online reputation. Start with these tips from our experts to build a successful backlink campaign.

Diversify the Content You Make and Channels You Post On

While blog posts are valuable for SEO, if you focus exclusively on the written material, you will miss out on other profitable forms of content. Experiment with creating more visual and interactive content and work on tailoring each piece of content to specific digital channels. If your content marketing plan has started to feel one-note, here are a few ideas to diversify your approach:

  • Create content in different audiovisual formats: a few options to try out include videos, infographics, podcasts, interactive polls, flowcharts, animated GIFS, illustrations, slideshows, memes, data visualizations, live streams, and photography.  
  • Expand your reach to various online platforms: if most of your content sits on your website and a few social media channels, it’s time to think broader. There could be a whole segment of potential customers who don’t know about your brand because you’re not sharing content on the platforms they use. Don’t forget about more unique sites for content-sharing such as Medium, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare, Pinterest, or TikTok. 

Build Out a Content Calendar for Both Planning and Posting

Now that you have a bank full of SEO-optimized multimedia content accessible on various channels, your final step is determining when to publish it. Many factors will influence your posting cadences, such as the type of content, the sharing platform, and the target audience you want to reach. Experiment with various days or times, then track the analytics to see which cadence generates the most traction. Then once you have this information, use it to build a content calendar. Even if you post consistently already, a content calendar will help you time it out precisely to maximize engagement:

  • Research the best times to publish on each channel: there’s no exact science for posting, but here’s what a few sources of data have to say about the most optimal times to share:
    • Facebook: 8 AM–12 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays
    • Instagram: 11 AM on Wednesdays
    • Twitter: 8 AM on Mondays and Thursdays
    • LinkedIn: 9 AM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays
    • TikTok: 7 PM on Thursdays
    • YouTube: 6 PM–9 PM, Fridays and Saturdays
    • Blog Posts: 9:30 AM–11 AM, on Mondays and Saturdays
  • Understand the online habits of your target audience: do you notice habitual trends in viewing, commenting, or sharing behaviors? When are they most likely to read a blog post versus listen to a podcast or “like” a social media graphic? As you notice more audience behavior patterns, you can tailor the content calendar accordingly.
  • Use a collaborative tool to schedule content: once you know which pieces of content you want to publish on each channel at a specific time, enter those details into a publishing tool that everyone on the content team can access. Be as precise as you can when typing in this information. List the type of content, the sharing platform, the meta description, the date and time of publication, the image or video thumbnail (if applicable), and anything else the team will need to know.
  • Plan out your future creative content marketing efforts: you can use your content calendar to strategize about future pieces of content coming in the funnel. List topics and keywords, assign projects, monitor workflow, set deadlines, or adjust the status if necessary. This process will streamline your entire content marketing process so it’s more organized, efficient, collaborative, and, ultimately, successful.

Scale Your Content Marketing Plan in 2022 and Beyond

Reach out to our team of content marketing specialists here at 10x digital when you’re ready to take your brand’s creative content marketing plan to the next level. We’ll partner with your business to customize a strategy that will scale your audience reach, website traffic, and conversion rates to meet your (ambitious and exciting) goals!