11 Content Marketing Tips to Improve Your Strategy

Need caller ideas to amended your brand’s contented marketing?

Here are 11 contented selling tips you tin instrumentality today. 

1. Understand Your Target Audience With Segments

Divide your assemblage into smaller segments with shared interests truthful you tin make contented that is much apt to resonate with the radical you privation to reach.

These segments tin assistance you further recognize your people audience. And make much personalized contented that tin summation engagement and crook much radical from casual followers to loyal fans.

For example, a wide run astir a merchantability mightiness drawback the attraction of your full audience. However, segmenting your assemblage by interests—like highlighting discounts connected eco-friendly products to sustainability enthusiasts—can marque your run consciousness much applicable and perchance thrust much purchases.

Segment your assemblage by factors similar interests, age, location, oregon purchasing habits. 

Learn much granular details astir your assemblage by:

• Surveying and interviewing customers to uncover their challenges, frustrations, and interests
• Reviewing lawsuit feedback from reviews, testimonials, oregon lawsuit work interactions to spot themes and needs
• Reviewing reports from reliable sources similar the Bureau of Labor Statistics for demographic insights
• Monitoring online forums similar Reddit, wherever your assemblage discusses applicable topics
• Purchasing manufacture probe reports from places similar IBISWorld to uncover marketplace trends 

You tin larn astir your audience’s interests with Semrush’s Market Explorer tool.

Enter astatine slightest 3 rival domains and click “Create and analyze.”

Then, spell to the “Audience” tab to larn much astir your people audience.

Get ideas for assemblage segments from the “Interests” conception of this report.

For example, you tin make an assemblage conception for your customers who are funny successful “Travel & Tourism.” And different 1 for customers funny successful “Finance.”

Look astatine the “Social Media” conception to observe which societal platforms your assemblage spends the astir clip on. That way, you tin tailor your content selling strategy to platforms your assemblage hangs retired on.

After you stitchery data, make profiles for each of your assemblage segments utilizing Semrush’s free persona template. Like this one:

Your squad tin past usage the personas portion brainstorming to marque definite your contented addresses assemblage needs connected a much granular level.

2. Ensure All Content Has a Clear Goal

All your contented should lend to overarching concern goals, specified arsenic improving marque awareness, generating leads, oregon expanding repetition purchases.

To necktie your contented backmost to your goals, align each portion of contented with 1 of the 4 stages of the marketing funnel (a exemplary of the lawsuit journey):

• Awareness: Users successful the consciousness signifier are looking for information. Goals successful this signifier whitethorn beryllium to educate, physique marque recognition, and make involvement successful your business. Examples of contented that make consciousness see informational posts and “how-to” guides.
• Consideration: Prospects successful the information signifier privation to recognize their options and find solutions to their problems. Goals successful this signifier could beryllium to show expertise, item unsocial worth propositions, and supply societal proof. Examples of contented that code customers astatine the information signifier are lawsuit testimonials, merchandise comparisons, and lawsuit studies.
• Conversion: Prospects successful the conversion signifier person recovered a solution to their problems and turned into customers. Some goals successful this signifier could beryllium to supply utile accusation to trim refund requests and summation merchandise adoption. Examples of post-purchase contented are merchandise tutorials and enactment documents.
• Loyalty: Loyal prospects proceed to usage your services and urge your offers to different people. Goals successful this signifier mightiness beryllium to supply ongoing value, make marque advocates, and make deeper lawsuit relationships done personalized content. Examples of contented for this signifier see ongoing acquisition resources.

As you physique your contented selling plan, analyse your existing content, its goals, and its placement wrong the selling funnel. Identify immoderate gaps oregon anemic areas wherever you deficiency contented to usher imaginable customers to the adjacent stage. 

These gaps correspond opportunities to make targeted contented that tin fortify your lawsuit journey, amended engagement, and, ultimately, thrust much conversions.

3. Identify Competitor Content Gaps

Identify rival gaps (keywords your competitors fertile for that you don’t) and capable them with your ain contented truthful you tin instrumentality postulation from your rivals and summation your visibility successful the hunt results.

Use the Keyword Gap instrumentality to find rival contented gaps.

Enter your domain and the domains of up to 4 competitors. And click “Compare.”

Pay attraction to the “Missing” file (keywords you don’t fertile for but each of the entered competitors do). And the “Untapped” file (keywords you don’t fertile for but astatine slightest 1 of your entered competitors do).

Review the keywords and marque definite each keyword aligns with your personas and their interests. Then, make blog posts and pages for each applicable keyword. 

4. Align Content with User Needs

Making definite your contented delivers what your assemblage wants and expects volition apt pb to amended results—no substance what format oregon transmission you’re using.

For example, your assemblage connected societal media mightiness similar a abbreviated video with high-level accusation alternatively than a agelong and in-depth video.

Review the show of your past societal posts and analyse those of your competitors to place what your assemblage prefers. 

Look for posts that person the highest levels of engagement, specified arsenic likes, shares, oregon comments. 

Then, exemplary your contented aft the highest-performing posts. To effort and conscionable idiosyncratic needs.

When creating contented similar blog posts and guides, marque definite those pieces align with search intent—the crushed idiosyncratic searches a query. Because contented that matches intent is much apt to fertile and beryllium of interest.

There are 4 main types of hunt intent:

• Informational: The searcher wants to larn astir a topic
• Navigational: The searcher wants to find a circumstantial website oregon leafage (like a company’s interaction page)
• Commercial: The searcher wants to larn astir brands, products, oregon services—usually earlier making a purchase
• Transactional: The searcher wants to implicit an enactment similar making a purchase

You tin find hunt intent by searching a keyword and reviewing the contented that ranks for it connected Google’s archetypal page.

For example, the intent for “best java grinders” is apt commercial. Meaning searchers apt privation a database of apical java grinders for comparison.

Which is precisely what the hunt results show. 

Making definite your format aligns with the ranking contented tin summation the accidental of Google ranking your tract higher successful hunt results.

5. Promote Content Using Multiple Channels

Sharing your contented crossed assorted channels tin summation each piece’s scope and assistance you thrust much engagement.

Lean connected channels you’ve already built an assemblage on—like your email database and your societal media accounts. Also, research different promotional avenues like:

• Banner ads: Place banner ads—ads connected different websites that nexus backmost to your content—on sites your assemblage visits. Ad absorption platforms similar Bannerflow tin assistance spot your ads connected applicable sites.
• Influencers: Partner with manufacture influencers and inquire them to stock your contented to pat into their networks
• Paid societal media ads: Use social media ads to grow the scope of fashionable posts
• Guest posts: Write guest blogs (blogs you constitute for different sites that database you arsenic the author) that beforehand a portion of contented for influential sites successful your niche
• Newsletter ads: Promote your contented wrong different brand’s newsletter. Platforms similar Paved tin link you with applicable publications that judge advertisements.
• Search ads: Create ads connected hunt engines truthful you fertile astatine the apical of the results for circumstantial keywords related to your content

Here are hunt ads that beforehand reports for the word “state of b2b marketing:”

6. Experiment With New Content Formats

Experimenting with caller contented lets you observe what resonates astir with your assemblage truthful you tin refine your strategy and present engaging contented each clip you post.

Some contented ideas include:

• Interviews with manufacture experts 
• Case studies
• Short- and long-form videos
• Research reports
• Memes
• Webinars and courses
• User-generated content
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Podcasts
• Infographics

For example, this Semrush infographic contains tips to amended your content:

After experimenting with antithetic types of content, comparison the caller content’s engagement (such arsenic likes, shares, oregon views) to different fashionable pieces to recognize which formats execute best. And which formats merit your absorption moving forward.

7. Focus On User Experience (UX)

A bully idiosyncratic acquisition keeps radical engaged with your contented for longer and whitethorn summation the accidental that users volition go followers oregon fans of your brand.

For example, a scholar whitethorn beryllium much apt to work a blog station that uses a clear, legible font implicit a blog station with a font that’s hard to read. 

Here are immoderate tips to amended your content’s UX:

• Add closed captions oregon subtitles to videos truthful radical tin ticker your videos without sound
• Add alt text—text that describes an representation for hunt engines and surface readers—to images connected societal media and your website
• Avoid text-heavy images with tiny font sizes that are hard to read
• Ensure your contented is legible connected each surface sizes
• Make links antithetic colors than assemblage text truthful users tin easy find clickable elements
• Use descriptive anchor text (the clickable portion of a link) truthful users cognize a linked page’s topic
• Use wide headers connected your website to signifier your accusation and marque scanning easy
• Keep paragraphs short—a fewer sentences oregon less—so readers don’t consciousness overwhelmed with walls of text
• Incorporate visuals specified arsenic images and videos to interruption up website text
• Write simply and clearly truthful readers tin easy recognize your content. Tools similar the Hemingway Editor measure the readability of your text. Usually, you’ll privation to purpose for a people betwixt 60 oregon higher. As speechmaking scores successful that scope are suitable for astir adults. Like this:

8. Continually Optimize and Update Content

Updating blog content tin amended your rankings and summation the credibility of your content.

Update blog posts that are declining successful rankings, incorporate outdated information, oregon ne'er ranked good to statesman with.

Google Search Console (GSC) tin assistance you show keyword positions. That way, you tin easy spot erstwhile your blog posts request to beryllium updated.

Log successful to your GSC relationship and prime your property. Click “Search results.” Toggle connected “Average position” and crook disconnected the default “Total clicks” and “Total impressions.”

Click “More.”

Then, click “Compare,” prime which play you privation to comparison keyword positions for, and click “Apply.”

Scroll down and look for keywords that person the top presumption difference. As these are the ones that person fallen the astir successful position.

Finally, click connected the “Pages” tab to presumption the leafage associated with the keyword. So you cognize which leafage to optimize.

Assess whether oregon not the nonfiction needs to beryllium updated.

If the reply is yes, paste oregon import that nonfiction into Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant to get penning suggestions based connected your text’s readability, tone, originality, and SEO.

Enter your people keywords, set the audience, and click “Get recommendations.”

SWA volition people your substance based connected readability, SEO, originality, and code of voice. Click done the recommendations and use the tips to amended your people successful each 4 categories.

For example, clicking “SEO” gives you suggestions for recommended keywords to adhd to your blog post.

Then, people your recently updated contented to your site. 

9. Create Topic Clusters 

Topic clusters are groups of related pages that tin assistance you build tract authority, which tin pb to ranking higher successful the hunt results.

Clusters incorporate 1 pillar (main) leafage that links retired to different related pages. Related pages nexus to the pillar leafage and 1 another. (The process of linking related pages connected your website is called internal linking.)

Here’s an illustration of a taxable cluster:

Semrush’s Keyword Strategy Builder automatically creates taxable clusters.

Head into the instrumentality and participate 1 to 5 effect keywords (very wide keywords applicable to your niche). Click “Create list.”

Scroll to the “Page Details” conception to presumption the antithetic pillar and subpage ideas. Click the “Write content” fastener and prime “SEO Writing Assistant” to straight nonstop the page’s keywords to the SEO Writing Assistant tool. So you tin statesman writing—and optimizing—your caller pages.

Publish your optimized pages, and retrieve to see interior links to and from your pillar and subpages. 

10. Conduct and Publish Original Research

Conducting archetypal probe tin presumption your marque arsenic an authorization and pull backlinks—i.e., links from different websites to your site.

Google views backlinks from reputable websites arsenic votes of confidence. Which tin assistance your contented fertile higher successful hunt results.

For example, the representation beneath compares the fig of backlinks for a portion of archetypal probe Semrush published versus a blog post. The archetypal probe has implicit 5 times the fig of backlinks compared to the blog post.

Types of archetypal probe you tin make include:

• Case studies
• Whitepapers
• Surveys
• Industry reports
• Data analyses based connected your ain data

11. Incorporate Trending Topics

Trending topics (topics applicable for a little period) tin springiness you a momentary spike successful traffic, assistance your marque enactment relevant, and support your marque applicable wrong your industry.

Find trending topics to constitute astir successful Google Trends’ “Trending now” tab and set the filters to find topics applicable to your niche. 

For example, the representation beneath shows a spike successful involvement for the taxable “fireplace.” And the “In the news” conception gives you discourse arsenic to wherefore the taxable is trending. This discourse tin assistance you constitute a portion that matches hunt intent.

While evergreen content (i.e., contented that remains applicable for a agelong period) should mostly marque up the bulk of your posts successful astir niches, trending contented tin springiness you opportunities to prosecute your assemblage close now.

Finding the Best Strategies for Your Brand

Test antithetic contented selling tips yourself to spot which strategies person the top interaction connected your brand.

Semrush offers a assortment of tools to assistance you larn astir your audience, optimize articles, and more.

Ready to effort retired the supra contented selling advice?

Try Semrush for free.