You're currently feeling locked in place with how you do sales. You haven't felt enough of that sweet gravy that is an inbound lead generated from a random new client that just searched you online trying to find your company. While this 2019 content strategy can be adopted for any small business, I'll be writing for my friends and clients in the finance industry writing how they too can use our content strategy for blogs using our rich step by step framework for content. If you need a process and a content strategy for small business. You cannot miss this post.
In this post, we will be talking about:
1) how to draft award winning titles and how to create content strategy
2) how to use awards baiting as a underused content strategy
3) how to use infographics for content inspiring backlinks
My name is Jake Goss, and I run the digital strategy blog and the team at the agency. I'll get that out of the way and mention our own website has pretty decent numbers. I'm writing this as a I have a Fort Knox of content for business owners that I'd like to get published. So I'm getting it out there.
That being said:
Check out our last posts in these SEO Backlinking Outreach series.
1) Case Studies on SEO Outreaching (And How to Do it)
2) How to do Citation Building for Local SEO
3) How to do Backlinking Outreach 2019
4) How to develop a content strategy (that is worth linking to) - this post.
Save time and have us design content strategy for small business, reach out to us and get regular updates (and learn).
In the previous ones, we've laid out how lucrative and how easy it is to get your content sent out.
How to design a content strategy using strategy.
The biggest obstacle is figuring out how to even get started for most people is a paralysis. Sometimes its over analyzing or figuring out what to even say.
As your an expert in your field, you can easily come up with something your prospects want to read and gain value for. Its not a promotional piece. Its something that can enrich the lives of the people in your network. Building SEO content with this framework lets you quickly draft lots of content. We've published over 8k words of content today on 16 channels, multiple times.
Lets get to growing your 2019 strategy. Don't over think it, and you can get your 2019 started off with a weekly blog post.
Come up with an award winning SEO content title for your content because content without strategy is just stuff.
The first part of your SEO content starts with the header. The paretto principal states that 80% of the results comes from 20% of the work. Creating a headline that gets people to want to read the content is the first step. Brainstorm and come up with topics, things that you can talk on and on about, but how to even title the piece of content is sometimes the most difficult part.
I tried making 30 titles to this blog post before I started drafting and settled on one that just works for finance.
But here's the secret: Just come up with the Solution, Problem, and Promise. Brian dean at Backlinko talks about this SEO copywriting strategy in his course that is the basis of this entire blog post. Yeah, this is basically the SEO that Works course notes. I took it so you don't have to, but I hope you get value when you implement the SPP formula.
How to develop a content strategy starting with titles.
The SPP (Solution, Problem, Promise) is a title that mentions the solution to a person's problem and the promise you make when they read it. For example, in our blog post we promise that the reader will get a SEO content framework that they can use to get 2019 kickstarted right.
Other titles could sound like, "21 bullet points you can use today". Adding a time of when they can implement what they've learned is great.
But it basically outlines the piece of content before you even start writing.
The start to the content needs to continue with the value. It must discuss the benefit, number of items, and timeframe that they can do to implement this. Think about it like this, if your reader was pulled in, let them remember why they clicked through. If you go away from what you promised that they'll solve, then they'll click out, harming your content's statistics. Google cares about these numbers, and you want this to be sustainable, right?
With your outline, add items on the list at the top in a table of contents if you want it to, and the steps you need to follow to get to the end goal. Again, get a benefit rich title, brief intro, and details to achieve an outcome and outline it if you can.
You can use free content strategy tools for content title creation.
Some people take a shortcut and use tools like www.answerthepublic.com or even other people's Google Adwords Ads to find killer title and descriptions based on what people are already searching and spending money on in their own sales funnels.
As you start building out your strategy, you can see why it matters to the end user. Build that into your content.
The introduction must mention why it matters to them. The intro made well boosts the click through rate, and a healthy CTR is important as it shows that people that click onto the content stay on the content to read it!
People have a goldfish's attention span, so make sure they get what they need and stay compelled to continue to read using this process.
Handhold the reader throughout your content strategy for the web step by step.
Hold their hand, walk them through each step in your bullet point article. Do not be afraid to tell people EXACTLY what to do. You can see outlining details and including examples as what you use to grow SEO content, but you can maybe see how important it is to guide someone to learn exactly what it is that you do.
Then when you're done with your tips, they retain the knowledge and your brand. They're thankful for the free sample. They link, comment, or consider your business for a solution of a real problem they have.
Have people do one goal at the very end, push people to take action. When they get results from your content, you get a fan for life. They subscribe, they do things if you ask. They return favors.
The original conclusion to a blog post for you looks like this.
Did you get some value? Leave a comment and let me know.
Did you get some value? Share this with someone you know that needs an SEO content strategy that they can do themselves.
But we're not over. You need to create the most amazing content in the world.
Why content marketing strategies that use Awards Baiting attract the best industries to link to your website.
Here it is in a nutshell. You award the industries you trust that are within a geographical or industry niche, and they appreciate the award and can be content you can discuss and benefit from.
Everyone wants recognition. Everyone wants it. We want to be recognized for leadership and hard work. So you can hand this out like candy to people in your network.
This is a form of marketing that uses a concept called social currency. Its a share trigger. When someone shares or likes your content, you're expected to like and return the favor. They invest in you and a void of reciprocity invests back to them.
Sharing is a trigger that tells others, your company is valid. Its great and worth reading. Obviously telling people made me look good of friends and family, and if you share other people's content it shows others in your network that you play well with people.
And with the news getting you pumped up with excitement, positive emotions motivate people to share.
Content strategy is marketing using social currency.
So before we get in the deets, build a power page that is a massive piece of content. Backlinko gave backlinks to blogs and in return, 10% of them ended up giving a backlink out just because. The other content frameworks can use awards bait in any niche.
Instead of simply referncing people (and telling them you're linking to them), you can make a massive list of companies and people that you want to praise and give recognition to within that niche.
"Congrats to the following list of local businessess that made out top "50 awards"...
You can do this with any niche. You can mention the Top 26-female bookkeepers and accountants and thank them for their service. About 2 or 3 will be more than happy to personally feature you, half will ignore you, but some will mention this award from their social media or within their network somewhere. A few will ask you to continue to do this as they get the value of this.
Even though the page is giving out your own high quality backlinks, you can see the see potential of framework.
Here's how to use this content strategy toolkit step by step
Choose a topic. The topic choice can make a huge topic in how it performs, you don't need to stick to a topic that your link creators have already shared.
The automatically is already about THEM. Fortunately, an awards bait topic just needs 2 things:
1) It needs to be specific.
2) It needs to be in niche with 100 other blogs or companies.
It should be in a topic that stands out and grabs attention of the people you want to share it with.
People are likely to share content about a super specific topic - Jonah Berger, a Wharton WSJ author of the marketing book Contagion, provided this research from his own case findings.
Because the people that DO see it would love to share and know exactly what its about, and when they know it very deeply, they'll share it as they trust it already.
If you wrote an article about NFL free agent signings, most people won't forward to any of them.
But if you rad about the Vikings off free agent signings. Then you send that to your uncle whose a huge Viking's fan.
The link creators are the same way. You need to cover a specific topic to get it to resonate with them.
An an accountant trying this out would get more if it was a top 95 "Accounting company blogs" to build relevancy for his niche but he went with a specific topic: Quickbooks bookkeeping. There are a ton of bookkeeping and people that use quickbooks for their business, and its narrow and focused enough.
There's a bonus. It makes your award look more legit. It takes a certain level to give out results, and if its super specific and awards a certain set of people, great! It looks legit.
Its unlikely you'll get away, but you don't need notoriety to award top 50-running blogs...
So once you pick a specific topic, check to make sure there are at least 100 blogs that cover that topic so you can filter them down to pick the top ones.
Once you have your content strategy blogs, find your winners and explain how you chose
First, don't worry about finding blogs about topic you chose in step 1.
Just find winners! As long as they cover the topic once, then they're good. They look like a company that might "bookkeeping" once, or they have an SEO optimized guide for Quickbooks Best Practices that they covered once. Maybe they have a newsletter running every few months. Whatever it is, select it, and type out why that's important.
Second, don't need to be super picky. Just want to include at least 25 winners in... the more sites you include, the more links you get. Don't go too overboard. Stay under 100. No one will read 100 winners but the people linking to will, but 25 seems to be a sweet spot as value and time spent qualifying winners.
Lets say the top 10% of people you link back to you. You'll get 2 or 3. Top 100, you get 10 back.
Most bloggers are thrilled to be recognized at all. They don't mind sharing spotlight with other people.
Even an .edu site are pure gold to get, because its from an authoritative domain on a University's website. If you look up "site:edu + finance blog", google shows over 1000 results, not all are, but many are. From many other experiences, .edu go nuts when they find out they got an award and are happy to link to you. A few times, they even announce they won and post it on their website.
Feature your award bait winners. You have your topic and list of winners.
The hardest part is over, the point is now just organizing the title. and work to the top to bottom.
Have your title handy? Here are some ideas to build one out.
The three titles: Number, Blog Description, and Superlative or Benefit
You could start off with the Top 50, Best 50, etc
Start off and describe the topic in the intro, why you're doing this including how awesome these winners are. You get to refer to the title.
Ie Top 50 Running Blogs that rock the web. The top 50 local tailors are "Sew Awesome", or local Minnesota SEO firms that "really know their stuff",
You can also list a benefit such as the Top 50 SEO Agencies that will make you wealth.
In your intro, make sure you mention how many blogs there were about the topic, how you picked 100 to start focusing onto, and your criteria for getting down to the top 25, 50, or whatever. You get to emphasize how this was an exclusive list and how you get to set out and give this award.
If looking for practical, you're come to right place. Here are the best 50 bookkeeping blogs online
Then mention how many there are... then mention this is are TOP of the 10000s... saving the reader time and giving them expertise as well...
As you know, there's no shortage of high-quality running blogs, we've decided to find the top top cherry, etc. Everone is a winner though. Theres no hierarchy, but from my personal experience in creating lists people focus on the first and the last because people see the start of the list, and usually scroll all the way down and end after the list. Those two get the most clicks and the most glory. Reserve them for yourself if you are part of your own list ;)
Here's how you make each row. Make a BIO and a direct link to their blog, website, or whatever they have online. Make sure you pull their logo or a personal photo. You could also link to a site or social media profile. You can describe what makes them unique. Oh, they use Quickbooks as well as Wave Accounting? Great. They have their own proprietary system? Interesting.
Creating unique designs for your digital marketing content strategy
Pay someone on fiverr.com to create a unique content banner and a badge for your winners. The more legit, the more likely it'll look shared. Add your custom banner over the page.
It'll go over the title of the page and screams: THIS IS OFFICAL. YOU WON!
Then they can put the badge on their website to show that they won. You can give them a little embed code that just copy-and-paste. They can add that to their website and people can see this trust signal. Its a link to the awards bait. Its a backlink.
When you design your content strategy for professionals, reach out to the professionals who get value from it
Awardsbait is unique has promotion built into it. A lot of people build content, and fail to really tell the world. They publish it, and don't tell enough people. Treat it like it is it's own company. You're doing a launch.
Send every site a winner about their award. Send an email. It should also give them the embed code for the badge build in.
Point is to just get them to see the embed, and the post, and come to their own conclusions. You should end this with knowing other's would get value knowing about their compeitors (or friends in the industry) and share that way too!
Posts over. We discussed content strategy for 2019. Do you think this is a viable strategy? Let me know your thoughts below.