The Business Case For Content, Part 4

You Built Content, Now What?

In the first 3 posts from my Business Case For Content series, I made the business case for content as an investment versus the expense of paid campaigns. I also went through a bootstrap process for building a solid piece of content in 2 hours or less.

In this post, it's time to share your content. There are a lot of ways to do this, some free and some paid. I tend to prefer a hybrid of both, but my preference will sway depending on whether or not you already have an audience or not. Let's look at the no audience hybrid first.

As I mentioned in Part 3, I would probably already have a pop-up on my blog, inviting visitors to sign up to see new content, etc. Some will sign up, more if the content is jaw-dropping, but that list will come in handy over time. I'll share more on that after we look further into the no-audience version.

First, we want to turn off the plugin feature in our blog that automatically signals Google that a new piece of content has been published. Before the bots arrive, we want to create activity around the post.

If you don't have an existing audience, start building one. Add connects and friends on social networks. Some of these might be potential customers, but they should also include peers in your niche.

Once you publish to your blog, share the link in your social circles over a few days. If you've taken the time to build organic connections, this will help to begin a "buzz" around the article- comments, likes, shares, etc. But, don't stop there!

Regardless of the platform, promoting content is a very low-cost way to increase buzz while also increasing audience who follow, friend or connect with you because you are delivering VALUE.

You don't need a global campaign for your content, but it's up to you (and your budget), how big you go with these campaigns. Also, the platform where your prospective customers spend most of their time will also factor into cost. For example, LinkedIn content promotion will generally be more expensive than Facebook or Instagram. The key here is that you spread your promotion strategy over a week or two.

Once you start to see eyeballs, THEN manually request that Google bots review your article. The article will have a higher initial rank, because it is showing value in the traffic, comments, likes, etc. over competing articles that might be sitting quiet. After a few days, the article's rank will often drop a few places. Don't panic, it's just part of the process.

But, why did I suggest that you include peers in your organic audience growth? In Part 3 of this series, I explained the important of external links within your article. In a perfect world, at least some of these links will link out to the content of your peers. You are promoting their work, so it's perfectly acceptable to reach out and ask them to promote you back.

Many have asked me why I would promote the content of others when they are, in theory, competitors. There are three reasons. First, there are plenty of potential customers in any niche and some may prefer your (or your peer) for lots of reasons.

Second, you are building informal, but powerful links to your content and those will help your content to rank even higher.

Also, being insecure or over-competitive is a sure-fire way to kill a business. If you don't believe me, read through Neil Patel's blog. He frequently sites peers in his articles. And, they site him. These informal "link wheels" are good for everyone and the last thing he worries about is competitors "stealing" his thunder.

He also uses much of his paid promotion not to promote a product or course, but rather to draw more eyeballs to his blog. People who don't know him are interested in the subject matter, head to the blog, surf through several articles and he becomes a thought leader to them. And, he tells EVERYONE exactly what he is doing!

The combination of all of these tactics working simultaneously, along with good fundamental SEO is what gives content high rank. This is the "symphony" that is great marketing. And, as I showed in Part 2, the difference in traffic between a brand that uses content and one that doesn't is STRIKING.

BUT, ONE WARNING- If all of your content is weak or constantly only promotes your stuff, the marketplace will likely penalize you. Great content, promoted correctly, wins the buy box consistently.

If you have an audience already, you can harness email to create a much larger buzz around each piece of content.

Let's say that you have 10,000 people (or 1000) who have signed up to get the first look at your new content. Divide your list into segments, sending a simple email to 10 or 20% of your list each day or every other day. Here, we are gaining in two ways. First, we are staying engaged with people who have already opted in, keeping them close and reminding them that our brand is alive. And, because some of those people will like, comment, share, etc. the content, we are also giving the SERP bots more signals over time that the content is valuable.

The more sources of activity around a piece of content, the better.

So, we took a piece of content and have now promoted it. Over time, we will build a "tribe," rank content and pour a long-term foundation around our brand.

In the final piece of this series, I'll be focusing on why the turn into the 4th Quarter of 2018 is the perfect time to build out a content strategy for 2019, adding a "X" multiple to the success that you've had in 2018.

As always, if you have a question, ask away!