Content Marketing – Shane Barker https://shanebarker.com Tue, 26 Sep 2023 05:06:42 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://shanebarker.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/cropped-favicon-32x32-1.png Content Marketing – Shane Barker https://shanebarker.com 32 32 10 Best Content Analysis Tools For Content Marketers https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-analysis-tool/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-analysis-tool/#respond Mon, 07 Aug 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=76962 If you or your team has been creating top-notch content but failed to rank high on search engines, we have a secret to bail you out — content analysis.

We're in a period in time where most content, if not all, are data-driven. That means you need to optimize your content for SEO to drive more traffic, rank high on search engines, hit higher conversion rates, and measure its performance against your competition. 

But how do you achieve this?

Good question. You need an SEO content analysis tool to optimize your content and measure its results. Stay on this page and I'll show you 10 tools you can use for content analysis to improve how you rank on SERPs and measure your performance.

Let's get started.

What Are Content Analysis Tools?

A content analysis tool is a software that analyzes or audits your content to extract insightful data like keywords used, themes, and concepts. The content analyzer tool gives you an overview of how your content ranks on search engines, the conversions it drives, and the average time consumers stay on your page.

Quick Summary
  • SurferSEO delivers content optimization, keyword research, and competitor analysis. It allows you to create content optimized for SEO and SERPs.
  • Google Analytics is focused on helping you track, measure, and manage the results of your website campaigns. 
  • When shopping for a content analysis tool to find and fix grammar errors and make your content clear and understandable, Grammarly will get the job done. 
  • Ahrefs will help you discover new keyword opportunities to improve your SEO strategy and audit backlinks 
  • Clearscope is focused on comparing your content to your competitors' best performing posts and designing content briefs with relevant keywords
  • Semrush will help you research competitors' keywords, measure website traffic analytics and backlinks, track product listing ads, and identify and plan new content opportunities.

A Comparison of the Top Content Analysis Tools

ProductPricingContent optimizationKeyword analysisBacklink analysisCompetitor analysis
SurferSEOFrom $19/user/month (billed annually)YesYesNoYes
SemrushFrom $119.95/monthYesYesYesYes
Google AnalyticsFreeNoNoYesNo
YoastFree. Paid plans from $99/yearYesYesNoYes
ClearscopeFrom $170/user/monthYesYesNoYes
BuzzSumoFrom $119/user/monthYesYesNoYes
DedooseVary depending on the userNoNoNoNo
GrammarlyStarts from $12/monthYesNoNoNo
MarketMuseStarts from $149/user/monthYesYesYesYes
AhrefsStarts from $99/monthYesYesYesYes

Let's take a deep dive into each content analysis tool to help you choose the one that best fits your content marketing needs.

1. SurferSEO

An overview of SurferSEO content analysis tool website

SurferSEO focuses on search engine optimization, to help you create content that meets your SEO marketing strategies. But how does this SEO content analysis tool work? 

SurferSEO has a set of content research tools that outlines the keyword you want to rank for. It also includes: 

  • Content planner tool that helps you find keyword opportunities that can rank your content higher on SERPs. 
  • Content audit and editor tools that scan your content and give a score based on keyword optimization.  
  • SERP analyzer that provides insights on how your competitor’s pages are performing on search engines. 

Depending on your search query, SurferSEO uses advanced AI technology to identify common patterns on search result pages and gives you a content outline. 

The outline includes keywords and their density (how many times you must use each keyword), related images, recommended word count, and subheadings. 

For instance, if you input your content into SurferSEO, it gives you a score (out of 100). It also provides keyword suggestions that can boost its probability of ranking higher for the target keyword.

SurferSEO displaying the  score and target keywords of an input content

If you want to use Surfer as your content checker for SEO, here's a breakdown of its pricing plans: 

  • Lite plan. Costs $19/month
    • Billed annually 
    • Recommended for newbies 
  • Essential plan. Goes for $69/month
    • Billed annually 
    • Good for individuals and small teams 
  • Advanced plan. Costs $149/month
    • Billed annually
    • Recommended for experts and mid-sized teams 
  • Max plan. Costs $249/month
    • Billed annually
    • For agencies and big teams

There's also an Enterprise plan with variable pricing. It's customized to suit your specific needs.

2. Semrush

A display of navigation tabs on the Semrush homepage

Looking for content review tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, auditing, and creating white-label reporting? Then SEMrush is the SEO tool meant for you. 

Why? 

Because Semrush has a host of features like SEO Content Template, Surround Sound tool, and SEO Writing Assistant to help you create content that ranks and gets measurable results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hP3IJw_pFNM

The SEO Content Template suggests semantic keywords to use in your copy based on how they rank on Google result pages. It also checks backlinks and readability scores, content length, and on-page SEO usage.

The SEO Writing Assistant helps you check originality and tone, and optimize your content for user queries and search engines. 

Lastly, the Surround Sound Tool helps you measure and optimize your content for the SERPs. 

When to use Semrush? 

Semrush is ideal for researching competitors' keywords, measuring website traffic analytics and backlinks, tracking product listing ads, and identifying and planning new content opportunities. 

Semrush has three pricing plans. 

  • Pro. Starts at $119.95/month
  • Guru. Starts at $229.95/month 
  • Business. Starts at $449.95/month

But you can test drive Semrush’ powerhouse of features for 14 days by using this link.

You can also check out this Semrush-vs-Moz-vs-Ahrefs review to see where you'll get more value for your content.

3. Google Analytics

The key features of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is among the few SEO review tools content analysis built to give insights about the behavior of end-users on websites. Google Analytics has a host of features (for both small businesses and enterprises) that include:

  • Reporting. This feature allows you to monitor activity on your website in real-time, how users land on your page, and what content drives more traffic and conversion on your site. It also gives insights on the amount of revenue your site generates from ads, subscriptions, or ecommerce. 
  • Built-in Automation. This feature is for predicting and understanding user behavior, getting quick answers for questions asked in natural language, and learning about new trends, changes, or growth opportunities from your data.
  • Explorations. This one provides insights on the relationship between different user segments, conversion paths, and the steps users take to complete tasks on your page.
  • Integrations. Google Analytics easily integrates with other Google solutions and partner products like Google Ads, Google Cloud, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud Integration to increase your efficiency.

So, if you want to analyze your content and audience performance, don't think twice when Google Analytics is on the options list.

4. Yoast

Yoast homepage showing available content analysis options

If you've been searching for a SEO content analysis tool that you can directly plug into WordPress, look no further than Yoast. 

While Yoast isn't the most powerful content quality checker tool, it helps you find relevant keywords and optimize your content for traffic and SEO ranking. Yoast also offers a date reminder to ensure none of your pages becomes outdated. 

If you're planning to use Yoast as your content analysis tool, here are its features: 

  • Seamless addition and optimization of relevant target keywords and meta description to your content
  • Readability and keyword density scores
  • Ability to add FAQs to your pages
  • Easy to install and use 
  • 301 redirects 

If you're looking to join the more than 13 million Yoast users, you can do so instantly because it's free! However, there's a premium plan starting at $99/year with additional features that save you time spent on SEO tasks and drive more traffic.

5. Clearscope

Options to get you started on Clearscope

If you're looking for a content checker for SEO to highlight content grade, word count, keyword density, and readability score as you write, try Clearscope.

Clearscope comes with a powerful editor that compares your content with competitors' top-ranking posts. It also helps you to research and develop content briefs with relevant keywords and information to optimize your SEO campaigns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecYh3TgulTE

Clearscope is among the tools for content analysis that seamlessly integrate with Google Docs and WordPress to efficiently write and publish your content. 

At high scale (premium plans), Clearscope monitors proactive alerts for content that needs immediate updates. 

And compared to other SEO content analysis and review tools like SurferSEO, Clearscope is a bit pricey. Here's a look at Clearscope's pricing: 

  • Essentials. Starts at $170/user seat/month
  • Business. Starts at $1,200/5 user seats/months
  • Enterprise. Custom pricing with unlimited sharing and exporting. 

Clearscope is also an ideal website content analysis tool if you're looking to optimize your content to generate more traffic and rank higher on SERPs.

6. BuzzSumo

 An image showing the navigational tabs on BuzzSumo website

Want to generate “buzz” on your content? Try BuzzSumo, a content analysis website that lets you create content ideas using its keyword analysis and trending content features. 

With BuzzSumo, you can detect how your competitors' content is performing on SERPs and social media platforms, and discover outreach gaps and engagement to build your content on. 

The Content Alerts feature suggests viral and relevant keywords, customer questions, trending stories, and top-performing posts within your space. This helps you build content using niche keywords that increase your possibility of social engagement.  

You can also use the Influencer Segmentation feature to discover what influencer strategies your competition is using. 

If you're planning to use this keyword content analysis software, there are five pricing plans to choose from: 

  • Basic: $119/user/month
  • Content Creation: $249/5 users/month
  • PR & Comms: $249/5 users/month
  • Suite: $499/10 users/month
  • Enterprise: $999/30 users/month

If BuzzSumo is expensive, you can check out other competitor analysis tools fit for keyword content analysis.

7. Dedoose

Navigational options on the start page of Dedoose website

Much like Google Analytics, Dedoose is ideal for reviewing trends and end-user behavior—this gives you insights into what your target audience wants and how to improve the consumer experience.

Dedoose has qualitative and mixed method capabilities that can help content marketers analyze texts, audio, surveys, images, and videos with raw consumer /market research data. You can import and utilize data in different languages and formats like html, pdf, word, and csv.

Dedoose promotes teamwork and presents data in interactive visuals like tables and charts for seamless analysis. It's also 100% web-based, so you don't need to download it. 

Dedoose’s pricing depends on the user's needs.

  • Individual: The software charges $12.95/active month (students) and $17.95/active month for personal use.
  • Teams: Small teams (2-5 users) pay $15.95/active user/month while a large team (6+ users) pays $13.95/active user/month.
  • Premium: The Premier and Enterprise plans are ideal for small and large research organizations and have custom pricing. 

8. Grammarly

An overview of Grammarly start page displaying some grammar mistakes

Grammarly is undoubtedly the best website content analysis tool that serves as a secondary pair of eyes for any content marketer. 

Why? 

Grammarly uses advanced artificial intelligence tools like Jasper to improve texts and rate the copy based on clarity, correctness, engagement, and delivery. 

To generate higher-quality content, Grammarly lets you set audience, intent goals, domain, and formality. It helps you to: 

  • Find and fix grammar errors like spelling and punctuation
  • Make your content more clear and understandable for your target audience
  • Deliver your content in a more engaging way
  • Check your work for plagiarism 

It's easy to get started with Grammarly. All you need to do is to sign up and install the Grammarly extension. 

Grammarly has three pricing plans: 

  • Free. For basic writing suggestions and tone detection
  • Premium. Starts at $12/month 
  • Business. Starts at $15/user/month 

9. MarketMuse

Options to get started on MarketMuse website

MarketMuse is the go-to software for content analysis if you're looking to create content with well-researched and optimized keywords

MarketMuse uses machine learning to uncover content insights and generate content briefs with relevant topics, subheadings, questions, and keywords to include in your copy. 

Its keyword content analysis tool helps you check how your competition is creating their content, the keywords they're using, and the FAQs about the topic you're writing about. 

The content quality checker tool uses a live editor to compare your copy against high-ranking posts. Using the connect feature, you can optimize your copy by inputting relevant internal and external links to direct consumers to other pages on your site. 

The bottom line is, MarketMuse is ideal if you're looking to optimize your content to rank high on SERPs. You can use the research functionality to discover relevant keywords and topics, and create a fully optimized SEO content brief. 

MarketMuse has four pricing models: 

  • Free plan. Best for users with low content volume
  • Standard plan. Starts at $149/month ($1,500/year)/ user.
  • Team plan. Starts at $399/month ($3,900/per)/ 3 users.
  • Premium plan. It's customizable and paid annually depending on your business needs. 

10. Ahrefs

A prompt of Ahrefs' call to action

Want your content to rank higher on search engine results pages? Then Ahrefs, an all-in-one SEO suite, is the content analyzer tool meant for you. 

Hands down, Ahrefs content research tools such as the keyword explorer, help you discover new keyword opportunities to improve your SEO strategy. It digs deep into research to provide you with new insights and metrics to use in your new topics. 

You can also audit backlinks, track keyword ranking, and analyze content gaps from your competitor domains. 

When to use Ahrefs? 

You can use Ahrefs as a software for content analysis to conduct keyword and competitor research, audit your website performance, plan your content, and identify new content opportunities. 

Compared to other content review tools, Ahrefs is a bit pricey. 

  • The Lite plan. Starts at $99/month
    • Recommended for small businesses and hobby projects
  • The Standard plan starts at $199/month.
    • Perfect for marketing consultants and SEO freelancers
  • Advanced plan. Costs $399/month
    • Ideal as in-house marketing tools 
  • The Enterprise plan. starts at $999/month
    • Recommended for agencies and enterprises. 

Create Content that Ranks with Content Analysis Tools 

Content review tools are abundant in 2023, giving you the ability to access these tools to research target keywords, analyze competitors, and measure how your content performs on search engines. Some provide you a breakthrough analysis on your backlinks, consumer behavior, and how much time users spend on your page.

Using these tools the right way for content analysis can help you (content marketers) plan and design content with relevant keywords, and at the same time optimize it for search engines and user experience. 

So, if you're looking to up your content game to drive more traffic and rank high on SERPs, try any of these content analysis tools to see what will work best for your needs. If you want more insightful content to guide you with your campaigns, head on over to our content marketing resources page!

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Semrush vs. Google Analytics: A Detailed Comparison https://shanebarker.com/blog/semrush-vs-google-analytics/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/semrush-vs-google-analytics/#respond Tue, 04 Apr 2023 16:00:00 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=72911 Semrush and Google Analytics are powerful web analytics tools for digital marketing specialists. But there is a considerable difference between their use cases.

While Semrush is an external service that helps you study any website (including yours and your competitors), Google Analytics is an internal service that gives you useful insights about the website you own or operate.

Google Analytics traffic and user engagement data has greater accuracy than Semrush. However, the latter gives you the ability to track data for your competitors’ websites as well.

It also helps you with competitive research, SEO, keyword research, link building, PPC, and content marketing.

Comparing their features is crucial but it’s also important to highlight where Semrush and Google Analytics overlap. In this article, I’ll do just that and help you understand why you shouldn’t choose one over the other.

For me, these two analytics platforms are better companions than competitors. That’s why, I’ll also show you how to integrate them to use both to your maximum advantage.

Let’s start with a quick overview of both tools.

What is Semrush?

Semrush is an all-in-one suite of digital marketing tools that helps you with SEO, content marketing, market research, competitive intelligence, advertising, social media marketing, and more.

With Semrush, you get access to useful data, including but not limited to:

  • Traffic analytics: Traffic sources, web and mobile traffic share, top pages that drive traffic
  • Competitive research: Organic and paid search traffic, number of backlinks, competitors’ best keywords, new competitors, domains’ position changes
  • Keyword research: Search volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, SERP analysis, position tracking
  • Link building: New backlinks, lost backlinks, referring domains, untapped backlink opportunities, link quality audit, broken links
  • SEO audit: Crawled pages, technical issues, content optimization issues
  • Content marketing: Topic research, SEO recommendations, post performance tracking, content analysis, poor-performing posts
  • PPC: paid search traffic, competitors’ keywords and ad copy, position tracking
  • Social analytics: Audience growth, engagement

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is the premier analytics platform for tracking your website or app performance. It gives you a complete picture of how your website traffic and user interactions.

It helps you track and analyze:

  • Who is visiting your website?
  • Where are these visitors (your audience) coming from?
  • Which pages do they visit?
  • How much time do they spend on your website and specific web pages?
  • What are your top-performing posts or pages?
  • Which countries send you minimum or maximum traffic?
  • Which keywords do people search for to find your website?

Google Analytics helps you understand your customers and improve your website, free of charge. This makes it a must-have analytics tool in your arsenal.

Semrush vs. Google Analytics – The Comparison Summary

Semrush helps you identify keywords and topics that can help generate more website traffic. It also lets you spy on your competitors’ SEO and content strategies.

And, you can get a domain overview and traffic analytics of any website using Semrush.

However, the traffic analytics data is not as accurate as Google Analytics, which directly mines data from a tracking code added to your website. But again, you can only get Google Analytics data for a website you own or manage.

Another major difference between the two platforms is that Google Analytics helps you understand user behavior on your website.

Here’s a quick comparison of Semrush vs. Google Analytics – features and use cases:

Semrush

Google Analytics

Pricing

Plans start from $119.95/month

(Save up to 17% if you pay annually.)

Free plan

Data offered

SEO performance

Website performance and user information

Real-time traffic

cross
check

Website traffic

check
check

Traffic sources

check
check

Traffic comparison between time periods

check
check

Visitor demographics, engagement, and interests

cross
check

User behavior or interaction on your website

cross
check

Keyword research

check
cross

Keyword ranking and position tracking

check
cross

Competitor research

check
cross

Backlinks tracking

check
cross

Link-building opportunity hunt

check
cross

Technical SEO audit of your website

check
cross

Content marketing tools and SEO writing assistant

check
cross

Historical performance data of your website

cross
check

Platforms supported

Desktop

Web

Desktop

Web

iOS

Android

Customer support

Knowledgebase

Videos

Email and live chat support

Knowledgebase

Community forum

Semrush: Reviewing Its Use Cases, Features, and Data

Semrush is a feature-rich tool, used by over 10 million marketing professionals across the globe. It offers 55+ tools and reports, which are enough to power up your search and marketing performance.

I use it almost every day to do all sorts of things, from finalizing topic ideas to picking up which posts to update each month, and fixing broken links to my website.

Let’s take a look at what Semrush can help you do.

1. Analyze Website Traffic

As I am comparing Semrush with Google Analytics, let me first show you what insights Semrush gives about the traffic of any website. This website could be your own domain or that of your competitors or partners.

The key website traffic metrics Semrush helps you track include:

  • The total number of visits
  • The number of unique visitors
  • The number of pages viewed per visit
  • Average session duration
  • Bounce rate
  • Traffic sources – direct, referral, search, social, paid
  • The devices used to browse your website – desktop vs. mobile
  • The top pages visited by users
  • Top destinations where users go after their visit
  • Traffic distribution by country

You can also compare the website traffic of two or more websites and see whether their performance is going up or down over time.

Semrush compare traffic analytics of two or more websites

Semrush’s Traffic Analytics data is not as accurate as the data offered by Google Analytics but it’s closest to what any third-party tool can tell about your website.

But the good part is that:

Semrush discloses the accuracy level of all data they provide you with.

Semrush Traffic Analytics data accuracy level

Analyzing my website and content performance using Semrush helped me grow my website traffic from 50K to 90K within six months.

2. Conduct Competitive Research

Semrush allows you to check the overall performance of any domain. You can use it to get instant insights into the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, partners, or customers.

With Semrush, you can get insights about:

  • Domain authority score
  • Organic and paid search traffic the website receives
  • The distribution of traffic by country
  • The total number of backlinks pointing to the website
  • The number of keywords the website has SERP positions for
  • Keywords that generate maximum organic traffic for the website
  • Keyword position tracking over time
Semrush domain overview

You can compare the numbers between your website and your competitors’ websites.

Semrush domain comparison

Semrush also helps you find keyword gaps and capitalize on missed or untapped opportunities to improve your website’s search performance.

Semrush Keyword Gap

Similarly, you can tap into the missed backlink opportunities by using Semrush to track where your competitors are gaining their backlinks from.

Overall, it has everything you need for competitive analysis.

3. Conduct Keyword Research

Semrush is the tool I use to conduct research for my website’s content. From analyzing which keywords to target to researching the best content types to rank for those keywords, Semrush helps me with it all.

With Semrush’s Keyword Research tool, you can see:

  • Average monthly search volume of any keyword
  • Keyword difficulty score, which defines how challenging it could be to rank for a particular keyword
  • Search intent behind the user’s search for a specific keyword
  • Average cost-per-click (CPC) of any keyword
  • Keyword variations of your seed keyword
  • Related keywords and questions for your seed keyword
  • Top posts/pages ranking for the keyword
  • Keyword research filters
Semrush keyword research for "content marketing"

You can also get insights into the top keywords your website or your competitor’s website is ranking for. Extensive keyword research is the first step to creating profitable content for your website.

Semrush position tracking

Semrush also helps you do SERP position tracking to constantly monitor your site’s SEO performance.

4. Build and Audit Your Link Profile

Another thing I have been using Semrush for is backlink building and link quality analysis. It helps me discover all incoming links and referring domains and also helps me analyze whether or not the link adds value to my website authority.

You can also use Semrush’s Backlink Checker to:

  • Spot new backlinks to any domain.
  • Get notified about lost backlinks.
  • Identify the authority of the linking domain and the true value of the backlink.
  • Research your competitors’ backlink strategy and analyze their link profiles.
  • Discover your competitors’ most authoritative linking domains.
  • Identify suspicious or toxic backlinks that could be harming your website’s search performance.
  • Analyze backlink types by anchor type, link type, and link attributes.
  • Find link-building opportunities.
Semrush link building opportunities

It can help empower your link building strategy and establish your authority in your niche. While you can also use other backlink analysis tools, I find Semrush to be a complete package for all SEO professionals.

5. Check Your Website for On-Page and Technical SEO Factors

This one is my favorite.

Semrush is the best tool in the market when it comes to on-page and technical SEO.

It gives you detailed analytics about your website – where it is lacking and what you can improve to increase your chances of ranking higher in search results.

Here are the key optimization metrics you can get data about:

  • The total number of crawled pages on your website and their status
    • Healthy
    • Broken
    • Have issues
  • Top issues found on your website such as
    • Duplicate H1 and title tags
    • Broken external and internal links
    • Missing meta descriptions
    • Unstructured URLs
    • Low word count on a page
    • Duplicate content issues
    • Use of non-descriptive anchor text
    • Missing canonical tags
  • Top pages to optimize and ideas for improvement
Semrush site audit

To learn more about its features, read my full review of Semrush.

Google Analytics: Reviewing Its Use Cases, Features, and Data

For a free tool, Google Analytics provides you with a wealth of data about your website’s traffic, audience, and user behavior.

Knowing exactly how my visitors find and use my website is extremely crucial to me, and it impacts my future content and website optimization strategy.

This is what I mostly use Google Analytics for.

1. Track and Analyze Website Traffic

Google Analytics helps you track how much traffic your website is getting each day, month, or year. You can compare your traffic growth over a period of time and also get insights about the traffic sources.

I like Semrush for keyword position tracking. But I like and trust Google Analytics' traffic data far more. In most cases, Semrush’s organic traffic estimations are far off, and usually much lower than reality.
SEO Consultant and Web Designer

Google Analytics helps you track key metrics related to your website traffic.

  • The number of unique visitors on your website
    • On a specific day
    • Over a period of time (You can visualize your website traffic growth YoY for 10 years straight. This is what I love about Google Analytics.)
  • Traffic sources
    • Direct traffic (when a user specifically types in your domain name)
    • Organic search traffic (from Google and other search engines)
    • Referral traffic (from links to your website placed on third-party websites) 
    • Social media traffic
    • Ads
  • Daily sessions
    • A steady growth in daily sessions helps me ensure that my website is going the right way. Whereas, if the daily sessions are down, it’s a red flag that conveys there is something I need to fix on my website.
Shane's Google Analytics website traffic acquisition report

2. Understand the Audience Better

Google Analytics gives you detailed information about your website’s audience, including their demographic information, interests, and location.

  • Users: See how many new and returning visitors you have, how much time they spend on your website, and how many pages they visit before bouncing off from your website.
  • Audience demographics: Learn about the age group your visitors belong to and whether they are mostly men or women.
  • Interests: Discover the main interests of your audience. Do they like to travel, read, or shop, or are they technology geeks?
  • Location: See the geolocation of your website visitors. You can view their countries and cities.
  • Devices: Get details about the devices they use to browse through your website. You can see your web and mobile traffic share.
Google Analytics audience demographics

This data will help you understand who your target audience is, where they come from, and how you can tailor your content and marketing strategy to better reach and engage them.

3. Get Insights Into Content Performance and User Engagement

With Google Analytics, you can analyze how your website is performing and how users interact with your site and content.

It gives you insights about:

  • The total number of pageviews
  • Average time spent on each page
  • Bounce rate (people leaving your website)
  • Page loading speed
  • The total number of unique searches on your website and popular search terms
  • AdSense page impressions and revenue
Google Analytics user engagement report
Google Analytics website pages with most views and engagement

With these insights, you can optimize your SEO content strategy to increase your website’s traffic and user experience. Providing valuable content will also help you retain your customers and increase loyalty over time, which often results in higher revenue.

4. Track Conversions

You can also use Google Analytics to track your website conversions. Identify how many visitors are taking actions you want them to take.

These conversions could be anything, varying from:

  • Signing up for your newsletter
  • Clicking on an affiliate link on your website
  • Sharing your post on social media
  • Buying your product
Google Analytics track conversions

You can use these insights to optimize your website for conversions.

Semrush vs. Google Analytics: Data Collection

I use both Semrush and Google Analytics to run my website and support my clients’ businesses. There is no comparison between the data both tools offer to help improve my website and content performance.

Let me brief you on how these web analytics tools gather data.

How Does Semrush Gather Analytics Data?

Semrush gathers its analytics data by:

  • Using its own machine learning algorithms
  • Collecting data from multiple trusted third-party data providers and sources

For website traffic analytics data, Semrush combines data from the user behavior of over 200 million real internet users in 190 countries and regions.

To ensure accuracy, they run their Neural Network algorithm, which recognizes patterns in the collected data and provides you with a realistic estimation after sampling and error testing.

Semrush’s Backlink Crawler crawls over 25 billion web pages every day to identify and add new links to its database.

How Does Google Analytics Gather Data?

Google Analytics, on the other hand, gathers data directly from your website. It asks you to add a custom JavaScript tracking code within the code of the website you own or manage.

Every time a user visits your website, this code sends information to Google Analytics about how the user interacted with your web pages and content.

Semrush vs. Google Analytics: Pricing Plans

Semrush offers three pricing plans:

  • Pro plan: $119.95/month
  • Guru plan: $229.95/month
  • Business plan: $449.95/month

You can save up to 17% if you pay annually.

Semrush offers a full refund if you decide to cancel your subscription or downgrade your plan within the first seven days.

You can try Semrush for free for 14 days (only with my link). But during free trials, the platform limits the amount of data you can pull every day.

Google Analytics offers all of this critical data, free of charge.

However, if your website receives millions of sessions per month, you may need to upgrade to Google Analytics 360. This can cost you millions of dollars but it will offer:

  • Unlimited data
  • Access to advanced reports
  • Faster data updates

Google offers multiple free tools that can be extremely helpful for marketers and developers.

Semrush vs. Google Analytics: Are These Tools Competitors or Partners?

Semrush and Google Analytics are both essential analytics tools for website and business owners. They have different strengths.

As an avid user of both platforms, I can say that:

Semrush is meant to complement your use of Google Analytics, not replace it. And vice-versa.
Shane Barker

You can improve your website and content performance using Semrush and Google Analytics to your advantage. Here’s how I do it:

  • Use Semrush for keyword research and filtering based on search volume and lower competition.
  • Write the content and publish it on my website. Use Semrush’s SEO Writing Assistant to identify readability, SEO, and originality issues within the content. This helps me improve content quality and increase the chances of making it rank.
  • Monitor my blog’s traffic using both Google Analytics and Semrush. Identify top pages and see how my recent posts are performing.
  • Add the targeted keyword to Semrush’s position tracking to see improvement in the search performance of every published content piece.
  • Use Google Analytics to see how users are interacting with my website – the pages they visit and which external links they click on.
  • Regularly monitor GA daily sessions to evaluate if my website is going in the right direction. I’ve integrated Google Analytics sessions into Slack to receive notifications about daily sessions’ growth and decline.

I recommend that you integrate Google Analytics and Semrush to enhance data and reports, and, thereby, improve your marketing ROI.

How to Connect Google Analytics to Semrush

You can connect your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts to Semrush. This will help you analyze all of your website’s data in one place and enhance accuracy.

However, to connect a Google Analytics account to Semrush, you need to have at least “viewer” access.

Also, you’ll need to individually link Google Analytics to the following Semrush’s features:

  • Position tracking
  • Site audit
  • Social media ads

You can integrate the following Semrush features with both Google Analytics and Google Search Console (GSC):

  • On-page SEO checker
  • Backlink audit
  • Organic traffic insights
  • Content analyzer
  • SEO dashboard

To connect GSC to Semrush, you’ll need to have “owner or full user” access to the Google Search Console account.

Here’s how to integrate traffic analytics of both platforms:

You can refer to Semrush’s knowledge base to learn how to integrate GA and GSC with each of the features I mentioned above.

Semrush vs. Google Analytics: Which Tool Should You Choose?

I’ve said this multiple times throughout the article and I’ll repeat myself – you shouldn’t choose one above the other.

Both Semrush and Google Analytics are equally important web analytics tools for any website owner. I recommend that you make the most of both platforms to:

  • Analyze your website traffic.
  • Understand your audience and how they interact with your website.
  • Identify keywords to target.
  • Track SERP positions for multiple keywords.
  • Identify and capitalize on link-building opportunities.
  • Improve your website’s search performance and user experience.

I consider myself a pro user of both Semrush and Google Analytics and will continue to be so.

“Both platforms offer unique advantages, and I believe that using both is the best approach to gaining a complete understanding of our online performance. While Semrush is excellent for tracking our SEO and marketing efforts, Google Analytics is essential for tracking user behavior and website performance.”
CEO, Venture Smarter

FAQs

1. Are Semrush and Google Analytics the same?

No, Semrush and Google Analytics are not the same.

Semrush offers many different ways to study and improve your website that Google Analytics cannot. You can use it to spy on your competitors, conduct keyword research, analyze backlink opportunities, and more.

Google Analytics, on the other hand, offers insightful data about how users interact with your website, where they come from, and which pages they spend the most time on. You can use it to understand your audience better and tailor your website and content to meet their needs.

Also, Google Analytics’ website traffic analytics data is more accurate than Semrush’s Traffic Analytics data for your website. That’s because GA directly gathers data from a code placed on your website.

2. Is Semrush better than Google Analytics?

It’s not about one tool being better than the other. Both Semrush and Google Analytics serve different purposes and complement the data provided by the other tool.

You should use:

– GA for traffic analysis and user behavior analysis
– Semrush for competitive research, keyword research, backlink audit, and link building

3. Can Semrush replace Google Analytics?

No, Semrush cannot replace Google Analytics. You should instead use it together with GA to enhance your website and content performance.

I’d like to encourage you to integrate your Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts with Semrush’s different features to get the best of both worlds.

4. Does Semrush offer a refund guarantee for its services? What about Google Analytics’ refund policy?

Semrush offers a 7-day money-back guarantee if you cancel or downgrade your subscription within the first seven days of subscribing to it. They will refund your fees within 30 calendar days after receiving a written request for a refund from you.

Google Analytics is a free tool offered by Google. So, there is no need for a refund policy.

5. Does Google Analytics offer customer support? What about Semrush?

Google Analytics offers a range of support options for its users.
– A comprehensive Help Center with articles on multiple topics
– A community forum where you can ask and answer questions
– Email support for Google Ads customers

Semrush offers customer support via:
– Email and live chat for their paid subscribers
– A comprehensive knowledge base with hundreds of useful articles and video tutorials
– An email to mail@semrush.com or by using the contact form on their website

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How To Build a Successful SEO Content Strategy: A Comprehensive Guide https://shanebarker.com/blog/seo-content-strategy/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/seo-content-strategy/#respond Fri, 09 Dec 2022 18:51:44 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=67522 If you have a website or an online store, it's important to have an effective SEO content strategy in place.

Without one, your website is likely to languish in obscurity, while your competitors dominate the search engine results pages (SERPs). So what goes into a good SEO content strategy?

In this article, I'll show you exactly what it takes to build a strategy that helps you hit 98.6K in monthly organic traffic and get a domain rating of 78.

Semrush traffic analytics dashboard

My SEO content strategy is also the reason why I rank for 8,721 keywords on the first page of Google and over 80K keywords in total.

Semrush organic keyword rankings tracking

I have got a knack for SEO and I love to help businesses grow, so let me walk you through everything you need to do to get your SEO content strategy right. Read on to learn:

  • The importance of SEO and content strategy
  • How to do keyword research like a pro
  • How to create content that ranks well in Google
  • How to promote your content for maximum reach
  • And more

Let’s get started!

What is an SEO Content Strategy?

An SEO content strategy is the process of planning, creating, and optimizing content to rank highly in search engines and attract relevant traffic.

A good SEO content strategy must be data-driven and should take into account the latest Google algorithm updates and trends. It should also be aligned with your business goals so that you can measure your success and ROI.

Creating an effective SEO content strategy isn't easy, but it's worth the effort as it helps you focus your effort on creating the right kind of content that appeals to both search engines and people.

The Importance of Having an SEO Content Strategy in Place

Having an SEO content strategy in place helps you enjoy the benefit of combining the science of SEO with the art of great writing.

When executed well, an SEO content strategy can help you:

  • Get more traffic from Google. After all, websites across industries receive about 53% of their traffic from organic searches. You can't afford to miss out on those potential eyes on your content and products.
  • With a good SEO content strategy, you're likely to create titles and descriptions that are both relevant and eye-catching, which can help improve your click-through rate (CTR).
  • Well-optimized content will help you rank for more keywords and you'll get more traffic from your content over time as it continues to rank for new keywords.
  • Good content that ranks well in Google is also more likely to get more social shares, which can help you build an engaged audience over time.
  • If you consistently create high-quality content that ranks well in Google search results, people will start recognizing you as an expert in your field. This will lead to more traffic and conversions for your business.

In all, having an SEO content strategy in place helps you get more traffic, conversions, and authority score for yourself, which can eventually lead to more success down the road. I'd like to sum it up as follows:

SEO and content marketing

Now that we've looked at the importance of having an SEO content strategy, let's look at how you can create one and the different types of SEO content that can help you achieve your business goals.

Types of SEO Content You Can Use for Your Business

There are many different types of SEO content you can create, but not all of them will be right for your business or audience. That's why it's important to understand the different types of SEO content before you start creating anything.

You need to identify the types that are more likely to help you attract relevant traffic and qualified leads to your website.

Some popular types of SEO content include:

  • Blog posts – To attract organic traffic and build authority
  • “What” posts – To explain complex concepts
  • “Why” posts – To build trust and credibility
  • “How-to” posts – To provide step-by-step instructions
  • Listicles or “Top 10” posts – To attract attention, increase engagement, and get more backlinks and social shares
  • Product pages – To rank for relevant keywords and convert visitors into customers
  • Category pages – To help people discover your products or services
  • Landing pages – To capture leads and convert visitors into customers
  • Tutorials – To help people and, in turn, build trust and authority
  • Ebooks – To generate leads and build your email list
  • Infographics – To build links and increase social shares
  • Videos – To rank in Google's rich results and increase engagement

You may also want to check out my other post on the main types of content in general and how you can use each for marketing.

How to Build an Effective SEO Content Strategy for Your Business

SEO is a complex and ever-changing field, but one thing is certain: quality content is still king.

If you want your website to attract more visitors and better-quality leads from organic searches, you need to create a solid SEO content strategy.

Luckily, crafting an effective content strategy isn't as difficult as it may seem. In this section of the post, I'll show you how to build one and share tips to optimize your content for maximum impact at each step.

Read on.

1. Set Your Goals

Always start your campaigns and strategies with the end goal in mind. So ask yourself – what are you ultimately trying to achieve?

Is it:

  • 100K monthly organic traffic to your website?
  • 3X backlinks?
  • 10% more leads that are ready to convert?
  • An increase in your brand recognition and authority?
  • 1500 subscribers to your blog in a month?
  • Or, something else?

No matter what your goal is, make sure it’s SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Once you have a goal in mind, you can start planning your SEO content strategy.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

The group of people that you want to reach with your marketing campaigns is your target audience. So identifying who they are and understanding their needs, behaviors, and preferences is key to success.

To do that, start by creating buyer personas – semi-fictional representations of your ideal customer based on real data and market research.

You can ask your marketing, sales, customer service, and social media teams for help as they’re likely to have a lot of insights into your target audience. You can also use surveys, interviews, and Google Analytics data.

  • Who are your current customers?
  • What are their pain points?
  • What types of content do they prefer to consume, and through which channels?
  • Who is attracted to your top competitors or interested in their content?
  • What do you have to offer and how can it help your customers?
  • What are their buying journeys like?
  • What type of language do they use?

Answering these questions will give you a good idea of what kind of keyword to target, what type of content to create, and how to reach your target audience.

3. Define Your Area of Expertise

To be successful with your SEO strategy, you need to focus on a specific area of expertise and become an authority in that field. You can’t be everything to everyone – it’s just not possible.

So take some time to brainstorm what exactly it is that you want to be known for. And make sure it’s something that you’re passionate about and have a lot of knowledge in.

For example, if you have a digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO, your focus should be on creating content that’s related to SEO, content optimization, keyword research, link building, etc.

4. Find Audience-Focused Content Topics That Also Align with Your Expertise

Ideally, the topics you choose should be:

  • Relevant to your target audience – something they're interested in and would find helpful
  • Related to your area of expertise – so you can position yourself as an authority on the subject

To come up with content ideas that fit both criteria, start by brainstorming a list of potential topics. Then, use tools such as Semrush’s Topic Research tool to find the most popular topics in your industry and see what people are saying about them on social media and in the comments section of popular blogs.

 Semrush’s Topic Research tool
 Semrush’s Topic Research tool

You can also use Google’s keyword planner to find relevant keywords that get a good amount of monthly searches. Then, create content around those keywords to attract organic traffic from Google.

We’ll talk more about that in the next point: Conducting keyword research.

Coming back to shortlisting topics to cover – another tactic that helps me not just find topics but also identify the best format and angle to approach them is to reverse-engineer my competitor’s most successful blog posts.

You can use a competitor analysis tool such as Semrush’s Organic Research tool to see which keywords they’re targeting and ranking for.

word image 67522 7

Go to the “Positions” tab to see which keywords they’re ranking for and how much traffic they get from those SERP positions.

word image 67522 8

You can also go to your competitors’ blogs and see what content is getting lots of likes, comments, and shares.

When you skim through their content, don’t just look for popular topics, also consider their:

  • Format
  • Writing style
  • Negative space on the page
  • Visuals
  • And other elements that could be making a difference

Other than your competitors, you can also look for questions people ask Google and in forums like Quora about your niche, brand, or the products and services you offer.

Quora search for audience-focused topic ideas

Chances are if someone is asking a question, there are others who have the same query but haven’t bothered to ask it publicly.

Creating content that answers such questions not only helps you serve your audience better but also gives you an opportunity to rank in Google’s featured snippets – the box that appears at the top of the search results with a direct answer to the user’s question.

Featured snippet ranking

It can also help you rank in the “People Also Ask” questions section, like the result below:

Ranking in the “People Also Ask” questions section

That’s why I’ve been adding one-liners to answer common queries and also including an FAQs section in my blog posts lately. Because that’s the kind of content people find helpful.

5. Conduct Keyword Research

Your SEO strategy needs to be based on keywords – they’re the foundation of any successful campaign. But for your keyword research to be effective, you need to understand how your target audience is searching for the type of content you want to create.

Start by brainstorming a list of relevant seed keywords – broad search terms that are closely related to your business and the topics you want to focus on.

Enter your seed keyword into a keyword research tool like Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool.

word image 67522 12

The tool will list all relevant keyword suggestions based on your seed keyword. As you can see below, it suggested 52,707 keywords for “pet care.”

word image 67522 13

Now, narrow down your list of target keywords based on:

  1. Search volume
  2. Keyword difficulty score
  3. Topical groups and subgroups

I recommend that you should first target keywords that have a good search volume but are comparatively easier to rank for. I’d call it – eating the low-hanging fruit first!

To find such keywords, you can use tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, and Google Keyword Planner.

word image 67522 14

As you can see above, Semrush rates keywords from 1-100 based on how difficult it will be for your domain to rank on that particular keyword.

Start with keywords with a moderate keyword difficulty score and see your domain authority grow as you rank for more keywords. The higher-difficulty keywords like “VIP pet care” and “pet care” will eventually become achievable down the road.

To find long-tail keywords, just click the “Questions” tab. This section lists keywords that are often easy to rank and can be a great starting point for your SEO content strategy.

word image 67522 15

Finally, you can exclude keywords related to specific groups and subgroups that are unrelated to your business. For example, if you do not run a pet care center, you can directly exclude all keywords related to “center.”

All you need to do is to click on the “eye” icon next to “center.”

word image 67522 16

At the same time, you can (and should) use these topical groups to discover more specific subgroups and their keywords.

For example, if you want to target pet care services for dog owners, you can select “dog” from the list of topical topics and see relevant keywords.

word image 67522 17

What’s next?

6. Host Your Own Content

While posting on Medium or other similar sites can help you get in front of a larger audience, it won’t do much good for you or your business in the long run.

That’s because you don’t own the platform – and if that platform were to disappear, all your content would go away with it.

Not to mention, when you post on someone else’s site, they get to control how your content is presented and distributed, and how long it will stay online.

Just think about the hundreds of Twitter accounts that got suspended right after Elon Musk took over the social app. Many of those accounts had years’ worth of tweets (content + engagement) that vanished in an instant.

The same thing could happen to your content on Medium or any other site – which is why it is always a good idea to host your content on your own site.

That way, you have complete control over what happens to your content and how it’s presented. You can also track how many people are reading your articles, where they’re coming from, and what devices they’re using to read them.

You can always cross-post your content on other sites (including Medium) and social apps with a link back to your site. You’ll be able to drive traffic back to your site while also getting the benefits that come with posting on those sites.

And hosting your own website or blog is easy, especially with platforms like WordPress, Bluehost, GoDaddy, and others.

7. Create an Editorial Calendar with a Consistent Content Schedule

The best way to maintain a consistent content schedule is to have an editorial calendar in place. This will help you keep track of your published and upcoming content, and make it easier for you to plan future pieces.

An editorial calendar also keeps everyone on your team on the same page – from your SEO specialists to your writers, editors, and designers.

There are many different ways to set up an editorial calendar. You can use a simple Google Sheet or a more robust project and content management platform like ClickUp (that's what I currently use for my business).

It helps my team track everything from the upcoming topics to word counts, types of content, the statuses of each task, and the tentative due dates or publishing dates for each piece of content.

My editorial calendar for ShaneBarker.com

Whichever tool you pick, the key is to find a system that works for you and your team – and then stick to it!

8. Focus on Creating Amazing Content

This may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s worth repeating: The best way to get more traffic to your website is to create truly amazing content.

  • The kind of content that people will want to read, share, and link to
  • The kind of content that will make people want to come back for more

Creating great content is not easy – but it is definitely worth the effort.

Here are a few quick content creation tips that can help:

  • Research the topic well. Provide more information and insights than other articles on the topic.
  • Make sure your content is well-written and error-free.
  • Your headlines should be catchy and attention-grabbing, but make sure they are also accurate and reflective of the actual content.
  • Use short sentences and paragraphs, and break up the text using images, videos, or infographics to make your article more visually appealing.
  • Make sure your content is easy to read. Don't make your readers work too hard to get the information they’re looking for.
  • Include examples from your personal experiences as well as others’ case studies. People love examples. Perhaps, because examples make learning easier and also show that the solution you’re suggesting, actually works.
  • Don’t stuff your keywords in awkwardly. Use them naturally to ensure that your content flows smoothly.
  • Don't forget to proofread and edit your content before hitting “Publish.”

9. Optimize Your Content

So that your content ranks higher in search results, you need to optimize it for the primary keyword as well as its variations.

Include the primary keyword in your:

  • Title tag and meta description
  • Headings – H1s, H2s, and H3s
  • Introduction
  • Conclusion
  • In every 1000 words of your content

Well-optimized content will help you rank not only on the first page but also in the first position of Google search results. For example, the screenshot below shows my post ranking at #1 for the keyword, “YouTube marketing tools.”

Post ranking on #1 in search results

And, that’s not the only post. ShaneBarker.com has been ranking #1 for 209 keywords (as of Nov 2022).

Tracking SERP positions of your blog on Semrush

You can achieve similar results by having an effective SEO content strategy, choosing keywords wisely, and optimizing your content for those keywords.

What’s next?

10. Compress Your Images and Other Media Files

Images, videos, and other types of media files can make your pages slower to load.

No matter how amazing your content is, if your pages take too long to load, people will leave. And we all know what that means for your traffic numbers…

That’s why it’s important to compress your images and media files before uploading them to your website.

There are many tools you can use to do this, including TinyPNG and VideoCompressor.co. In fact, I also host a free online image compression tool that you can use to compress your images in seconds.

Free online image compression tool by ShaneBarker.com

11. Regularly Update Your Old Content

There are several reasons why it’s important to keep your old content fresh and up-to-date, including:

  • Research findings and trends are always changing. To ensure your content is still relevant, you need to constantly update it with the latest facts and figures.
  • The articles you might have linked to may no longer exist after 6 months or a year. The social app you talked about might have introduced new features and discarded an old one.
  • Irrelevant statistics, broken links, and outdated information can all harm your user’s trust and, in turn, tell Google that your content is not the best resource on the topic. This will make your SERP rankings and traffic drop.

Updated content will not only help you rank higher in search results, but it will also keep your readers engaged and coming back for more.

You should also track your content rankings (change in SERP positions) using tools like Semrush. And if you see a drop, look out for the changing search intent and popularity of related keywords.

Position tracking for target keywords via Semrush

You may feel the need to update your headings and content based on the new/evolved user search intent.

My team works on a whole list of content that we want to revamp, on a monthly basis, and it has helped us re-engage users and win back our search ranking positions, just in time.

My monthly plan for revamping posts

Here’s one example:

I noticed a drop in my rankings for the post “Top Female YouTubers” and updated it.

  • Added the latest information about each female YouTuber on the list.
    • The total number of subscribers they have
    • The types of content they create
    • What makes them unique
  • Removed YouTubers who aren’t sharing content on the platform anymore.
  • Added new rising stars with a greater number of subscribers than those already on the list.

And doing this helped the post rank well again (see the screenshot below).

Content update leading to top rankings

Your existing content can be your best asset if you keep it up-to-date and relevant to your audience. So, don’t ignore it.

12. Use the Right Link-Building Tactics to Gain More Traction

Google counts links from other websites to your own as “votes” and the more “votes” you have, the higher you will rank in search results.

Of course, not all links are created equal. A link from a high-authority website such as Forbes or Inc.com will carry more weight than a link from a low-authority website. That’s why it’s important to focus on quality over quantity when it comes to link building.

There are many ways you can build links to your site. You can:

  • Ask customers and partners to link to your site.
  • Submit articles to high-quality guest posting sites (this is one of my favorites).
  • Create informative infographics and share them on social media and other websites.
  • Reach out to bloggers and influencers in your industry and contribute your take on a topic that they’re writing about (the topic should also fall under your area of expertise).

These practices work and they've helped me build over 200K backlinks from 11K+ domains.

My backlink and referring domains report from Semrush
Referring domains growth tracked via Semrush

13. Track and Measure Your SEO and Content Success

You can’t improve your website performance if you don’t track your progress and measure your success.

As far as your SEO content strategy success is concerned, you should track and measure everything from:

  • Your website traffic (overall and from each channel)
  • The number of leads you generate
  • How many conversions you make
  • Your organic search rankings
  • The number of social media shares your content receives
  • And more

You can use Google Analytics to track most of this data. To track your SEO progress, I recommend using Semrush. It’s an all-in-one SEO tool that lets you track your keyword rankings, backlinks, content gaps, and more.

Here’s my quick review of the tool to help you get started:

Get an extended 14-day trial of the Pro plan using my link.

Get an extended 14-day trial of the Pro plan using my link.

Once you have all this data, you need to make sure you track your progress over time. This will help you see what’s working and what’s not so you can make the necessary changes to your SEO strategy.

FAQs

1. Does content strategy help SEO?

Yes, content strategy can help you improve your SEO results. Creating high-quality, informative, and keyword-rich content can attract more traffic to your website and improve your SERP rankings.

Furthermore, by regularly publishing new content, you can keep your audience engaged, leading to more conversions and higher brand authority.

2. What are the 7 steps in creating a content strategy?

There are seven steps in creating an effective content strategy:
1. Define your goals.
2. Know your audience.
3. Research your competitors.
4. Find your voice and tone.
5. Develop a content calendar.
6. Publish great content and promote it.
7. Measure your success.

3. What is the best content strategy for SEO?

There is no single “best” content strategy for SEO. However, some practices that will help you improve your SEO efforts include:
– Create keyword-rich and informative content.
– Publish new content regularly.
– Promote your content on social media and other websites.
– Track your progress and measure your success.

Outrank Your Competitors in the SERPs with an Effective SEO Content Strategy

If you want to outrank your competitors in the search engine results pages (SERPs), you need an effective SEO content strategy.

In this article, I’ve outlined some of the best practices for creating a successful SEO content strategy. These practices include creating keyword-rich and informative content, publishing new content regularly, and promoting your content on social media and other websites.

I also recommend tracking your progress so you can continually optimize your content and SEO factors for better results.

Have any questions about SEO content strategy? Let me know in the comments.

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Wordtune Review: The Pros and Cons of This AI Editor https://shanebarker.com/blog/wordtune-review/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/wordtune-review/#respond Wed, 16 Nov 2022 16:29:57 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=66280 If you're a freelance writer or blogger, or if you just enjoy writing for fun, you've probably heard of Wordtune. This AI-based writing and editing tool claims to be able to help you write better and faster.

But is it really worth your time?

In my Wordtune review below, I'll help you take a close look at what this platform has to offer and whether or not it can help you improve your writing. Keep reading to learn about its features, pros and cons, and use cases in detail.

What is Wordtune?

Wordtune is an AI-powered writing assistant and editor that helps you write better and faster. It promises to make your writing clearer, more concise, and easier to read.

You can use Wordtune to improve your writing in several ways, including:

  • Rewriting or rephrasing your sentences or paragraphs
  • Making the tone of your writing more casual
  • Making it formal to help you present yourself in a more sophisticated or professional way
  • Shortening your sentences or paragraphs to convey your messages concisely yet clearly
  • Expanding your sentences to provide more detail and improve clarity
  • Editing your text for clarity and conciseness
  • Suggesting improvements in terms of grammar, spelling, and punctuation
  • Suggesting alternative words or phrases to use in your writing

As you can see, Wordtune offers a lot of features that can be helpful for writers and editors of all levels. It can help you get your words just right.

To do this, Wordtune uses a combination of machine learning and natural language processing (NLP), which allows it to analyze your text and suggest improvements.

What Websites Does Wordtune Work On?

Wordtune is a multi-platform AI-writing assistant that works where you do. This means it's available as your personal writing assistant across all your favorite websites, including:

  • Google Docs
  • Gmail
  • Chrome extension
  • Microsoft Word (add-in)
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Slack (web version)
  • WhatsApp (web version)
  • Outlook (web version)

Additionally, you can use the Wordtune Editor which works across web browsers and lets you rewrite, rephrase, reword, and edit your writing in one place.

This means that you can use Wordtune no matter where you're writing, whether it's in your favorite text editor, online, on your blog, or even in a Google Doc.

Wordtune’s Pros and Cons

Now that we've taken a look at what Wordtune is and how it works, let's take a closer look at its pros and cons based on my personal testing.

Wordtune's Pros:

  • Clean user interface (UI)
  • Helps you improve your writing skills, including proofreading, tone checking, and more
  • Makes your writing clearer and more concise
  • Lets you edit your writing in one place
  • Expands your English vocabulary
  • Offers a lot of features that can be helpful for writers of all levels
  • Is available as a Chrome extension and Microsoft Word add-in

Wordtune's Cons:

  • May sometimes give suggestions in repetitive patterns
  • Allows just 10 runs/day with the free plan

Wordtune is one of the best writing tools to help you become a better writer.

Wordtune’s Plans & Pricing

Wordtune offers a free version with limited features as well as two paid plans.

With the free plan, you can:

  • Get real-time suggestions as you write.
  • Rewrite, rephrase, and edit your sentences.
  • Check the clarity and conciseness of your writing.

However, it lets you perform just 10 runs/day, which is quite limiting.

The paid plans – Premium plan starts at $9.99/month (billed annually) and comes with the following features:

  • Unlimited runs
  • Tone correction
  • Shortening and expanding text
  • Paragraph rewriting
  • Premium support

Wordtune also offers a Premium for Teams plan that includes all of the features included in the Premium plan + the option to pay as a team. You can set up your Wordtune team account by filling out a simple form.

Wordtune's plans and pricing details

What Are the Key Features of Wordtune?

Wordtune offers a wide range of features to help you improve your writing. In this section of my Wordtune review, I'll go over some of its key features with examples.

Rewrite and Rephrase Sentences

One of Wordtune's key features is its ability to help you rewrite and rephrase your sentences. This can be helpful if you want to make your writing more concise or if you want to make sure it sounds friendly and approachable.

Here's an example of how Wordtune can help you rewrite a sentence by offering improvement suggestions:

How Wordtune can help you rewrite sentences

With their paid plans, you can also rewrite entire paragraphs, which can be helpful if you want to improve the overall tone of your writing.

Use the Right Tone to Match Your Subject Matter

With Wordtune, you can also make sure you're using the right tone for your writing. This is helpful if you want to sound more professional or casual, or if you want to make sure your writing is appropriate for your audience.

For example, let's say you're writing an email to a potential client. You can use Wordtune to check your tone and make sure it sounds professional.

Make your writing tone formal with Wordtune

Change the Length of Your Text to Match Your Writing Format

Sometimes, you may need to change the length of your text to match the format of your writing. For example, if you're writing content for a specific section on your web page, you may want to make sure it's the right length for that section.

Fortunately, Wordtune can help you with this as well. With its “shorten” and “expand” features, you can change the length of your text to match your writing format.

You just need to highlight the text you want to shorten or expand, and then click on the respective feature button, as shown below:

Shorten any text with Wordtune

The “expand” feature is also helpful when you’re having writer’s block and are falling short of words.

Edit Your Content for Spelling, Clarity, and More

If you're using the Wordtune Editor, it will check your content for a number of factors and suggest corrections, if needed. These factors include:

  • Spelling
  • Grammar
  • Punctuation
  • Repetition
  • Missing word
  • Wrong word
  • Clarity
  • Fluency
  • Vocabulary enhancement

It will also help you choose words that are more precise and easier to read. And it can even suggest ways to rephrase awkward sentences.

Using this AI-writing assistant and editor can be a great way to improve your writing skills and make sure that your content is error-free.

Wordtune Editor suggests spelling, grammar, fluency corrections

Get Smart Synonyms Suggestions with Wordtune

If you're looking for a way to make your writing sound more professional, or you just want to expand your vocabulary, Wordtune can help.

You can highlight a word and get a list of suggestions to replace it with a more fitting synonym. But Wordtune's real strength is its ability to understand the context of a sentence. This lets it offer suggestions that sound natural in the context of your phrase.

Wordtune's smart synonym suggestions

Translate Your Text into English and Rewrite It for Clarity

If you're not a native English speaker, don't worry – Wordtune can help.

Just enter your text in the language you're comfortable with and Wordtune will translate it into English. Then, it will also rewrite and improve your text so that it's clear and easy to understand.

So whether you're writing an email, a report, or just trying to communicate with friends or family, Wordtune can help you sound like a native English speaker in no time.

It currently supports translation from Spanish, Arabic, Hindi, Mandarin, Hebrew, Korean, and Russian into English.

Here’s an example where I tested Wordtune’s translation feature to rewrite a text from Spanish into English:

Wordtune International translates text to English and rewrites it

Give it a try now and see how Wordtune can help you communicate better in English.

P.S. Try Wordtune Read, which summarizes text for you using AI.

Wordtune’s Customer Support

Wordtune allows you to send them a message through the Messenger widget on their website if you have any questions or problems. Their support team typically replies within one day.

You can also find answers to commonly-asked questions and processes under the “Help” section and search for relevant answers using the “Search” feature in the same widget.

Wordtune Messenger support

You can get 24/7 prioritized service with their paid plans.

The AI-writing assistant has received 4.3-star ratings for their customer service on review sites like Capterra, which implies that they are responsive and helpful.

Who is Wordtune For?

Wordtune is a great tool for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills. Whether you're a student, a professional writer, or just someone who wants to write better, Wordtune can help you.

Some of its target users are:

  • Writers
  • Students
  • Professionals
  • Non-native English speakers
  • Marketers
  • Content creators
  • Copywriters
  • Bloggers
  • Business people
  • People who want to improve their writing skills

Wordtune Compared to Other AI Writing & Editing Platforms

Now that you know what Wordtune is and how it can help you improve your writing, let's take a look at how it compares to other popular AI writing and editing platforms. This includes comparing their features, cost, and more.

1. Wordtune vs. Grammarly

Grammarly is one of the most popular AI writing and editing platforms on the market and it offers a similar set of features to Wordtune. However, there are some key differences between the two platforms.

Grammarly's free plan focuses solely on grammar correction while Wordtune also offers full-sentence rewrites and word choice suggestions as well.

These features are available with Grammarly Premium, starting at $12/month.

But then, there is no limit on the number of spell checks and grammar corrections offered in the free version of Grammarly. And, Grammarly's paid plan also gives you access to a plagiarism checker which is not offered by Wordtune.

You can’t translate your text into English from another language using Grammarly but Wordtune lets you do that as well.

Both writing assistants can be used with Google Docs, Microsoft Word, their online editor, and as Chrome extensions.

Grammarly editor dashboard

Check out other Grammarly alternatives here.

2. Wordtune vs. QuillBot

QuillBot is an online paraphrasing tool that uses artificial intelligence to help you rewrite any piece of text. It lets you reword and rearrange sentences to create different versions of the original text.

With its free version, you can only reword up to 125 words of text and get up to 3 synonym options. You'll need to upgrade to QuillBot premium (for $9.95/month) to get the following:

  • Advanced grammar rewrites
  • Paraphrase unlimited words
  • Get up to 4 synonym options
  • Rephrase in casual and formal modes
  • Shorten and expand the text
  • Check your text for plagiarism

While Wordtune offers all other features, it lacks the plagiarism checker that QuillBot offers.

QuillBot paraphrasing dashboard

3. Wordtune vs. ProWritingAid

ProWritingAid is another popular grammar checker that you can use wherever you write – Google Docs, Microsoft Word, Chrome extension, and more.

So, how does it compare to Wordtune?

While ProWritingAid offers many of the same features as Wordtune, including grammar and spelling checking, it doesn't provide full-sentence rewrites as Wordtune does.

On the other hand, ProWritingAid offers comprehensive writing analysis reports to help you improve your writing as well as a style guide. And, it also offers a plagiarism checker with its Premium plan – starting at £20/month ($17/month approx.).

Whereas, Wordtune is a more affordable solution.

ProWritingAid editor

To learn more about ProWritingAid, read my detailed review of the tool here.

FAQs

1. Who created Wordtune?

Wordtune was created by AI21 Labs, a company founded in 2018 by AI experts.

The company's goal is to change the way we read and write by creating advanced AI tools and language models that can understand the context and semantics of written text.

These models are what make Wordtune different from other writing companions, as they go beyond grammar and spelling fixes to help you express your own thoughts in writing.

2. Is Wordtune as good as Grammarly?

This is a difficult question to answer, as both Wordtune and Grammarly have their own strengths and weaknesses.

Grammarly is a more comprehensive tool that can catch a wider range of errors, from spelling mistakes to grammatical errors.

Wordtune, on the other hand, is better at understanding the context of your writing and rewriting phrases or sentences to sound more natural. It also works better when it comes to helping you improve your writing style.

However, Wordtune may miss some errors that Grammarly would catch, so it really depends on your needs as a writer.

3. Does Wordtune have a free trial?

Yes, Wordtune offers a free trial and also a free plan.

With their free plan, you can perform up to 10 runs/day and rewrite your sentences or replace a word or phrase in your text. You also get limited support with the free plan.

If you want more features, you can opt for their premium plans which start at $9.99/month.

Try Wordtune Now!

Wordtune is a helpful tool that can improve your writing skills. It offers a wide range of features, including sentence rewriting, tone correction, and vocabulary expansion.

It's available as a Chrome extension and Microsoft Word add-in. You can try it for free, but the free version is quite limited. The paid plans start at $9.99/month (billed annually). This makes Wordtune the perfect choice for anyone on a budget.

The interface is designed to be simple and easy to use, so you can get started using Wordtune with no prior experience.

So what are you waiting for?

I hope you found this Wordtune review helpful. If you have any questions, please leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.

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YouTube Marketing: How To Effectively Get Your Brand Out There https://shanebarker.com/blog/what-is-youtube-marketing/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/what-is-youtube-marketing/#respond Fri, 11 Nov 2022 17:45:05 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=66094 You're not alone if you've been searching for the answer to, “What is YouTube marketing?” The platform is huge, with over a billion users and counting.

And, with so many people using the site every day, there's bound to be a lot of interest in how businesses can market themselves on YouTube. It's no surprise that many businesses are looking to leverage YouTube to reach their target audiences.

In this post, I’ll discuss everything you need to know about YouTube marketing. From what YouTube advertising costs and the best strategies, I’ll cover it all.

But before we get to the main discussion, let’s discuss why YouTube is a relevant platform for your business.

What is YouTube?

YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can upload, view, and share videos. The website has become a popular way to watch and share user-generated videos. From big and small brands to popular artists, everyone can upload videos on the platform.

YouTube is a video-sharing platform.
Image via YouTube

In fact, YouTubers spend a billion hours every day watching videos on the platform.

YouTube allows anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to upload videos.

Once uploaded, the videos can be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection. Users can also rate, comment on, and share the videos.

YouTube has become one of the most popular websites on the Internet. It is ranked as the second most visited website after Google. According to Alexa traffic rankings, YouTube is the third most popular website in the world after Google and Facebook.

What is YouTube Marketing?

YouTube marketing is a process of creating and promoting videos on the YouTube platform with the goal of driving traffic to your website, increasing brand awareness, or generating leads.

YouTube marketing is not just for big businesses. In fact, small businesses can benefit from YouTube marketing as well. Here are some reasons why:

  • You can reach a wide audience with your videos. YouTube has over a billion users, which means that your videos have the potential to be seen by a lot of people.
  • You can connect with your audience on a personal level. Videos allow you to show your personality and build relationships with your viewers.
  • You can generate leads and sales with your videos. If you include call-to-actions in your videos, you can encourage viewers to take action, such as subscribing to your channel or visiting your website.

In a nutshell, YouTube marketing can be a great way to reach a wide audience, connect with your viewers, and generate leads and sales.

Is YouTube Good For Marketing?

Yes, YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and the second-most popular social media site. It has over 2.5 billion active users, with over 500 hours of video being uploaded every minute.

A graph showing YouTube as the second most popular social media network in the world.
Image via BusinessofApps

Pretty amazing, right? But how can YouTube directly help you? Here are six ways YouTube marketing can help grow your business:

  • You can target a specific audience. With YouTube’s targeting options, you can narrow down who sees your videos by demographics like age, gender, interests, and more.
  • You can build trust and credibility. Potential customers are more likely to buy from someone they know, like, and trust. By creating helpful or entertaining videos, you can develop strong relationships with your viewers.
  • You can reach a global audience. YouTube is available in 76 different languages and has users all over the world. If you want to reach a global audience, YouTube is a great platform to do it.

Here is a quick overview of leading countries based on the number of YouTube users:

A graph showing the leading countries based on the number of YouTubers
Image via Statista
  • You can get creative with your marketing. There are endless possibilities when it comes to making creative video content. You can do product demonstrations, how-tos, interviews, customer testimonials, and more.
  • You can track your results. With YouTube Analytics, you can see how many people have watched your videos, where they’re coming from, what they’re watching on your channel, and more. This data can help you fine-tune your marketing strategy to get better results over time.
YouTube Analytics dashboard
Image via Socialinsider
  • You can improve your SEO strategy. YouTube videos can help you rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

This is because Google owns YouTube and gives preference to websites that have embedded YouTube videos. Sometimes, the top results on Google are from YouTube.

Here is an example:

Google results screenshot for Halloween makeup tutorial
Image via Google

Including keywords in your video titles and descriptions will also help your videos rank higher in SERPs. Make sure to do your research and target keywords that have low competition but are still relevant to your business.

  • Creating engaging videos will also help keep viewers on your website longer, which is a signal to Google that your website is worth ranking higher.

As you can see, there are many benefits to using YouTube for marketing. If you use YouTube correctly, it can be a powerful tool to reach a large audience with your marketing message.

You can create engaging videos that teach, entertain, and inspire people. You can also use YouTube to build relationships with potential and current customers.

What is the Main Goal of YouTube Marketing?

There are a few different goals that businesses can have when they approach YouTube marketing:

  • Boost Awareness: You can do this by creating videos that show off what you have to offer and then distributing those videos across the internet.
  • Lead Generation: To generate leads via YouTube, you can include calls-to-action in your videos and then drive traffic to a landing page.
  • Build Better Customer Relationships: You can do this by responding to comments on your videos, engaging with other popular YouTubers, and providing valuable content.
  • Boost Sales: By including calls-to-action in your videos and promoting your channel through social media and other online channels, you can encourage viewers to take action.

When you use YouTube as a part of your marketing strategy, you can reach a larger audience, engage potential customers, and increase sales for your business.

Pros and Cons of YouTube Marketing

YouTube marketing can be a great addition to your marketing strategy, but you should weigh the pros and cons before deciding if it’s right for you.

Pros of YouTube Marketing

  • You can reach a large audience with little effort.
  • Is the second-largest search engine in the world.
  • Little cost if done right.
  • It’s a great way to show off your products or services.
  • You can connect with potential customers on a personal level.

Cons of YouTube Marketing

  • It can be time-consuming to produce quality videos.
  • It can be difficult to stand out on such a large platform with millions of videos being uploaded every day.
  • There is no guarantee that people will watch your videos.
  • You may need to invest in some video production equipment.

How Do You Do YouTube Marketing?

Wondering how does YouTube marketing work? We’ve got you covered. Here's a step-by-step guide:

First, create a channel for your business. Make sure to use keywords in your channel name and description so that people can easily find them when they're searching for topics related to your business.

Next, create engaging video content that will appeal to your target audience. Remember to include calls-to-action in your videos, asking viewers to like, subscribe, and share your content.

Finally, promote your YouTube channel through social media and other online channels. You can also run ads on YouTube to reach even more people with your message.

11 Tips to Create a YouTube Marketing Strategy

In this section, let’s take a look at how you can develop a solid YouTube marketing strategy for your business. We’ll also cover some YouTube marketing tips and YouTube marketing insights to make sure you’re going on the right path.

1. Opt For a Brand Account

When you create an account on YouTube, you’ll have two options: Use your personal YouTube account or create a Brand Account. If you have created an account for a business or even if you are a freelancer or influencer, I would recommend you go for the latter.

YouTube brand account
Image via YouTube

With a Brand Account on YouTube, multiple people can access your account and manage it. This is really helpful if you have to update your account frequently from various locations.

Another reason why you should opt for a Brand Account is that you’ll get more privacy. Other people at work won’t need to know your personal ID and password.

At a later stage, if you want to expand your business, you can even add multiple business accounts.

When you’re creating a Brand Account on YouTube for marketing your business, it’s important to include relevant information.

You should include the following:

  • What your business does in the “About” section
  • Profile picture
  • Header image
  • Website link
  • Social media channel links

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Your target audience will be the ones watching your videos. And if you don't know who they are, you won't be able to make videos that appeal to them.

So take some time to understand your target audience before you start making YouTube videos. Who are they? What do they like to watch? What do they want to see from you?

Once you know the answers to these questions, you'll be able to create content that resonates with your audience. And that's when YouTube marketing can really start working for you.

There are a few different ways to go about finding your target audience on YouTube. You can use the search function, look at related channels, or use Google AdWords.

Using the search function is the easiest way to find your target audience. Simply type in what you’re looking for and see what comes up. For example, if you sell shoes, try searching for “women’s shoes” or “men’s shoes.”

If you want to get a little more specific, you can use related results. To do this, open a video in your niche and look at the “From Your Search” section on the right side of the page.

YouTube screenshot to find related results. Shows "From Your Search" section.
Image via YouTube

These are usually channels that are similar to the one you’re watching and would be interested in your content.

Finally, you can use Google AdWords to find your target audience. AdWords is a tool that allows you to pay for ads that will show up in search results. You can target your ads by keyword, location, language, and other factors.

3. Research Your Competition

To succeed with YouTube marketing, you need to understand what your competition is doing and how they are reaching their audience. Here are four tips on how to research your competition for YouTube marketing:

Find out who your main competitors are on YouTube. Look at the size of their channels, number of subscribers, and video views.

Study their videos to see what topics they cover and what type of content performs well for them. Identify any gaps in their content that you could fill with your own videos.

Keep an eye on your competitors’ activities by subscribing to their channels and setting up Google Alerts for their brand names. This will help you stay up-to-date on new videos they publish and any changes to their channels.

Engage with your competition’s audiences by leaving comments on their videos and participating in discussions on their channels. This will help you get to know their fans and what type of content they respond to.

4. Create Eye-Catching Thumbnails For Your Videos

As we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words. The same can be said for thumbnails on YouTube videos. By adding an eye-catching thumbnail to your videos, you can increase the number of views and subscribers.

Example of eye-catching YouTube thumbnails
Image via YouTube

Here are some tips on how to create an effective thumbnail:

  • Use high-quality images that are sharp and clear. Blurry or pixelated images will not capture the attention of viewers.
  • Make sure the thumbnail is relevant to the video content. Viewers should be able to tell what the video is about from the thumbnail alone.
  • Use bright and contrasting colors. This will help your thumbnail stand out from other videos in the search results.
  • Add text to the thumbnail. This can be the title of the video or a brief description.

By following these tips, you can create an effective thumbnail that will help increase the number of views and subscribers for your YouTube channel.

5. Look Closely at Popular YouTube Channels

There are many popular channels with millions of subscribers that get tons of likes and comments. Obviously, they are doing a lot of things rights right. You can learn a lot by just watching other YouTube marketing examples.

Some of the things you should look at when watching these channels are the following:

  • How they produce their videos
  • What kind of content they post
  • How often they post new videos
  • How they promote their channels

By paying attention to the most popular YouTube videos, you can understand what works on the platform.

6. Focus on Keyword Optimization

Keyword optimization should be a major component of your YouTube marketing strategy. There are several places you can add keywords for your YouTube marketing campaign:

  • In the title of your video
  • In the description of your video
  • As tags on your video
  • In the transcript of your video (if you have one)
  • In the annotations of your video
  • As cards in your video
  • On the end screen of your video

Using a mix of these keyword placements will help you reach a broader audience and get more views, subscribers, and leads. Experiment with different combinations to see what works best for you and your business.

7. Add Timestamps to Your YouTube Videos

Timestamps give users a quick idea of what’s going on in the video at a particular minute without having to watch it all. It is a link to the video, so users can click on a timestamp and quickly jump to that part of the video.

Here is an example:

Timestamps in YouTube videos
Image via YouTube

Adding timestamps to your YouTube videos is important for a few reasons. First, it allows viewers to easily find the information they're looking for in your video.

Secondly, it makes your video more accessible to people with disabilities who may need assistance navigating through the content.

Finally, timestamps can help users keep track of where they are in your video so that they can easily come back to specific parts later on.

Overall, including timestamps in your YouTube videos is a good way to improve the user experience for all viewers.

8. Add Detailed YouTube Video Descriptions

When you add a detailed description to your YouTube videos, you're providing valuable information to both YouTube and your viewers.

The more information you can give YouTube about your video, the better they will be able to match it with appropriate search queries. It’s an important step for YouTube video promotions or marketing campaigns.

Here is an example of how Netflix writes YouTube description for their new movie:

Detailed YouTube Video description - Netflix example
Image via YouTube

Viewers will also appreciate having more information about the video before they click “play.” A good description can entice a viewer who might not have otherwise clicked on your video.

Think of your video description as an extension of your title. It should provide additional context and details about what viewers can expect from your video.

When writing your description, keep in mind that it's not just a list of keywords – it should be readable and engaging.

YouTube gives you up to 5000 characters for your video description, so you have plenty of room to work with.

Here are a few tips for writing an effective video description:

  • Use natural language and avoid keyword stuffing.
  • Write for your audience, not YouTube's algorithm.
  • Include a call-to-action.
  • Be consistent with your brand voice.
  • Add links to your product pages or social media accounts.

By following these tips, you can create a detailed and engaging video description that will help your video perform better on YouTube.

So don't skimp on this important step in your video optimization process!

9. Respond to Viewer Comments

If you're looking to grow your YouTube channel, then you need to start responding to comments. It's one of the most effective ways to engage with your audience and build a community around your content.

responding to YouTube comments - example
Image via YouTube

When you respond to comments, you're showing that you care about what your viewers think and that you're willing to engage in conversation with them. This helps to build trust and loyalty, both of which are essential for growing a successful YouTube channel.

Plus, when you respond to comments, you're giving yourself an opportunity to promote your channel and its content.

You can let people know about new videos or playlists, ask them to subscribe, or even just thank them for watching.

So don't neglect the comment section of your YouTube videos – start responding today and you'll see the benefits eventually!

10. Organize Your YouTube Videos Into Playlists

When you have a lot of videos, it can be tough to keep track of them all and ensure that they're being seen by your target audience. This is where playlists come in! You’ll have most likely seen them on popular vloggers’ YouTube channels.

By creating playlists for your YouTube channel, you can group together similar videos and make them easier for viewers to find. Not only that, but playlists can also help boost your video SEO.

Even I have used this feature on my YouTube channel:

Shane Barker YouTube channel screenshot
Image via YouTube

Here are some benefits of using playlists for your YouTube marketing:

  • They make it easy for viewers to find what they're looking for
  • They help boost your video SEO
  • You can use them to promote related products or services
  • They're a great way to showcase a series of videos

Organizing your videos into playlists is a great way to keep your channel organized and ensure that your videos are being seen by your target audience.

11. Schedule YouTube Videos For Your Marketing Campaigns

It's important to keep your YouTube channel active, and one way to do that is by regularly uploading videos. This not only helps with SEO but also keeps your audience engaged.

If you're running a marketing campaign, scheduling your videos in advance is a great way to ensure that your content is being released on a regular basis. Plus, it allows you to better plan and strategize your overall marketing efforts.

If you're looking for a way to market your brand, you should consider scheduling YouTube videos on a regular basis. You can use YouTube to reach a wide audience with your marketing message, and it's a great platform for engaging potential customers.

There are several benefits to scheduling YouTube videos as part of your marketing strategy. First, it allows you to control the release of your content.

You can ensure that your videos are released at times when they will have the most impact, and you can avoid releasing too many videos at once, which can overwhelm viewers.

Top YouTube Marketing Tools

There are a few great YouTube marketing tools out there that can help you get the most out of your youtube channel. Here are a few of the top ones:

VidIQ

VidIQ is a software application that helps you to optimize your videos for YouTube. It provides insights on how to get more views and improve your video ranking.

VidIQ also helps you to track your competition and see what they are doing to be successful on YouTube.

Homepage of VidIQ - a software application that helps optimize YouTube videos.

Agorapulse

It's an all-in-one platform that can help with everything from managing your channel and optimizing your videos for SEO. You can also use it to analyze your campaign performance and grow your audience.

Agorapulse - Social Media Management tool

TubeBuddy

TubeBuddy is one of the most popular tools for YouTube marketing. It provides a suite of tools to help you optimize your videos, grow your channel, and measure your success.

YouTube video optimization tool
Image via TubeBuddy

Canva

Canva is mainly a graphic design tool that lets you create amazing visuals. With Canva, you can make eye-catching thumbnails for your YouTube videos in just a few minutes.

What's more, Canva is free to use! So, even if you're on a tight budget, there's no excuse not to create beautiful visuals for your YouTube channel.

Homepage of Canva - a tool you can use to design thumbnails for YouTube videos
Image via Canva

If you want to check out more such helpful tools, please ready my post on YouTube marketing tools. I’ve covered 20 tools along with their pros, cons, and pricing details.

How to Set Up a YouTube Advertising Campaign

In this section, let’s discuss all the considerations you need to take into account while running a YouTube advertising campaign. I’ll try to simplify the process as much as possible so that even absolute beginners can set up their own campaigns.

Step 1: Decide on Your Goal

Before you launch a campaign, decide on your main focus area. Do you want more conversions, awareness, or engagement? This choice will impact which ad strategy and format you should pick at a later stage.

Step 2: Create a New Campaign

Next open Google Ads Manager, and create a new campaign. You can choose specific goals or opt for opt to build a campaign without a goal’s guidance.

Google Ads Manager - Campaign Objective popup

Step 3: Choose a Campaign Type

For YouTube marketing, you should select the “video” option here. Alternatively, you can also choose the “Discovery” option if that aligns better with your goals.

Google Ads Manager - Campaign Type popup

Step 4: Choose Campaign Sub-Type

Based on your campaign goal, you can choose an appropriate sub-type. You can also choose Custom Video campaign if you’d like more options. Keep in mind that it’s possible to change this option even at a later stage in the campaign creation process.

Google Ads Manager - Campaign Sub-type popup

Step 5: Select Your YouTube Bid Strategy

Each format has different bidding strategies for YouTube ads. In this example, I have chosen the “Custom Video” campaign, so my custom options are Maximum CPV and Target CPM.

YouTube Bid Strategy popup options

Step 6: Choose Your Preferred Networks

From the given options, pick your preferred networks. Keep in mind that you might not be able to deselect certain options. If that network is a necessity for the format you’ve chosen, the platform will mark the option for you.

Google Ads Manager - Preferred Networks popup

Step 7: Choose Content Exclusion

This option allows you some control over your ad placement. If you don’t want your YouTube ad to appear next to potentially sensitive content, you can choose Limited Inventory.

Alternatively, if you want to explore multiple placements at a lower cost and due to lower competition, you should choose Expanded Inventory.

YouTube Ads - Content Exclusion options

With Standard Inventory, you get the option to exclude certain types of content.

Step 8: Include Related Videos

If you want to increase engagement and grow your YouTube channel, you should include related videos. They can redirect viewers to other content on your YouTube channel. You can also tweak additional settings to schedule ads, cap frequencies, and do more.

Options to add Related Video to YouTube videos

Step 9: Set Up Targeting Options

For YouTube ads, you get two targeting options: People and Content. Through the targeting options in the People section, you can select the demographics and audience segments.

With Content subcategory, you can select options such as keyword targeting, topic targeting, and placement targeting.

Targeting options for YouTube ads

Step 10: Create Your YouTube Video Ad

Before you create a video ad on YouTube, you need to upload it to your channel. If you don’t want it to be available publicly, you can select the option, “Unlisted.”

Depending on the subtype of your YouTube ad campaign, the options you get here will be different.

Create your YouTube Ad dialogbox

Step 11: Set Up a Bid

That’s it. In the last step, you need to set up your bid. Do your research so that you can come up with a bid that works for your YouTube campaign.

Set up bids for YouTube ads dialogbox

Step 12: Measure the Success of Your Campaign

Based on the objective of your campaign, make sure you select the right metrics to measure your campaign's success. I recommend that you pick one efficiency metric and another reach metric to get a comprehensive picture of your performance.

How Much Does It Cost to Run Ads on YouTube?

There is no absolute answer to this question. Some factors that influence YouTube ad costs include ad formats, bidding, and targeting. However, I can give you an estimate based on my experience with YouTube advertising.

Ads on YouTube can cost approximately $0.10-$0.30 per view. Going by that, the total cost of reaching 100K YouTubers is approximately $2000.

Keep in mind that a view is counted only when a viewer watches an ad for over 30 seconds. If your video ad is shorter than 30 seconds, YouTube counts a view only if a viewer watches the entire video.

Understanding YouTube Analytics

YouTube analytics can be overwhelming if you don’t have someone to walk you through it. In this section, I want to give you a quick introduction to all that is covered in YouTube analytics.

When you click on the Analytics tab in your YouTube account, you will see five main sections: Overview, Reach, Engagement, Audience, and Revenue.

  • The Overview section gives you an overview of your channel as a whole, including things like total views, watch time, subscribers gained or lost, etc.
A photo showing the overviewing section of the Channel Analytics window of YouTube
  • The Reach section shows you how many people are seeing your videos. You’ll also be able to check your traffic sources, impressions, and CTR.
A photo showing all the metrics included in the Reach section of YouTube Analytics
Image via Emplifi
  • The Engagement section gives you an overview of how viewers are responding to your videos. You’ll also be able to see key moments for audience retention, shares, likes, dislikes, watch time and average view duration.
A photo showing all the metrics covered in the Engagement section of YouTube Channel Analytics.
Image via Windowstechit
  • The Audience section gives you information about who your viewers are, including things like their location, age, gender, etc. You will also be able to check returning viewers, unique viewers, and the watch time for subscribers.
  • The Revenue section shows your top earning videos, monthly estimated revenue, transaction revenue, YouTube Premium revenue, and other important information.
A photo showing all the metrics covered in the Revenue section of YouTube Channel Analytics.
Image via SideHustleTeach

FAQs

1. How do I increase my subscriber numbers?

To increase your subscriber numbers, you can optimize your description, create playlists, and cross promote your channel on other social media channels.
For more tips on this, check out my blog post on increasing subscriber count on YouTube.

2. What are the best times to upload videos on YouTube?

The best time to post on YouTube is between 12 to 3 PM on Thursdays and Fridays. 

By posting your videos a little ahead of the peak viewing hour, you can increase the chances of getting more views.

3. Can you pay YouTube to get views?

No, you can not pay YouTube to get more views on your videos. You will have to grow your viewership organically.

4. How do you do SEO optimization for YouTube?

To do SEO optimization for YouTube, you should start with keyword research, title optimization, and description optimization. You can also create playlists to organize similar videos together.

For more tips, check out my post on YouTube optimization.

5. How can you promote a YouTube channel?

To promote your YouTube channel, you can optimize your YouTube videos, and schedule them at regular intervals. You can also leverage the YouTube Community Channel tab to get more engagement. 

For more tips, check out my post on best tips to grow your YouTube channel.

Ready to Make the Most of YouTube Marketing?

Now you know the answer to the question of “What is YouTube Marketing?” And you know that small businesses can leverage YouTube marketing by creating engaging videos that tell their story and connect with their audience. By doing so, they can reach a wider audience, build brand awareness, and drive traffic to their websites.

YouTube marketing is an effective way for small businesses to connect with their target audience and promote their products or services.

When done right, it can be a powerful tool that helps them grow their business. So if you’re thinking about starting a small business, don’t forget to include YouTube in your marketing mix.

Thanks for reading! We hope this post was helpful in understanding why should small businesses leverage YouTube marketing.

Do you have any questions related to what is YouTube marketing or how to create your own strategy? Leave us a comment below and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

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The Ultimate Guide to Content Marketing https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-marketing/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-marketing/#respond Thu, 06 Oct 2022 16:00:00 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=63199 As a marketer, you know that content is important. But what is content marketing, exactly? And how can you use it to achieve your marketing goals?

That's what I’ll cover in this guide.

By the end, you'll have a solid understanding of content marketing, why it matters, and how to use it to drive results for your business. I'll also cover the best content marketing strategies (with examples) that you can use to get started.

So, let's start with a content marketing definition.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

In other words, it's using content to create a connection between your brand and your potential and current customers, by providing information that is helpful, relevant, and interesting.

Content marketing is more than just a buzzword. It’s an essential part of any modern marketing strategy.

Why?

Because today’s consumers are bombarded with marketing messages from all sides. To cut through the noise, you need to create content that is not only informative and helpful but also interesting and engaging.

The good news is, content marketing can be an extremely effective way to drive sales and grow your business when done right.

And, I am saying this from experience.

Creating insightful articles on topics related to different digital marketing strategies, tips, and tools has helped me attract over 110K monthly visitors to my website and generated tens of thousands of leads for my business.

monthly traffic of shanebarker.com

Now, I am not saying that all of these visitors and leads converted into customers. But, without content marketing, it would have been impossible to get them in the first place.

So, if you're not already using content marketing, I urge you to start.

And if you are using content marketing, but not seeing the results you want, then this guide is for you.

In the next section, I'll help you take a look at some of the most important content marketing statistics that show why you need to be using this strategy.

Why is Content Marketing So Important?

Content marketing is so important because it is one of the most effective ways to reach your target audience and achieve your marketing and business goals.

If you do it right, content marketing can help you with a lot of things. You can use it to:

  • Educate your potential customers or leads.
  • Increase brand awareness.
  • Attract targeted consumers and build relationships with them to increase loyalty.
  • Boost conversions and sales.
  • Build a community around your brand.
  • Save money that you’d otherwise spend on other marketing tactics that generate fewer results.
  • Build trust and credibility.
  • Boost your SEO efforts.
  • Retain customers and build loyalty.

If you're not convinced that content is necessary to any modern marketing strategy, let me show you some statistics that prove just how important it is.

49% of marketing teams spend between 30%-50% of their total marketing budget on content. And, 5% of teams go all in by spending 71% of their marketing budget on content.

Content marketing budget of companies

That’s how much brands are willing to invest in content.

But why?

Because content marketing has proven to generate better quality leads, increase organic traffic to your website, and improve brand reputation.

In fact, it generates almost 3x more leads than outbound marketing and costs only 28% of the latter.

How Does Content Marketing Work?

Content marketing works by creating and sharing valuable content that attracts and engages your target audience and helps you convert them into actual sales and revenue.

But to use it effectively, you need to provide people with the right information at every stage of the customer lifecycle – from awareness to purchase and beyond.

Here are the different types of content that can help keep your consumers engaged throughout their journey:

Stages of the Buying Cycle

Types of Content

Points to Talk About

Awareness stage

Blog posts

Videos

Ebooks

Newsletters

How-to guides

Educational content

Your audience’s pain points, challenges, and questions.

How to solve a problem.

Consideration stage

How-to articles and videos

Checklists

Case studies

Product comparisons

Helpful information about choosing the right product or service.

The features to look for.

A brief introduction to what you are offering and how it can help.

Pros and cons of different products/services.

Decision stage

Case studies

Product reviews

User-generated content (UGC)

Product videos

How great your product or service is.

Your expertise.

The advantages you offer.

Types of Content Marketing

There are several different types of content that can be used for content marketing, including blog posts, articles, ebooks, infographics, videos, and more. The best way to determine which type of content is right for you is to think about what your goals are and what would be most helpful for your target audience.

For example, if you’re trying to attract new customers, you might want to create content that is educational and informative. If you’re trying to build loyalty and retention, you might want to focus on creating content that is entertaining and engaging.

Here are some of the most popular types of content marketing:

Blog Content Marketing

A blog is a great way to share your thoughts and ideas with the world. In addition to being a platform for you to express yourself, a blog can also be used to attract new customers and build relationships with your existing ones.

To be successful with blog content marketing, you should follow the tips below:

  • Identify a niche you're passionate about and have knowledge about.
  • Come up with at least a month of topic ideas for your blog.
  • Maintain a consistent posting schedule.
  • Make sure all of your blog posts are well-written, informative, and engaging.
  • Include call-to-actions (CTAs) in your blog posts to encourage your readers to take action.
  • Promote your blog content through social media and other channels.

Infographic Content Marketing

An infographic is a visual representation of data or information and is often used to make complex topics more accessible and easy to understand.

Creating an infographic is a great way to take a large amount of data and turn it into something that is both visually appealing and easy to digest.

To be successful with infographic content marketing, you should follow the tips below:

  • Choose topics related to your business niche. You can choose to answer your target audience’s most asked questions.
  • Research your topic thoroughly and come up with an attention-grabbing headline.
  • Find or create high-quality visuals to support your data.
  • Use pre-designed infographic templates to speed up the design process and ensure a professional result.
  • Make sure your infographic is easy to understand and digest. It should not overwhelm the reader with too much information.
  • Include a clear call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your infographic to encourage your readers to take action.
  • Promote your infographic through social media and other channels. Infographics work especially well to drive traffic from Pinterest.

Social Media Content Marketing

Social media is a great platform for content marketing because it allows you to share your content with a large audience quickly and easily. It also allows you to interact with your audience and get feedback on your content.

Here are some tips for creating effective social media content and generating good results from it:

  • Make sure your content is interesting and relevant to your audience.
  • Experiment with all content formats that a social media platform offers, varying from single images to carousels, videos, Stories, paid ads, Reels, Live videos, etc.
  • Make sure your headlines are attention grabbing and interesting.
  • Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags, as they can help increase the reach of your content.
  • Encourage users to engage with your content by asking questions, running polls, or using other interactive features that each social media platform offers.
  • Post regularly and at optimal times for your audience.
  • Repurpose your blog content into social media posts or create social media-specific content.
  • Collaborate with other brands and creators to amplify your reach and attract new followers.
  • Regularly post Stories to keep your audience engaged.
  • Re-share your best-performing content every three-four months to boost its reach and engagement.
  • Monitor your social media analytics to see what content is resonating with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Video Content Marketing

Videos are a great way to show off your products or services in a way that is both engaging and informative. In fact, according to Wyzowl, 88% of people say that they have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand's video.

When creating videos for your content marketing strategy, it's important to keep in mind that you don't have to go big or go home. A simple video that demonstrates what your product does or how your service can help solve a problem can be extremely effective.

If you're not sure where to start, consider the following tips:

  • Keep it short and sweet as people have short attention spans. Make sure your videos hook their attention within the first few seconds.
  • Make it visually appealing as people are naturally drawn to visuals.
  • Use emotion to connect with your audience on a deeper level as this can be extremely effective in getting people to take action.
  • Tell a story as this is a great way to engage your audience and make them remember your video.
  • Feature product videos on your website and on social media to give potential customers a better idea of what you have to offer.
  • You can also repurpose your top-performing blog content into a video format to reach a wider audience.
  • Maintain a consistent branding message across all of your video content to ensure that your target audience knows who you are and what you stand for.

By following these tips, you can create videos that will help you achieve your content marketing goals.

Paid Ad Content Marketing

Paid advertising is a form of content marketing where you pay to have your content seen by potential customers. Paid ads can be a great way to reach a large audience quickly, but they can also be expensive.

When deciding whether or not to use paid advertising, you'll need to consider your budget and your goals.

If you're trying to reach a large audience with your content, paid ads may be a good option. However, if you're trying to build long-term relationships with your customers, organic content marketing may be a better choice.

There are many different types of paid advertising, including:

  • Display ads: These are the ads that you typically see on websites. They can be text, images, or videos.
  • Social media ads: These are ads that you see on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
  • Search engine ads: These are the ads that you see when you do a search on a search engine, such as Google or Bing.
  • Native advertising: This is a type of paid advertising that blends in with the content on the page. For example, you may see an ad that looks like an article but is actually an advertisement.

Paid advertising can be a great way to reach your target audience. However, it's important to use it wisely. Make sure that your ads are relevant to your audience and that they add value to the content on your site.

Most brands use paid ads when they are promoting a new product or service, or when they want to increase awareness about an event or sale.

If you're not sure whether paid advertising is right for you, consider talking to a content marketing professional.

Podcast Content Marketing

Podcast content marketing or podcasting is a newly popular way to engage with customers and build loyalty.

Unlike other forms of content marketing, podcasts are usually audio-only, which makes them more intimate and personal. You can think of them as a radio show that your audience can tune into anytime, anywhere.

Podcasts are perfect for customers who are always on the go, or who prefer to consume content in an audio format. And because they can be easily downloaded and listened to offline, they're also great for customers with spotty internet connections.

You'll be surprised to know that over 104 million Americans (that's almost one-third of the total population) listen to podcasts regularly.

To engage with this huge audience, you can either launch your own podcast or join other podcast hosts in your niche as a guest speaker. I’ve done both!

You must have heard of my “Marketing Growth Podcast” and I’ve been on podcast episodes of many top publishers such as IZEA and CoSchedule.

With my experience, I’d like to share some tips for all those who are starting with podcast content marketing. Here you go:

  • Create an email list before launching your podcast.
  • Choose topics that your audience wants to learn about.
  • Launch your podcast with a few episodes and see how well it works.
  • Whether you invite a guest or join someone else as a guest on their podcast, research them and the topic first.
  • Make the conversation fun and engaging.
  • Don’t be salesy. Ensure that your podcast episodes are at least 80% informational and provide valuable and helpful information that can solve your audience’s problems or make their lives easier.
  • Candidly ask your audience to take an action if they like your podcast.
  • Submit your podcast to all aggregators and directories such as Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
  • Ensure good sound quality and provide transcripts. I recommend that you use a tool like Otter.ai to automate transcription. It’s quite efficient and accurate in my experience.
  • Invite relevant guest speakers to add more value to your podcast.
  • Use your guest’s network to increase the reach of your podcast episodes.
  • Break down your podcast episodes into smaller clips, quotes, snippets, and key takeaways. You can amplify the reach of your podcast content by sharing these on your website and social media profiles.
  • Engage with your audience on social media.
  • Track new listeners and social mentions.

How to Get Started with Content Marketing

Content marketing can feel daunting but it doesn’t have to be.

When it comes to getting started with content marketing, I’d love to quote something from HubSpot’s Director of Content, Lisa Dahmani.

She said that you can only earn attention by providing value. The key to content marketing success lies in creating remarkable content and publishing it where your audience is.

The key to content marketing success
Source

In this section, I’ll show you how to do just that in a step-by-step process for effective content marketing. So, keep reading!

Set SMART Goals and KPIs

First things first, every good campaign starts with setting SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Here are some common content marketing goals and the related key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help you track whether or not you’re on the right track.

GoalsRelated KPIs
Increase brand awarenessWebsite traffic
Social media followers
Email subscribers
Brand mentions
Increase customer engagementBlog comments
Social media engagement (likes, comments, shares, follows, etc.)
Backlinks
Get more conversionsNumber of clicks on product pages or the “Add to cart” button
Conversion rate
Shopping cart abandonment rate
Boost revenueEveryday sales
Build trust and increase brand loyaltyNumber of retained customers
Referral orders
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Promoters and followers
Brand mentions
Build an email listEmail subscribers
Number of ebooks/templates downloads

Understand Your Audience Better

To meet your goals and KPIs, you need to understand your audience and create buyer personas for each campaign you launch and each piece of content you create.

It’s important to understand:

  • Fast facts about your target audience such as their age, gender, location, occupation, income, marital status, etc.
  • What matters to your potential and existing customers.
  • The demand for your product or service.
  • The potential USPs of your product or service.
  • The general thoughts and feedback of people who have tried or used your product or service.
  • Where your brand stands in the eyes of those who would buy from you. Have they heard of your brand? What do they think of your brand? How much do they trust you?
  • How strong the other players in the market are.

Understanding your target audience and buying personas can help you draft a more effective content strategy over time.

Pro tip: Conducting market research and customer satisfaction surveys shouldn’t be a one-time affair. It has to be a regular job if you want to stay up-to-date about what’s working and what’s not and what can.

If you think it’s a troublesome job, consider using some of my favorite survey tools that will make this job as easy as possible for you.

Conduct Content Audits Regularly

Before you devise or upgrade your content marketing strategy, it is essential to analyze the current performance of your already-published content.

Doing so can help you:

  • Improve the user experience on your website.
  • Identify your best-performing content and find ways to increase its visibility.
  • Find content gaps and opportunities.
  • Improve your site’s SEO and SERP rankings.
  • Identify website and content issues such as broken links, outdated statistics, and slow load times.

All of this will ultimately help you increase your content’s visibility online and benefit your business in multiple ways – from more traffic to better leads and a higher conversion rate.

That’s why 65% of companies that generate successful results from their content marketing campaigns perform content audits twice a year.

Conducting audits and updating the content has helped many brands increase engagement, reach, and traffic.

The benefits of updating content regularly
Source

Content updating is one of my go-to strategies to make my content work to the best of its potential and it works well for my website.

For example, I recently updated my post on “Top Female YouTubers” with the latest information about:

  • The total number of subscribers they have on their channels now
  • The types of content they create
  • What makes them unique

I also removed the YouTubers who have stopped sharing video content on YouTube and added new rising stars to the list.

Plus, I added a quick table that features the names + links of the YouTube channels of the top 10 female YouTubers, sorted by the current number of subscribers they have, in descending order.

top 25 female YouTubers

This helped me improve the user experience by providing the information readers need in an easy-to-consume manner.

In turn, it helped me rank my post on the top of the first page of Google search results and also be feature as the answer to two questions.

My post ranked on first page of Google

To achieve similar results, I suggest that you keep an eye on how your content is performing and ensure that it is up-to-date with the latest information, statistics, data, and feedback from your readers.

Choose Your Content Marketing Channels

Deciding on the content marketing channels you want to invest in each year can help you stay focused on your goals and create a consistent brand experience for your audience across all touchpoints.

Here are the top 10 most popular content marketing channels:

top 10 content marketing channels
Source

However, your choice of content marketing channels should depend on where your target audience is spending most of their time online.

To find that out, consider conducting audience research or using Google Analytics to see which channels are already sending traffic your way.

You can also use social media listening tools to track conversations about your brand or industry and see which channels you should be paying more attention to.

Decide on the Type of Content You Want to Create

Now that you know which content marketing channels to focus on, it’s time to decide what kind of content you want to create.

There are several different types of content you can create, but some of the most popular and effective ones include:

  • Blogs
  • Videos
  • Ebooks
  • Infographics
  • Whitepapers
  • Case studies
  • How-to guides
  • Product demos and tours
  • Tutorials
  • User manuals
  • Templates
  • Checklists
  • Calculators
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes and games

As you can see, there’s a lot of different content you can create, but not all content is created equal.

Some formats perform better than others.

For example, blog posts tend to get more traffic and engagement than other types of content, like videos or infographics. This is likely because they are easier to produce and consume.

On the other hand, specialized content, like videos or infographics, can be more effective at generating leads or sales because they offer a richer and more immersive experience to the viewers.

However, not all types of content will be right for your business or your audience. When deciding on the types of content to create, you should consider these factors:

  • Your business goals
  • The needs of your target audience
  • The challenges they are trying to overcome
  • The reason your audience needs your products or services
  • Your budget and resource constraints
  • The skills and expertise you have in-house
  • The popularity of different content formats in your industry
  • The content formats your target audience prefers to get information
  • Your competitors’ content strategies

Once you’ve decided on the types of content you want to create, it’s time to start thinking about your content creation and distribution strategy.

But before that, it’s important to ensure that you have everything you need to start creating high-quality, conversion-driven content.

Get the Resources and Tools You Need

Creating quality content requires time, effort, and expertise. And if you want your content to be successful, you’ll need the right tools as well as the right team in place.

Here are some of the resources and tools you need for content marketing:

  • A team of experienced content writers, editors, copywriters, designers, strategists, SEO specialists, analysts, etc.
  • A content calendar to help you map out and plan your content strategy
  • A project management tool to help you keep track of your content production. My team is currently using ClickUp to put everything in place and it’s working great!
  • Content research tools like BuzzSumo, Google Trends, and Semrush, to help you understand what topics are trending and what keywords people are searching for.
  • Content writing and optimization assistants like Jasper, Grammarly, Copyscape, and Surfer to help you write better, faster, and more SEO-friendly content.
  • A good CMS (content management system) to help you manage and publish your content. I personally recommend WordPress.
  • A social media management tool like Hootsuite.
  • A graphic design software solution like Adobe Photoshop or a subscription to Canva for easy-breezy templates.
  • A camera for taking good quality pictures and videos.
  • Pay for ad spaces (if needed).
  • An email marketing tool like Mailchimp or Constant Contact.
  • And last but not least, a solid understanding of your target audience, their needs, and their wants.

This is just a basic checklist of some of the things you need for content marketing. Of course, the list can go on and on depending on your specific needs. But if you have all of these in place, then you’re well on your way to content marketing success.

Here is another list of some of my tried-and-tested content marketing platforms that may help and what you can use them for. Be sure to check it out.

Next comes the process of actually creating and distributing content.

Create Original, Engaging, and Informative Content & Distribute It

Content creation is one of the most important aspects of a content marketing strategy, and it needs to be given careful thought and attention. After all, the quality of your content is what will determine whether or not you achieve your content marketing goals.

The good news is, creating great content isn’t as difficult as it may seem. With a little planning and effort, you can start producing content that will resonate with your audience and help you achieve your business goals.

Here are a few tips on creating quality content:

  • Make sure your content is original and engaging. There’s a lot of content out there, so yours must stand out. Write original articles, create infographics, and produce videos that are interesting and informative.
  • Do your research. Make sure you understand your topic inside and out. This will not only make your content better, but it will also make the writing process easier.
  • Create a catchy headline. Your headline is the first thing people will see, so make sure it’s attention-grabbing and relevant to the rest of your content.
  • Optimize your content for the search engines. SEO (search engine optimization) will help ensure that your content is seen by as many people as possible. Use keywords throughout your content, and make sure to include links to other relevant articles and websites.
  • Distribute your content on social media and other platforms. While promoting your content on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn is a great way to get your content in front of more people, you can also syndicate it on websites like Medium.
  • Write for other publications. Many publications accept guest articles. This is a great way to get your name and your work out there.

This practice has helped me acquire 103K backlinks from 8K domains and build my authority as a digital marketing expert.

My backlinks and referring domains
  • Repurpose your content. Once you’ve created a piece of content, don’t let it sit idly by. Turn it into an infographic, a podcast, or a video. This will help you get the most out of your content and reach more people.

Content marketing takes time, effort, and planning. But if you create quality content and distribute it on the right platforms, you’ll be well on your way to achieving your business goals.

Analyze and Measure Results

Finally, it’s important to analyze and measure the results of your content marketing efforts. This will help you understand what’s working and what’s not, and it will allow you to make necessary adjustments to your strategy.

Here are a few tools you can use to track your content marketing results:

By analyzing your results, you can fine-tune your content marketing strategy and ensure that you’re getting the most out of your efforts.

The Best Content Marketing Strategies Today

Now that you understand what content marketing is and how it works, it’s time to put that knowledge into practice.

To help you get started, here are some of the most successful content marketing techniques being used today by marketers:

Successful content marketing tactics
Source

Let’s learn about them in detail:

Create Skyscraper Content

The first content marketing strategy on our list is “skyscraper content.” This technique was popularized by Brian Dean of Backlinko.

The basic idea is simple: find popular content in your niche and then create something even better.

To pull this off, you can use Google Search or BuzzSumo to look for content with high pageviews or social shares in your niche.

Once you’ve found some popular content, it’s time to create your own version.

To do this, simply make a list of all the things you could improve about the popular content. This could be anything from adding more graphics to making the content easier to read.

Remember, the goal is to make your content even better than the popular piece you found.

To do this, you may need to invest in some additional resources, such as hiring a designer or copywriter.

However, the investment will be worth it, as you’ll be able to attract links and social shares from the existing audience of the popular content.

Improve Content Quality

Focus on creating higher-quality content if you want your content marketing strategy to be successful.

This may seem like an obvious statement, but it’s important to create content that is well-researched, engaging, and informative. If you can do this, your content will stand out from the sea of mediocre content that is out there.

To improve your content quality, make sure to:

  • Research your topics thoroughly.
  • Write in a clear, concise, and easy-to-read style.
  • Engage your readers by using strong storytelling.
  • Use images, infographics, and videos to break up your text and add visual interest.
  • Edit your content thoroughly before publishing.

Invest in SEO

If you want your content to be seen by as many people as possible, it’s important to make it rank in the top search results for relevant queries. For this, you’ll need to invest in search engine optimization.

You should:

  • Research the best keywords for your content.
  • Include these keywords throughout your content, including in the title, headings, and body text.
  • Optimize your website for search engines and page speed.
  • Make sure your website is mobile friendly.
  • Use social media to promote your content.

Create More Visual Content

People are visual creatures, and they tend to engage with visual content more than text-based content.

If you want to capture your audience’s attention, it’s a good idea to create more visual content. This could include creating infographics, videos, or images to accompany your blog posts.

If you’re not sure where to start, there are plenty of online tools that can help you create visual content.

Canva is a great option for creating infographics, charts, and social media graphics. Similarly, you can use video editing apps like InShot to create videos for your social media channels or website.

Update and Repurpose Existing Content

If you don’t have the time or resources to create new content from scratch, then don’t worry – you can still give your content marketing a boost by updating and repurposing your existing content.

This could involve:

  • Adding new sections to old blog posts.
  • Updating data and statistics in existing infographics.
  • Creating new videos or podcasts from existing blog posts.
  • Turning a blog post into an infographic or a video.

This is a great way to get more mileage out of your content and reach a new audience. And I'm a big fan of anything that makes my life easier!

I’ve got a whole list of posts that I want to update each month. Here’s a snapshot of my “Revamping Posts” dashboard on ClickUp:

Revamping content plan

These posts are selected based on a number of factors:

  • A drop in search rankings traffic
  • Engagement with the post (likes, shares, comments)
  • The relevance of the topic to current trends
  • Any new industry update related to the topic

For example, with the new 2022 Instagram update, the photo-sharing app now allows users to directly add spaces in their post captions and bios by hitting the “Enter” key.

Earlier, users had to either copy-paste the caption from another app such as the Notes app or use emojis and symbols to add spaces and line breaks.

With the latest update, the process got simpler and I felt the need to update my article on, “How to Add Spaces on Instagram Captions & Bios” to keep my readers updated with the latest information on the topic.

So I added this quick section to the post:

add spaces to Instagram captions and bio

This quick update is the reason why my article is still relevant to the topic and is ranking at the top of Google search results.

My post ranking on page 1 of Google

In all, revamping existing content has helped me save time, get better results, and improve my SEO. If you’re looking for an easy way to improve your content marketing strategy, then this is it.

Successful Content Marketing Examples to Inspire You

Let’s look at a few examples that will help you figure out how to implement the content marketing techniques and tips that we’ve discussed in this article for your brand.

HubSpot Academy Courses: The Free Marketing Resource That Builds Loyalty

HubSpot, a leading CRM company, offers free marketing and sales courses through their HubSpot Academy. The courses are interactive and include quizzes, videos, and resources that help learners progress through the course material.

HubSpot Academy courses
Source

What’s more?

HubSpot also offers certifications for those who want to show that they’ve completed the coursework and can apply the concepts in a real-world setting.

To date, the HubSpot Academy has certified over 165,000 professionals and helped them see growth in their careers.

While this sounds like giving value for free, it’s actually a smart marketing move. By providing quality content and resources, HubSpot is able to attract top talent to their brand and convert them into customers or employees down the road.

What should you learn from HubSpot?

  • Create high-quality content that provides value to your target audience and helps them progress in their career or business journey.
  • Make the content interactive and engaging, using quizzes, videos, and other resources.
  • Consider creating short content that is easy to consume and can be completed in one sitting.
  • Don’t forget to promote your content through social media, email, and other channels to reach your target audience.

IKEA's Augmented Reality App: Try Before You Buy Catalog

In 2017, IKEA launched an augmented reality (AR) experience app version of their print catalog. The app, called “IKEA Place,” lets users place virtual furniture in their homes to see how it would look before they buy it.

IKEA's Augmented Reality App
Source

This was an innovative way to use AR technology and give customers a new way to interact with the IKEA brand. It’s also an example of how IKEA is always looking for new ways to engage its customers and provide them with value.

To date, the app has been downloaded 31.3 million times, with an average rating of 4.6 stars. It successfully attracted and retained young customers and introduced the “try before you buy” concept across the retail industry.

What should you learn from IKEA?

  • Always be on the lookout for new technologies that you can use to engage your customers and provide them with value.
  • Think outside the box to come up with new and innovative ways to market your products or services.
  • Don’t be afraid to experiment with new ideas – even if they don’t all work out, you’ll learn from the process and be better prepared for next time.

Red Bull: The Content Marketing Kings

When it comes to content marketing, no one does it better than Red Bull. This energy drink company has built an entire empire by creating and distributing high-quality content that is entertaining, informative, and inspirational.

Red Bull’s content marketing efforts are so successful that the company has its own media arm, “Red Bull Media House.” This division produces award-winning films, TV shows, and events that are watched by millions of people around the world.

And it focuses on video content more than any other type of content, with over 10.7M subscribers on its YouTube channel alone.

The company often partners with athletes and daredevils to promote their idea – “Red Bull Gives You Wings.”

Here's one short video clip the company posted on Instagram:

Source

What’s more?

Red Bull doesn’t just create content for the sake of it – everything they produce is in line with their brand identity and mission. As a result, their content is highly effective at attracting new customers and retaining existing ones.

What should you learn from Red Bull?

  • Focus on creating high-quality, entertaining, and inspiring content.
  • Create content that is aligned with your brand identity and mission.
  • Use videos to reach a wider audience.
  • Collaborate with other relevant brands, influencers, and consumers to create co-branded content.

Coca-Cola: The Soft Drink Giant That Conquered Social Media

Coca-Cola is one of the most popular soft drink brands in the world, and it has used content marketing to build a massive social media following.

The company has millions of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. And they regularly post engaging content that is liked, shared, and commented on by millions of people.

For example, their “Share a Coke” campaign encouraged people to buy bottles of Coke with their names on them and share photos of themselves drinking the soda with friends and family.

Source

This campaign was so successful that 1.25 million more teens tried a Coke during that summer and it led to a phenomenal 11% increase in sales in the U.S. alone.

. Coca-Cola's Share a Coke success story

Source

Coca-Cola also uses content marketing to run successful PR campaigns.

For instance, their “Open Happiness” campaign was created in response to the global financial crisis of 2008. The feel-good ads and videos produced by the company helped to boost their image and sales during a difficult time.

What can you learn from Coca-Cola?

  • Use content marketing to increase your social media following.
  • Create campaigns that are timely and relevant to current events.
  • Focus on producing personalized and feel-good content that will make people happy and encourage them to take an action.

Nike: The Sportswear Giant That Uses Stories to Sell

Nike is one of the world’s most successful sportswear brands, and they have used content marketing to great effect.

The company tells stories to sell their products, and they have produced some iconic ad campaigns over the years.

For example, their “Just Do It” slogan and ads featuring famous athletes like Michael Jordan have helped to make Nike one of the most recognized brands in the world.

Nike also produces high-quality content to promote their products.

For example, their “Nike Run Club” app provides users with a personalized running experience and has been downloaded over 10 million times, with an average rating of 4.2 stars.

Nike Run Club app for runners
Source

What can you learn from Nike?

  • Use stories to sell your products.
  • Create ad campaigns that are iconic and memorable.
  • Produce high-quality content that provides value to your consumers.

The Takeaway

As you can see from these examples, there are many different ways to approach content marketing.

The key is to find a method that works for your business and your audience.

By creating quality content that provides value to your readers, you’ll be able to build a loyal following and achieve your business goals.

Content Marketing FAQs

1. What do content marketers do?

Content marketers create and distribute valuable, relevant, and consistent content with the aim of attracting and retaining a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, driving profitable customer action.

– To achieve business goals, content marketers:
– Perform content audits regularly.
– Define the brand's target audience and buyer personas.
– Conduct market research to understand what other brands are doing.
– Set goals and KPIs for their work.
– Come up with a content strategy, and define the types of content to create and the channels to use to promote it.
– Create an editorial calendar to map out topics, types of content, and the publishing schedule.
– Create, curate, and publish high-quality content that's both original and differentiated from the competition.
– Optimize content for search engine rankings and social sharing.
– Promote content through SEO, social media, email marketing, and other channels.
– Analyze metrics to understand which pieces of content are resonating with the audience and driving results.
– Update and repurpose existing content to keep it fresh and relevant.
– Work with other departments and teams to ensure that content aligns with the overall marketing strategy.

2. What is the content marketing process?

The generic content marketing process includes steps like these:

Plan: Before you do anything, you need to have a solid plan in place. This means knowing your goals, understanding your audience, and creating a strategy.

Create: Once you have a plan in place, it’s time to start creating your content. This can include blog posts, infographics, videos, ebooks, and more.

Promote: Once your content is created, you need to promote it to reach your target audience. This can be done through social media, email marketing, paid advertising, and more.

Analyze: After your content has been published, it’s important to analyze its performance. This will help you understand what’s working and what isn’t so you can adjust your strategy accordingly.

3. What is good content marketing?

Good content marketing refers to creating and distributing content that is valuable, relevant, and interesting to your target audience. It helps you successfully attract, engage, and retain
customers by providing them with information that they need and want.

Here are a few tips to do good content marketing:

– Understand your audience and their needs.
– Create content that is valuable, relevant, and interesting to your target audience.
– Distribute your content through channels that your audience frequents.
– Monitor and measure your results.
– Repurpose and reuse your content.
– Update and improve your content regularly.

4. What is an example of content marketing?

There are many examples of successful content marketing but one of my personal favorites is the story of HubSpot, a software company that provides inbound marketing and sales solutions.

HubSpot’s blog is full of high-quality content that attracts a large audience. This, in turn, helps it generate leads and sales for its SaaS solutions.

Along with publishing insightful articles, guides, and ebooks, HubSpot also launched HubSpot Academy, which offers free online marketing courses with certifications. The marketers who learn from their courses are likely to use their tools, which benefits the company in the long run.

This is just one example of how a company can use content marketing to achieve its business goals. There are many other ways to use this strategy, which I've explored in this article.

Grow Your Brand with Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the most important aspects of digital marketing. It involves creating and distributing original, informative, and engaging content to attract and retain customers.

Unlike other forms of marketing, content marketing focuses on building relationships rather than pitching products or services. That's why it is important to understand your target audience and create content that appeals to their needs and interests.

You can use content marketing to increase your brand awareness, attract more website visitors, generate leads, increase customer engagement, boost sales, and retain customers.

Now that you know what content marketing is and how you can use it to achieve your marketing goals, it's time to implement what you've learned so far.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section below.

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https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-marketing/feed/ 0 Share a Coke USA Commercial nonadult
B2B Content Marketing: A Quick Guide For All Marketers https://shanebarker.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-b2b-content-marketing/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-b2b-content-marketing/#respond Sat, 03 Sep 2022 22:38:07 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=62239 If you're in the business-to-business (B2B) world, then you know that B2B content marketing is all the rage. In a world where businesses can be found with the tap of a finger, it’s crucial to stand out from the crowd. That’s where B2B marketing comes in

Creating content is a great way to do that and it can also help you reach new audiences, drive sales, and build your brand. 

B2B content marketing is all about creating and distributing relevant, valuable, and consistent content to attract and retain a pre-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. It isn’t just about selling your product. It’s about educating your audience so they’ll buy from you when they are ready. 

While the concept may seem simple enough, executing a successful B2B content marketing strategy can be challenging. That's why I’ve put together this helpful guide. In it, you'll learn everything you need to know about B2B content marketing.

What Is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content marketing is aimed at businesses that sell to other businesses. It’s generally more focused on lead generation, driving traffic to your website, and increasing your brand’s authority than B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing. In a nutshell, the goal is to attract, engage, and ultimately convert prospects into customers.

To do this effectively, you need to understand what your audience wants and needs. Then, you need to create content that meets those needs.

Different Types of Content For B2B Marketing

Many different types of content can be used for B2B content marketing. However, not all of them will be equally effective for every business. It is important to choose the right mix of content types that will work best for your particular business and audience.

Some of the best B2B content ideas that you can use include:

1. White Papers

These are in-depth research reports on a specific topic. They are usually used to educate potential customers about a problem or solution.

White papers are an important part of B2B content marketing because they provide valuable information to help businesses make decisions. By creating informative and persuasive white papers, businesses can establish themselves as thought leaders in their industries.

1 white papers
Image via Paperflite

White papers can be used to educate prospects about a company's products or services, explain a complex issue, or make a case for a certain course of action. They are often used as lead generation tools, providing readers with valuable information in exchange for their contact information.

When done well, white papers can be extremely effective at generating leads and converting prospects into customers. However, like any other type of content, they need to be well-written and relevant to the audience to be successful.

2. Blog Posts

The most important thing to keep in mind when writing B2B blog posts is that your content must be helpful and informative. That means creating posts that provide value for your readers, whether that's through educational content, tips and tricks, or insights into your industry.

2 Blog Posts
Image via Backlinko

While it's important to have a mix of different types of content on your blog, some of the most popular topics for B2B bloggers include:

  • Industry news and trends: Keep your readers up-to-date on the latest industry news and trends with regular blog posts. This type of content helps position you as a thought leader in your field and keeps your readers coming back for more.
  • How-to guides and tutorials: Help your readers solve a problem or learn something new with step-by-step guides and tutorials. This type of content is especially popular among B2B audiences, as they're often looking for ways to improve their business processes.
  • Product reviews and comparisons: If you sell products, your blog is the perfect place to write in-depth reviews and comparisons. Not only will this help your readers make more informed purchasing decisions, but it will also get ranked on search engines for multiple keywords.
  • Expert tips and advice: Share your expert knowledge on a particular topic with blog posts that offer tips and advice. This type of content can be helpful for both novice and experienced readers and helps position you as an authority in your field.

3. Webinars

A webinar is an online seminar. They are an important part of any B2B content marketing campaign. They provide an engaging and interactive way to share information with your audience and can be a great lead generation tool.

When done right, webinars can be a powerful way to connect with your audience and build relationships. They can also be used to drive leads and sales.

However, webinars can also be a lot of work. From planning and promotion to delivery and follow-up, there's a lot that goes into making a successful webinar.

3 Webinars
Image via Voxturr

If you want to host webinars that are interactive and secure, you should check out my post on the best webinar hosting websites. With these platforms, you can create automated webinars, create polls, record your sessions, and do more. Plus, they offer integrations with social media apps so you can share it on different social media platforms as well.

4. Case Studies

If you're running a B2B content marketing campaign, case studies can be a valuable addition to your arsenal. Here's why:

For one, they help build trust with your audience. Potential clients are more likely to do business with you if they see that you have happy, satisfied existing customers. Case studies provide that third-party validation.

They also show that you know your stuff. A well-written case study demonstrates your expertise and ability to solve problems for your clients. This can help set you apart from the competition and attract new business.

Finally, case studies are simply interesting reading material. They offer a behind-the-scenes look at how businesses actually use your product or services, and people enjoy reading about real-world success stories.

So if you're not already using them, be sure to add case studies to your next B2B content marketing campaign. They just might be the key to winning over new customers.

5. Ebooks

An ebook is a long-form piece of content that can be downloaded and read on a device like a Kindle or iPad. They are usually used to provide more in-depth information than a blog post or white paper.

Ebooks are a great way to get your message across to potential customers and clients. By providing high-quality, informative content in an ebook format, you can show your audience that you're an expert in your field and that you're able to provide them with valuable information.

5 Ebooks
Image via Wishpond

Ebooks can also be used as a lead generation tool. By offering an ebook as a free download, you can entice potential customers and clients to sign up for your email list or opt-in to your newsletter. This way, you can continue marketing to them even after they've left your website.

One of the great things about ebooks is that they're easily shareable. That means they can be a great asset for your B2B content marketing campaigns.

When you create an ebook, you're not just creating content – you're creating a valuable resource that can be shared with others. And when others share your ebook, it helps to promote your brand and build awareness for your business.

6. Infographics

If you're looking for a way to add some pizzazz to your B2B content marketing campaigns, consider using infographics. 

These very visual pieces can be great for making complex information more digestible and engaging for your audience. The visual elements and the concise format ensure that your audience doesn't get overwhelmed. 

And when you include data in an infographic, you're effectively lending credibility to your content. After all, numbers don't lie. So if you can back up your claims with hard data, your audience is more likely to trust what you have to say.

6 Infographics
Image via GetResponse

If you want to improve your brand visibility and reach a wider audience, infographics can be a useful tool in your arsenal. Thanks to social media channels, it's easier than ever to share content with a wide audience. 

And infographics are particularly well-suited for sharing since they're visually appealing and easy to understand at a glance. If your infographic is informative and well-designed, there's a good chance it will be shared by your target audience.

7. Slideshows

We all know that slideshows are a vital part of any presentation. They help us to focus our audience's attention on key points and make complex information more digestible. But did you know that they can also be hugely beneficial for your B2B content marketing campaigns?

Let's face it, most people are visual learners. By using slideshows, you can tap into this and make your content more engaging and memorable.

What’s more, slideshows can be used in a variety of ways, from educational pieces to sales presentations. This makes them incredibly versatile and suitable for a wide range of content marketing campaigns.

There are all sorts of different types of slideshows that you can create for your B2B content marketing campaigns. You can use them to showcase your products or services, share helpful tips and tricks, or even tell a story.

Whatever type of slideshow you decide to create, make sure that it is engaging and informative. Your goal is to capture your audience's attention, keep them engaged throughout the entire presentation, and make them want to share it with others.

8. Videos

Videos are a great way to engage your audience and build relationships. They can be used to educate, entertain, or both.

You can go the traditional route and make a commercial, or you can get creative and produce an interactive video experience. You can also create explainer videos, product demonstrations, customer testimonials, or even just fun little clips that show off your company culture.

8 Videos
Image via YouTube

No matter what type of video you decide to create, the important thing is that it is engaging and informative. It should give viewers a taste of what your company or product is all about, and leave them wanting more.

Creating videos for your B2B content marketing campaigns can be a great way to reach a larger audience and promote your business. 

If you're not sure where to start, consider hiring a video production company to help you create high-quality videos that will engage your target audience. Or if you’re on a limited budget, consider checking out these easy-to-use video editing tools to make your B2B videos stand out.

9. Podcasts

A podcast is an audio show that can be downloaded and listened to on a computer or mobile device. They are often used to share expert interviews or provide commentary on current events.

Podcasts can be a great addition to your B2B content marketing strategy. They provide an engaging and interactive format that can help you connect with your audience. Plus, they're relatively easy to produce, so you can get started without a huge investment of time or money.

What’s more, podcasts are easy to consume on the go. This makes them perfect for busy professionals who want to stay informed while they're commuting or working out. They may not have the time to read lengthy blog posts, but audio, while they are doing other activities, can certainly fit into their schedule.

In addition to this, podcasts are more personal than other content types. Because podcasts are usually conversational in nature, they can create a strong connection between the host and the listener. This can make your brand feel more relatable and trustworthy.

So there you have it! These are just a few examples of B2B content marketing in action. Get creative and see what types of content you can create to help your business succeed.

Importance of B2B Content Marketing

There's no question that content marketing is important for businesses of all sizes. But what about B2B companies? Why is B2B content marketing so vital, and how can you make sure you're doing it right?

For starters, it's worth noting that the vast majority of B2B buyers (94%) say that online content has a moderate to major impact on their purchase decisions. In other words, if your company isn't creating compelling content, you're likely missing out on valuable leads and sales.

But why is B2B content marketing so effective? To understand that, it's helpful to look at the buyer's journey, which consists of three main stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. The last two stages (loyalty and advocacy) are to ensure that you have repeat customers.

Importance of B2B Content Marketing
Image via Code95

At the awareness stage, your buyer is just beginning to realize that they have a problem or need that your product or service can address. At this point, they're not yet ready to make a purchase, but they are starting to do some research.

This is where B2B content marketing comes in. By creating helpful, informative content (such as blog posts, infographics, ebooks, etc.), you can introduce your company and its solutions to potential buyers and begin to build trust.

As buyers move into the consideration stage, they'll be looking for more in-depth information about their options. Here, case studies, white papers, and other forms of long-form content can be very helpful for convincing buyers that your company is the right choice.

Finally, at the decision stage, buyers are ready to choose a solution. At this point, they'll be looking for things like product demos, free trials, and pricing information. By providing this type of content, you can seal the deal and earn a new customer.

For the last two stages, a mix of different types of content along with discount deals can work wonders.

So there you have it: three good reasons to make B2B content marketing a priority for your business. Now it's time to start creating some compelling content of your own!

B2B Content Marketing vs B2C Content Marketing

On the surface, it may seem like B2B content marketing is just a mirror of B2C marketing. But if you look closely, you’ll realize that both B2B and B2C campaigns need to be designed differently. 

The main reason for this is that the customer journey is different for B2B and B2C customers. In the business-to-business (B2B) world, the customer journey is often more complex. 

In the next section, I will take a look at all the other major differences between B2B and B2C marketing approaches.

differences between B2B and B2C marketing
Image via High Target

Multiple Decision-Makers Are Involved in B2B Campaigns

One of the main reasons for this is that there are usually multiple decision-makers involved in the purchase process. For instance, you may be talking about your product or service to someone from the operations team. 

Even if they are convinced about buying your product or service, they may need approval from department heads, vice presidents, or CEOs. In nutshell, all the decision-makers must be convinced if you want them to make a purchase. 

A bad purchase can have serious consequences for the business, so buyers are generally more cautious and do more research before making a purchase.

Higher Price Points For B2B Products/Services

Businesses need to carefully consider their purchase decisions, as they are usually investing more money into them. The price points for B2B products are typically higher than for B2C products. 

Since the stakes are higher, it is understandable that the decision-makers want to understand all the features and benefits of your product or service before they commit. They may even want free trials or multiple demos to get a clear idea of what you have to offer. Again, this leads to a longer sales cycle.

Buyers Have Better Clarity of Needs in B2B Settings

Buyers in a B2B setting are generally more informed and sophisticated than buyers in a B2C setting. There is a lot at stake so they know exactly what they are looking for. 

This means that they are more likely to know what they want and need, and they are less likely to be swayed by marketing messages or sales pitches.

If you are selling to B2B buyers, it is important to keep these factors in mind and to be prepared for a longer sales cycle. By understanding the needs of your target market, you can better tailor your marketing and sales efforts to meet their expectations.

Elements of a Great B2B Content Marketing Strategy

Creating a great content marketing strategy for your business can seem overwhelming. There are so many things you could write about, and you’re not sure where to start. 

After all, what is a content marketing strategy? What factors should you consider when developing one for your company? 

A great B2B content marketing strategy is a detailed roadmap that guides your company’s content marketing efforts. It outlines your strategy, your goals, and the channels through which you’ll achieve them. 

Your B2B content marketing strategy will likely contain the same key components as your overall marketing strategy:

  • Objectives: What results do you hope to achieve through this content marketing effort? 
  • Goals: What do you want to achieve with your content marketing efforts? More website visitors? More leads? More sales?
  • Audience: Who are you trying to reach with your content? What kinds of information do they need?
  • Buyer Personas: Once you've defined your audience, create buyer personas to help you better understand their needs and how your content can help them. You can find multiple templates that will help you create B2B personas.
Buyer Personas
Image via Pinterest
  • Keywords: What terms are your audience searching for when they're looking for information related to your business? Use keyword research tools like Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find out.
Keywords
Image via Google
  • Topics: What are you going to write about? What kinds of content will you create? Once you have the answers to these questions, map out when and where you'll publish it using an editorial calendar. This will help you stay organized and on track.
  • Distribution: How will you reach these audiences? Will you promote it via email campaigns, social media campaigns, or other channels? What are some best practices you can follow? 
  • Measurements: What metrics will you measure to see how your content marketing efforts are going?

A B2B content marketing strategy is about more than just building a few articles and slapping some keywords in. Your B2B content marketing strategy should be the foundation on which your efforts are built. It should be the driving force behind all your content marketing efforts. 

It’s crucial to have a great B2B content marketing strategy because it helps you avoid many of the pitfalls that can occur when it comes to B2B content marketing. 

With a well-thought-out strategy in place, you can avoid wasting time and resources on content that isn’t going to be successful. You can avoid putting your resources into content that isn’t going to draw in a large audience. 

A great B2B content marketing strategy will also allow you to build upon your efforts as you continue to grow your business. With a solid plan in place from the start, you can use this strategy to further your goals and overall success.

One important tip for creating a successful B2B content marketing strategy is to focus on quality over quantity. It's better to publish a few pieces of truly great content than it is to churn out a lot of mediocre stuff.

So take the time to create something really useful and exciting, and promote it accordingly. Your audience will thank you for it!  another tip is to make sure you are constantly creating new content.

How to Do B2B Content Marketing Right

The common misconception about B2B marketing is that it's all about selling products and services to other businesses. However, effective BtoB content marketing is actually about creating valuable content that helps your target audience do their jobs better.

As you develop your content marketing strategy, it's important to keep in mind where your target audience is in their purchase journey. Whether they are just starting to research a problem or they are ready to buy, your content should be tailored to meet them where they are.

If you're not sure how to determine what stage of the purchase journey your audience is in, don't worry. We've put together a quick guide to help you get started.

The first step is to understand the different stages of the purchase journey. Let’s understand the concerts of buyers at each stage of the funnel.

1. Awareness Stage

In this stage, potential buyers become aware that they have a problem or need that can be addressed by your product or service. They are just beginning their research and are not yet ready to buy.

One of the most important things to keep in mind when creating content for the awareness stage is that buyers are still getting familiar with their problem or need. They may not even be sure what they're looking for yet. So, your content should be educational and informative, without being too sales-y.

Buyers in the awareness stage may not be ready to commit to a long white paper or video, but they might be interested in a quick blog post, video, or infographic. By offering a variety of content types, you’ll appeal to buyers at different stages of their research.

All of these pieces can help educate buyers about their problem or need, and position your company as a thought leader in the industry.

Also, make sure your content is easy to find and access. Buyers in the awareness stage are just beginning their research, so they may not be familiar with your brand or website. 

Make it easy for them to find the information they need by including links to your content on every page of your website and in every email you send.

It’s also a good idea to use keyword-rich titles and descriptions. When buyers are searching for information online, they use keywords. Help them find your content by using those same keywords in your titles and descriptions.

2. Consideration or Evaluation Stage

In this stage, potential buyers are actively researching their options and evaluating which product or service is best for them. They are comparing your offering to those of your competitors.

In this stage, buyers are already aware of their needs and they are actively searching for information about potential solutions. 

Your goal at this stage is to educate them about your product or service and help them understand how it can meet their needs. You also need to showcase what your USP is compared to other similar solutions in the market.

Your content should be focused on providing helpful information that will help your buyers make an informed decision. You should avoid hard selling or trying to close the sale at this stage. 

Instead, you should focus on building trust and rapport with your buyer so that they will consider doing business with you when they are ready to make a purchase.

Here are some types of B2B content that you should provide users who are in the consideration stage of their buying process:

  • How-to guides: They help your buyer understand how to use your product or service to achieve their desired outcome. 
  • Product comparisons: This type of content provides an objective look at how your offering stacks up against the competition. 
  • Case studies: This content show potential buyers how other companies have used your product or service to achieve success.
  • Industry reports: These reports give buyers the big-picture view of trends and challenges in their sector.

3. Decision Stage

By the time your prospects reach the decision-making stage, they have probably seen your brand pop up in several places across the internet. They might’ve even visited your website or followed you on social media.

Now that they’re familiar with who you are, it’s time to start providing them with content that will help them make a decision. Here are some ideas:

  • Customer stories: There’s nothing more powerful than hearing from a satisfied customer. Customer stories can come in the form of blog posts, social media posts, and videos.
  • Product demos: If you have a product or service that requires some explanation, then a demo video is the way to go. You can show prospects how your product works and what sets it apart from the competition.

7 Strategies to Create and Promote B2B Content More Effectively

‍In today’s world, brands have a greater opportunity than ever to stand out from their competitors by creating content that is relevant, useful, and engaging. But promoting your brand-specific content can be challenging. 

After all, there are many ways to promote your company’s blog or website. Here are seven strategies to help you promote B2B content effectively.

1. Use Targeted Lead Capture Forms

When it comes to B2B content marketing, one size definitely does not fit all. To effectively reach and resonate with your target audience, you need to create content that is specifically tailored to their needs and interests. And one of the best ways to do this is through the use of targeted lead capture forms.

Use Targeted Lead Capture Forms
Image via Automizy

Lead capture forms are essentially online forms that allow you to gather information about your leads, such as their name, email addresses, job titles, and company names. 

By using a targeted lead capture form on your website or blog, you can ensure that you're only collecting information from leads who are actually interested in what you have to say. 

This helps to save time and resources by weeding out those who are not a good fit for your products or services.

In addition, targeted lead capture forms also allow you to segment your leads so that you can send them more targeted content down the line. 

For example, if you know that a particular lead is interested in product A, you can make sure to send them information about product A in the future. This helps to further nurture the relationship and keep your brand top of mind.

2. Automate Your Email Marketing Campaigns

As a B2B marketer, you know that email is still one of the most effective channels for content distribution. But manually sending out emails to your list can be time-consuming and frustrating, especially if you have a large list.

That's why automating your email campaigns can be such a lifesaver. With automation, you can set up your emails in advance and then sit back and relax while they go out to your subscribers on their own. Not only will this save you time, but it can also help ensure that your messages are always going out on schedule.

Plus, automated emails can be highly personalized, which can help improve click-through rates and conversions. So if you're not already using email automation for your B2B content marketing, now is the time to start.

3. Pay Attention to User Intent

User intent should be at the forefront of any B2B marketer’s mind when creating content. After all, if your target audience can’t find what they’re looking for, or worse – you show them something that isn’t relevant to their needs – you’ve lost them

Pay Attention to User Intent
Image via Seobility

There are a few different types of user intent to keep in mind. They are the same for B2B and B2C users.

  • Informational: The user is looking for information on a given topic. For example, they may type in “How to improve content marketing” into Google.
  • Navigational: The user is looking for a specific website or page. For example, they may type in “Company XYZ blog” into Google.
  • Commercial: The user is looking for a specific product or service. The intent may to find out reviews or compare prices. For example, a user may type, “XX product reviews.”
  • Transactional: The user is looking to purchase a product or service. For example, they may type in “Company XYZ pricing” into Google.

If you want your content to be successful, you need to make sure it aligns with the user’s intent. Otherwise, you run the risk of turning potential customers away.

4. Leverage Remarketing

Remarketing can be an extremely effective tool for B2B marketers. By targeting individuals who have already shown an interest in your product or service, you can more effectively market your content to them and improve your overall content strategy. 

Here are a few tips on how to leverage remarketing to improve your content strategy:

First, make sure that your website is set up for remarketing. This means adding the necessary code to your site so that you can collect data on visitors and track their behavior. Once you have this setup, you can start building out targeted audiences based on their interactions with your site.

Next, create compelling ads and offers that will appeal to your target audience. Remember, these individuals have already shown an interest in what you have to offer, so your ads and offers should be highly relevant to their needs.

Finally, make sure to track your results so that you can continually optimize your remarketing efforts. By understanding what is working and what isn't, you can make adjustments to your strategy as needed and ensure that you are getting the most out of this powerful marketing tool.

5. Make the Most of LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for B2B marketers, but it takes more than just having a profile to make it work for your business. 

You need to put in the effort to develop relationships, engage with potential customers, and generate leads if you want to see results. But when you do, LinkedIn can be an incredibly effective tool for growing your business.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of LinkedIn marketing:

  • Develop a strong company profile. Include information about your company's history, products and services, and mission statement. Be sure to include keywords that will help potential customers find you.
  • Build relationships with other businesses in your industry. Connect with them on LinkedIn and share their content. This will help you build credibility and authority within your industry.
  • Engage with your target audience. Join relevant content groups and participate in discussions. Share valuable insights and perspectives that will help position you as a thought leader in your field.
  • Generate leads with targeted content offers. Use LinkedIn's lead generation tools to create content offers that will resonate with your target audience.

6. Add FAQs

If you're a B2B marketer, there's a good chance you've been asked a lot of questions about your product or service. You may have even been asked the same question multiple times. While it can be frustrating to keep answering the same questions, it's important to remember that your customers are just trying to learn more about what you offer.

One way to help your customers (and save yourself some time) is to create an FAQ page on your website. This can be a simple page that addresses common questions and provides brief answers. 

You can also link to other resources, such as customer support or tutorials if needed. In fact, you could have a dedicated FAQ section in each blog post too.

Add FAQs
Image via AutoGrow

An FAQ page can be a valuable resource for both you and your customers. By taking the time to answer common questions, you can provide your customers with the information they need and make their experience with your company more positive. Plus, you'll save time in the long run by having a go-to resource for answers.

7. Use Video Marketing

Video marketing is not a new concept, but it is often overlooked by B2B marketers. There are many reasons why video should be a part of your marketing mix, but here are three of the most important:

First, video is an engaging medium that can capture attention and hold it for extended periods. A well-produced video can tell a story in a way that static images and text simply cannot match.

Second, video content is a great way to build trust and credibility with your audience. When potential customers see you and your team on camera, they get a sense of who you are and what you stand for. Such content creation can go a long way towards building the kind of relationships that lead to sales.

Finally, video is an extremely versatile medium that can be used in a variety of ways. You can use it for product demonstrations, customer testimonials, educational content, and much more. No matter what your marketing goals are, there’s a good chance that video can help you achieve them.

Ultimately, the best way to promote your B2B content is to create engaging content that people want to consume. This can be a challenging task, but it’s also a worthwhile investment that can help your business stand out from the competition.

8 Examples of Great B2B Content Marketing Campaigns

In this section, I want to take a step back and look at some examples of the best B2B content marketing campaigns from some of the world’s top brands. These should give you a good idea of what’s possible when you put your thinking cap on and get creative with your content strategy.

1. Blog Posts from Buffer

Boring, dull content will never capture (and keep) your audience's attention. If you want to stand out in the ever-growing sea of content, you need to create something worth reading—something that educates, informs, and entertains. That's where educational content comes in.

Creating educational content may seem like a lot of work, but it's worth it. If you’re looking for inspiration to create high-quality B2B content, check out the blog section on Buffer. They have detailed guides that outline pain points and offer credible solutions.

Blog Posts from Buffer
Image via Buffer

What You Can Learn From This

By creating educational content, B2B marketers can build trust and credibility with potential customers. When customers feel like they can trust a company, they are more likely to do business with that company. 

2. Infographics from Toggl

Boring, static text is a thing of the past. In today's age of social media and constant connectedness, people are looking for more engaging B2B content that is easy to consume. 

This is where infographics come in.

If you have a lot of data that you need to present in a way that is both accessible and visually appealing, an infographic can be a great solution. Check out how Toggl makes a serious topic like software development seem super interesting with eye-catching visuals.

Infographics from Toggl

What You Can Learn From This

With a bit of creativity and good design skills, you can make even the most boring, mundane topics fun with infographics. 

In addition to being informative, Toggl's infographics are also very shareable. This helps to amplify their reach and ensure that their content is seen by as many people as possible.

3. Microsoft’s Explainer Video

In a world where buyers are overwhelmed with choices and information, it's more important than ever for B2B marketers to find ways to break through the clutter and explain their products and services in a way that is both clear and compelling. And there's no better way to do that than with an explainer video.

If you’re looking to create your own explainer video, check out Microsoft’s explainer video on how their Cloud system functions.

Microsofts Explainer Video
Image via YouTube

What You Can Learn From This

You can create a short, animated video that tells the story of your product or service in a way that is easy to understand and digest. In just a few minutes, you can convey all of the key information that potential customers need to know about what you're offering.

4. TGIM From Shopify

Podcasts are a great way to reach out to potential customers and connect with them on a personal level. They offer an intimate setting that allows you to share your story and build trust with your audience.

Podcasts offer busy professionals a convenient way to consume content while they're driving, working out, or doing chores around the house. And because podcasts are usually only 20-30 minutes long, they're the perfect length for busy people who want to learn something new but don't have a lot of time to spare.

They can also show off your expertise and build authority in your industry. By producing your own podcast, you can control the narrative and position yourself as a thought leader. And if you produce high-quality content, you can attract new listeners and grow your following.

Take inspiration from TGIM from Shopify. The company is hoping to change the way Americans feel about Mondays with their new podcast, Thank God It's Monday (or TGIM). 

Shopify's podcasts cover success stories of driven entrepreneurs, and they're designed to get Shopify's audience of innovators pumped for the week ahead.

TGIM features interviews with a slew of high-profile business executives and entrepreneurs, including marketing gurus Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes. They discuss everything from business growth to the latest marketing trends.

What You Can Learn From This

Invite industry experts on your podcast so that you can know what others in the industry are up to. At the same time, it gives you an opportunity to reach out to their audience and grow your online presence. In fact, you can even create co-branded podcasts with others in the same industry for extra clout and reach. 

5. Ebooks From SEMrush

As a B2B marketer, the type of ebooks you produce should be based on what your target audience is looking for. If they are seeking information on trends in your industry, then an ebook discussing these trends would be beneficial. 

However, if your target audience is more interested in tips and tricks from experts in your field, then an ebook with this focus would be a better option. 

No matter what type of ebook you decide to create, make sure it is well-researched and provides value to your reader. By doing so, you will increase the chances that your ebook will be successful in generating leads for your business.

If you’re looking for inspiration, check out Semrush’s website. They have an entire section dedicated to different ebooks that they have. In fact, they also have a free ebook template and a press release template that can help other B2B marketers.

Ebooks From SEMrush
Image via Semrush

What You Can Learn From This

One of the best things about ebooks is that they can be very targeted. This means that you can produce an ebook that is relevant to a particular pain point or challenge your target market is facing.

This is something that biz marketers can learn from Semrush's content marketing tactic of producing ebooks. By creating ebooks targeted at solving specific problems, Semrush has been able to create content that resonates with its audience and drives conversions.

6. Cisco’s Graphic Novels

Case studies are an excellent way to show potential customers how your product or service has helped others in a similar situation. They can also be used to build trust and credibility with potential customers

They directly demonstrate how you have solved a problem and made a difference. They can make a world of difference when converting prospects into paying customers.

But when you're reading a case study, it's easy to get bogged down in the details. All of the numbers and statistics can be overwhelming, and it's easy to lose sight of the big picture.

That's why it's important to remember that case studies are stories. They're designed to glimpse how a company or individual has used technology to overcome a challenge. And like any good story, they should have a beginning, middle, and end.

Ciscos Graphic Novels
Image via Hellostepchange

Cisco made sure that dry content was made interesting with a graphic novel. Cisco created a graphic novel to communicate the message that security is constantly evolving and that there is a need for stronger security, without coming across as alarmist. 

In this eight-page ebook, they showed how their company can help you tackle security loopholes and elevate your cyber security.

What You Can Learn From This

Cisco's comic book isn't only informative, but it's also creative and unique. The comic book does an excellent job of breaking down complex tech concepts for those who are outside of the tech industry. Consequently, readers are more likely to share this easily digested document with others.

7. Active Campaign’s Webinars

Webinars are a fantastic way to generate leads and build relationships with potential customers. They offer an engaging, interactive format that allows you to connect with your audience in a deeper way than other forms of content marketing.

Webinars are versatile. You can use them to introduce new products or services, host expert panels, or deliver educational content. No matter what your goals are, there's a way to use webinars to achieve them.

Want some inspiration?

Check out how Active Campaign introduced new product updates via a series of webinars. This type of onboarding can ensure that customers know how to make the most of your B2B product or services.

Active Campaigns Webinars
Image via ActiveCampaign

What You Can Learn From This

Active Campaign’s webinars offer a personal touch that can help build relationships with new customers. When you host a live event, you have the opportunity to interact with your audience in real-time and answer any questions they may have. This back-and-forth interaction builds trust and rapport between you and your new customers.

8. HubSpot’s Memes

While you may not think of memes as being particularly “professional”, they can actually be a great way to reach your target market. B2B marketers can use memes to show that they’re keeping up with current trends, but more importantly, that they understand their audience. 

Take inspiration from the meme below published by HubSpot. It’s a generic meme that shows what it is like to work in sales. It’s relatable, on-trend, and funny!

HubSpots Memes
Image via Carabinar

What You Can Learn From This

Humor is often viewed as a tool to be used sparingly in business settings, but that doesn't have to be the case. In fact, humor can be a powerful marketing tool for B2B marketers – if it's used correctly.

When used correctly, humor can help break the ice, make your brand more relatable, and even make complex topics more digestible. Of course, there is such a thing as using too much humor or using it in the wrong way. But as long as you use good judgment and keep your audience in mind, you'll be able to use humor effectively in your marketing campaigns.

FAQs

1. How do you use content marketing for B2B companies?

Content marketing can be used in several ways to support B2B marketing objectives. Here are four common uses:
– To drive awareness of a company, its products, or its services
– To generate leads
– To build relationships and engage customers
– To support sales efforts

2. How do you create B2B content?

To create B2B content, you need to understand what your audience is looking for. Take a closer look at their purchase journey and understand their needs. Tailor your content such that is relevant to them while also being engaging and informative.

3. How do you create a content strategy for B2B marketing?

Here are some steps to create an effective B2B content marketing strategy:
– Define your goals.
– Understand your audience.
– Identify your topics.
– Create your content.
– Distribute your content via multiple channels.
– Analyze your campaign results.

4. What kind of content can B2B companies create?

B2B companies can create various different types of content including podcasts, blog posts, white papers, webinars, case studies, ebooks, infographics, slideshows, and podcasts.

5. What are some effective strategies to promote B2B content?

Here are some ideas to promote your B2B content:
– Use targeted lead capture forms.
– Use email automation.
– Leverage remarketing.
– Use video marketing.

Ready to Develop Your Own B2B Content Marketing Strategy?

B2B content marketing is no longer optional. With consumers getting warier and warier of marketing strategies as a whole, it’s more important than ever to be able to not only show your products but also explain them succinctly and at a level that will help persuade. 

To do this, you need B2B content marketing strategies that are strategic, focused, measurable, and repeatable to get the most out of your efforts. 

This means creating a roadmap that focuses on research, topics, frequency, and timing of the content release, followed by a prioritization of topics and an editorial calendar that incorporates a mix of online and offline content.

Use the pointers mentioned in this article to come up with an effective B2B content marketing strategy. Check out the examples mentioned closely for some inspiration. 

Do you have any questions about developing a B2B content marketing strategy? Please feel free to mention them in the comments section.

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https://shanebarker.com/blog/ultimate-guide-to-b2b-content-marketing/feed/ 0 Content Marketing Articles | Shane Barker nonadult
How to Add Video Clip Filters Online [+Useful Tools] https://shanebarker.com/blog/video-clip-filters-online/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/video-clip-filters-online/#respond Tue, 26 Apr 2022 02:30:31 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=52263 One way to make sure you don’t end up with a video that looks like it was filmed with a potato is by using the best video editing tools to add video clip filters online.

Video clip filters online are one of the most popular ways to spice up videos. Whether you want to add a touch of color to your videos or go all out to change their look and feel, these tools offer all the features you need.

Before we check out some of the top online video editors and what they have to offer, let's try to understand why it is important to add video effects and filters, and how to do it.

Why Should You Consider Adding Filters to Your Video Clips?

Adding filters to your videos can make them more aesthetically pleasing, and can also alter the mood or tone of the video. Video effects and filters can also help differentiate your videos from that of your competitors.

For example, if you use vintage or sepia filters, it can help transport viewers to different time periods. Whereas, using sharpening filters can give the impression of being crisp and cold.

The type of filters and effects you use will depend on the software you're using and the overall look and feel you're trying to achieve with your video.

It's also important to keep in mind that some filters can have a negative impact on the quality of your video. For example, using too many filters or the wrong type of filter can make your video look amateurish.

As a general rule of thumb, it's best to use filters sparingly and only when they enhance your video quality.

The Different Types of Video Filters You Can Use

There are a number of different types of filters that can help enhance your videos. Some of the most popular filters include:

  • Sharpen: This filter is used to make the edges of objects in your video clip sharper. This can be useful if you want to create a sense of depth or focus in your video.
  • Blur: The blur filter is the opposite of the sharpen filter. It softens the edges of objects in your video clip and creates a dreamy or ethereal look.
  • Brightness: The brightness filter can adjust the overall brightness of your video clip, making it more vibrant or more muted.
  • Contrast: The contrast filter adjusts the difference between the lightest and darkest parts of your video clip. This can help make your video look more dramatic or subtler.
  • Saturation: The saturation filter adjusts the amount of color in your video clip. It can make your video look more vibrant or muted.
  • Hue: The hue filter adjusts the overall color of your video clip and can help change the mood or tone of your video.
  • Vintage: The vintage filter gives your video clip a retro look to create a nostalgic feel.
  • Sepia: The sepia filter is similar to the vintage filter, but it gives your video clip a more antique look. Use it to create a historical feel in your video.
  • Grunge: The grunge filter gives your video clip a distressed, edgy, or gritty look.
  • Black and white: The black and white filter removes all colors from your video clip. This can be useful if you want to create a classic or timeless look in your video.

Now that you know some of the most popular types of video filters, let's take a look at how to apply them to your videos online.

How to Add Filters to Your Video Clip Online

There are a variety of tools that allow you to enhance your video clips online. You can adjust video quality, framerate, and resolution, add effects and filters, and edit them professionally.

In most video editing software solutions online, you can apply filters to your video clips by following the steps below:

  • Upload your video.
  • Click on the “Effects” tab.
  • Choose the filter you want to apply.
  • Click “Apply.”

Your video clip will now have the desired filter applied. You can then download your edited video in your preferred video format.

And the best part?

Many of these video enhancement tools are free to use or they offer a mix of free and paid video filters and editing options.

Let's take a look at what a top online video editor can help you do with your video clips.

1. Add Filters to Your Videos Easily

You don't need to be a video editing expert to add filters to your videos. With the right online video editor, you can quickly add filters with just a few clicks.

In most online video editors, you'll find filters under the “Effects” tab. Simply click on the tab and browse through the available filters. When you find one you like, hover over it and click “Apply.”

Some of the most popular preset filters you can use are:

  • Glitch effects
  • Vintage filters
  • Color presets
  • Artistic filters

In addition to preset filters, you can also create custom filters. To do this, you'll need to adjust the following settings:

  • Hue
  • Saturation
  • Brightness
  • Contrast

You can find these settings in the “Color” tab of most online video editors. Simply adjust the slider for each setting until you're happy with the results.When you're done, click “Apply” to add the custom filter to your video clip.

2. Edit Your Videos Like a Pro

With an online video editor, you can quickly and easily edit your videos like a pro. There's no need to download or install any software on your computer. And best of all, you can try out all the features for free.

Most online video editors offer a wide range of editing features, including:

  • Trimming
  • Cutting
  • Cropping
  • Rotating
  • Adding text, watermarks, and logos
  • Adding video transitions
  • Using masks and overlays
  • And more!

Video editors like invideo offer easy-to-edit video templates that are designed to showcase your brand’s story or product in the best light possible. You just need to replace parts of them with your text, colors, and video materials. That’s all!

To edit your video clip, simply upload it to the online video editor of your choice and make your changes. When you're done, you can download your edited video or continue editing it further.

3. Overlay Images and Videos

In addition to adding filters and effects, you can also overlay images and videos on top of your video clip. This is a great way to add branding or watermarks to your videos.

To overlay an image or video, simply upload it to the online video editor and drag it onto your video clip. You can then resize and position the image or video as desired.

When you're done, click “Apply” to add the overlay to your video clip.

4. Add Sound Effects to Your Video Clips

You can add sound effects to your video clips with most online video editors. This is a great way to make your videos more engaging and entertaining.

To add sound effects, simply upload your video clip to the online video editor and click on the “Sound” tab. Here, you'll find a library of sound effects that you can browse through. When you find one you like, simply click on it to add it to your video clip.

You can also upload your own sound effects or use the built-in microphone to record audio directly into the online video editor.

When you're done, click “Apply” to add the sound effect to your video clip.

Not only this, but you can also eliminate background noises, add intros and outros to your videos, or even add your own voiceover.

And that's just the beginning! With an online video editor, you can do so much more with your video clips.

5. Add Animated Titles and Motion Graphics

Adding animated titles and motion graphics is a great way to make your videos more engaging and visually appealing. And with most online video editors, it's easy to do.

To add animated titles and motion graphics, simply upload your video clip to the online video editor and click on the “Titles” tab. Here, you'll find a library of title templates that you can browse through. When you find one you like, simply click on it to add it to your video clip.

You can then customize the text, colors, and other settings as desired. When you're done, click “Apply” to add the animated title to your video clip.

6. Download Your Edited Videos

Once you're happy with your edited video, you can download it for later use. Most online video editors offer a variety of popular formats to choose from, including:

  • MP4
  • MOV
  • AVI
  • WMV
  • And more

Simply select the file format you want and click the “Download” or “Export” button. Your edited video will then be saved to your computer.

7. Easily Share Your Edited Videos

After you've edited and downloaded your video, you can easily share it with others. Most online video editors offer a variety of sharing options, including:

  • Email sharing
  • Embed code
  • Sharable link
  • Direct sharing to social media platforms like YouTube
  • And more

Simply select the sharing option you want and follow the instructions. Your edited video will then be shared with your desired audience.

And there you have it!

So what are you waiting for? Try out an online video editor today and see how easy it is to enhance your videos with preset filters and professional-quality edits.

Also, check out my tips to create awesome social media videos.

To help you pick the right tools, I’ve listed the key features of some of the top tools that can help you add video clip filters online. Be sure to check them out!

The Best Tools to Add Video Clip Filters Online

Video clip filters are a great way to improve the quality of your videos and make them more engaging and entertaining. Let’s take a look at some of the best tools that let you add video clip filters online.

1. invideo

invideo is a free online video editor that lets you create professional-quality videos for your business promotions, social media ads, and other video marketing needs.

From 7,000+ editable video templates to powerful editing features and attractive animations, this video editor makes your job easy.

You can add text and stickers, and also set your brand’s kit for a one-click application. This includes setting your brand’s preferred color palette, logo, and font styles to any video.

free video templates from invideo

Key Features

  • 7000+ editable video templates
  • Access to stock media and music
  • Intuitive editing features
  • Trimming and cropping features
  • Adding text and stickers
  • Video transitions
  • Video intros and outros
  • Voiceover additions
  • Mulitple brand kits (colors, logo, font styles)
  • Team collaboration
  • Animations like blur, slide, bounce, spin
  • Motion graphics
  • Masks and overlays
  • Video editing features like combining clips, flipping videos, and cutting clips into two
  • Color correction for your videos
  • Free to use

You can also consider upgrading to its Business plan for $15/month to get access to additional features 20 background removals/month and its mobile app subscription. Save 50% if you commit to annual billing.

2. VEED

VEED is one of the best online video editors with free video filters. Its intuitive drag-and-drop interface is simple to use, without any risk of losing quality or your original footage.

There’s no need to download any software, so you can start editing your videos immediately. And if you need any help, its team is always here to answer your questions.

VEED video editor

Key Features

  • Add or remove audio.
  • Add subtitles automatically.
  • Crop and rotate your video clips.
  • Add filters and video effects.
  • Use its color correction, color grading, and visual effects.
  • Use your branded content, logos, color palettes, and fonts easily by creating a handy brand kit.
  • Share and review files easily with its cloud storage.
  • Easily download your edited videos using the export button in multiple file formats, including MP4, MOV, WEBM, AVI, etc.
  • Free to use

3. CreatorKit

CreatorKit is an online video editing platform that offers a range of video clip filters to help you create engaging, creative content.

With its easy-to-use tools, you can apply a variety of effects to your videos, including slow motion, time-lapse, and more. It also offers a wide selection of royalty-free music and sound effects to help you add a professional touch to your videos.

CreatorKit


Key Features

  • Create engaging videos for ecommerce, marketing, social media, and more using features like add/remove background, add animated discount tags, etc.
  • Add text and captions with animations to your video clips online for free.
  • Trim and cut your uploaded videos or you can also cut a portion of any YouTube video.
  • Add effects and filters, including VHS, glitch, filmy effects, and more.
  • Use hundreds of pre-built video templates for product promos, ads, before and after stories, explainer videos, deals posts, and other content.
  • Take advantage of its animated text styles and smooth video transitions.
  • Easily share your video on any social platform such as TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

4. Flixier

Flixier is another great option for creating engaging video content. It offers a range of video clip filters as well as a library of stock photos and videos, that you can use to create your own unique videos.

Flixier also has a range of template options to choose from, so you can create videos that are truly your own.

Flixier


Key Features

  • Create videos in your browser easily by adding text, images, sounds, transitions, auto-subtitles, and so much more.
  • Trim, cut, or crop videos all in a couple of minutes.
  • Collaborate in real-time with your colleagues to edit videos and review changes online.
  • Make your videos more engaging with built-in stock libraries, motion titles, 50+ transitions, and motion graphics.
  • Automatically publish your video to most social media sites, including YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.
  • Most of the features are available on the free version.

5. Clideo

Clideo is a user-friendly online video editor with a wide range of filters that you can use to enhance your videos. The filters are easy to apply and there is a wide range of options to choose from. You can also adjust the intensity of the filter to create the perfect look for your video.

Clideo also offers a wide range of other video editing features, such as the ability to trim and crop your video, add text and watermarks, and even change the speed of your video. There is also a handy built-in player so you can preview your edited video before exporting it.

And the best part?

It is free to use with no registration required. Simply upload your video and start editing.

Clideo


Key Features

  • Make your clip black and white, add a vintage effect, or just correct its colors.
  • Add subtitles.
  • Crop and resize your videos, and also compress the file size.
  • Merge two video clips into one.
  • Use it as a converter to change your video file format to another.
  • Change the speed of your video and add effects like slow motion, reverse, loop, etc.

6. Kapwing

Kapwing is a free online video maker that offers professional tools for creating video content. It offers a variety of video filters to make your clips look professional and polished. To add a filter to your video, simply upload your video to Kapwing, select the “Filters” option from the editor's toolbar, and choose the filter that you want to apply.

With Kapwing's easy-to-use video editing suite, you can make stunning video clips for social media, YouTube, or your website.

Kapwing


Key Features

  • Upload and convert your videos to MP4, MOV, AVI, GIF, WEBM, and other popular formats.
  • Drag-and-drop files, split clips, trim videos, and rearrange clips on the timeline for a seamless video editing experience.
  • Add millions of royalty-free images, GIFs, and video assets.
  • Auto-generate subtitles.
  • Remove backgrounds in one click.
  • Enjoy integrations with apps like Google Drive, Photos, Unsplash, Pexels, and Giphy.

Looking for more options?

Check out my listicle on the best online video editors for beginners.

Ready to Get Started with the Best Video Clip Filters Online?

Adding video clip filters to your online videos is a great way to add some fun to your content. It can also be a powerful branding tool, helping you to create a unique look and feel for all of your videos.

In this article, I’ve shown you how easy it is to add filters to your videos using the top online video editors. So, if you're looking to add some extra style to your content, be sure to try them out!

And, don’t miss out on this detailed video marketing guide that can help you grow your brand’s reach, engagement, and sales using videos.

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No ClearSlide Free Download? Here Are the Best ClearSlide Alternatives https://shanebarker.com/blog/clearslide-alternatives/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/clearslide-alternatives/#respond Mon, 21 Mar 2022 01:53:32 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=24575 Many buyer journeys come to a dead end due to unnecessary gates, lengthy forms, and poorly placed calls-to-action (CTA).

You need content that impacts your buyers profoundly and steers them down the sales funnel. And for that, you need a content experience platform.

ClearSlide is one such platform. It helps marketers create customer experiences which are designed to convert prospects.

When it comes to a content library and analytics, ClearSlide beats the competition by a wide margin.

But many of its advanced features are available only in the high-tier packages.

There is no free ClearSlide download for startups with a small budget.

Consequently, businesses wanting full-featured solutions on a limited budget are opting for ClearSlide alternatives.

The Best ClearSlide Alternatives: Reviewed

The marketplace is saturated with great content experience platforms, with differential abilities and pricing plans.

Since modulating content for customer experience is an ongoing process, you can’t really afford a hit and trial approach.

In such a scenario, selecting the right ClearSlide alternative becomes hard.

To save you time and effort, we’ve lined up and reviewed 11 of the best ClearSlide alternatives available.

Check out how each software program stacks up to the competition and find your best fit.

ClearSlide Alternative #1: HubSpot

If providing your customers with a frictionless buying experience is your business objective, HubSpot is the right platform for you.

Whether you’re working in the B2B or B2C market space, HubSpot can cater to your needs in your budget.

Top Features

  • Its on-target personalized messaging will engage buyers and prospects at different buyer journey stages.

It also considers factors such as locations, sources, and personas of consumers while designing messages and calls-to-action (CTA).

  • Its marketing tool lets you build and curate compelling content, such as landing pages, blog posts, campaigns, and emails.
  • You can increase your Google rankings by adopting HubSpot’s real-time SEO suggestions.
  • With all packages, HubSpot includes a free CRM for you to manage your clients, prospects, and communications.

Pricing

HubSpot offers three pricing plans: Starter (priced at $35 a month), Professional ($560), and Enterprise ($2,240).

With all packages, you get email marketing, live chat, and ad management features.

You can also check out our detailed review of HubSpot here to learn more about it.

HubSpot ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: HubSpot

ClearSlide Alternative #2: PathFactory

Is your website losing visitors before they convert?

Are you puzzled about why your unique and optimized content isn’t getting good engagement?

PathFactory helps you develop a proactive content delivery strategy. Using this, you can serve action-oriented content at every stage of the buyer journey.

Top Features

  • PathFactory’s Content Insight and Activation Engine uses artificial intelligence (AI) to drill down into each customer’s buyer journey.

It gives you actionable insights that regular analytics fail to capture. You also get concrete suggestions for content creation and delivery.

  • The platform identifies sales-ready leads by studying their content consumption and pattern in real-time. This can help shorten your sales cycle time considerably.
  • It pins relevant content and provides intelligent recommendations so that your visitors can find content painlessly.
  • Content Tracks can help you package your content together in such a way that it becomes binge-worthy.

Pricing

Pricing details are available upon request.

PathFactory ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: PathFactory 

 

ClearSlide Alternative #3: Uberflip

Uberflip is an established name in the customer experience domain. It accelerates buyer journeys so that they culminate productively.

It converts every touch point in the journey into a conversion opportunity by serving content that the prospects need at that point.

Top Features

  • It unifies third-party content from YouTube, Wista, RSS, SlideShare, and Twitter. This content hub helps create a holistic experience for your customers from one interface.
  • It sets up a dedicated marketing stream for each prospect. They are redirected to destinations, complete with a contextual banner, personalized message, and your branding.
  • The Smart Filters and Tags feature comes in handy while searching for and organizing content.
  • It leverages AI to predict and suggest content that users will appreciate based on their history and intent.

Pricing

For pricing information, you can contact their sales team.

Uberflip ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Uberflip

ClearSlide Alternative #4: Ion Interactive

Ion interactive is an ClearSlide alternative that converts every customer touchpoint into a sales opportunity.

It transforms your existing sales team and content into ROI-generating resources, without deploying any IT support or coding.

Top Features

  • The platform lets you create interactive ebooks, infographics, posts, and quizzes to engage your audience effectively.
  • It helps you build interactive landing pages and conversion optimizers.
  • Its integration with Oracle Eloqua, Salesforce, Marketo, and Demandbase enables the exchange of Ion Interactive’s explicit data to nurture and capture leads better.
  • The Sell-Side visual timeline gives your sales teams actionable insights into where your buyers are and what content they are looking for in real-time.

This ensures that all cross-functional sales teams are on the same page and can create a holistic marketing solution.

Pricing

You can get a free quote through their website.

ioninteractive ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Ion Interactive

ClearSlide Alternative #5: Ceros

The next ClearSlide alternative in our lineup is Ceros, a platform for building experiential content.

It offers customized solutions for marketers, designers, and students, and for different industry verticals.

Top Features

  • You can craft immersive digital experiences that endear consumers to your brand. With personalized content, you can further strengthen your bonds.
  • Lead generation becomes easier with Ceros’ innovative content ideas, such as quizzes, assessments, and landing pages.
  • Ceros constantly works on upgrades and integrations with leading social and marketing platforms, including HubSpot, Marketo, and Snapchat.
  • UI designers will find it easy to operate since its interface is intuitive and similar to Adobe’s.

Pricing

You can get in touch with their sales team for prices.

Ceros ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Ceros

ClearSlide Alternative #6: Showpad Content

Showpad Content is another powerful ClearSlide alternative which creates winning content and a positive experience for customers.

It bridges the gap between customer aspirations and customer engagement strategies, leading to better sales.

Its non-traditional approach to content packaging and delivery sets it apart from its peers.

Top Features

  • You can import entire content libraries from your CMS into the platform. Then, it tags and archives files so that they surface at your beck and call.
  • For better content management, it assigns metadata to files, including access permissions and user settings. You can cater to your sales teams content needs in a targeted manner.
  • It presents your content innovatively by grouping conversations by buyer persona and context. This kind of content can boost your conversion rates.
  • Its interactive ROI calculator uses real-time data about each customer from your business intelligence (BI) systems to help you tailor effective content experiences that convert fast.

Pricing

They have three plans, Essential, Plus, and Ultimate, with different price points. You can contact their team for pricing info for any of their plans.

The Essential plan assists in content discovery and insights.

The Plus plan comes with personalized guided selling. The Ultimate plan bundles up sales processes.

showpad ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Showpad Content

ClearSlide Alternative #7: Contently

Contently provides end-to-end content experience solutions to brands.

It has a complete set of tools — content strategy, customer experience platform, and a talent network.

 

This ClearSlide alternative helps you convert abstract strategies into concrete experiences and delight your customers along the way.

Top Features

  • You get a calendar to manage your cross-channel content from a single window.
  • It lets you tailor campaigns for different personas, and tag and link content to corresponding campaigns.
  • You get intelligent talent recommendations for editorial and designing services.
  • Contently’s Tone Analyzer and automated governance features can help you to personalize your brand voice so that it resonates with your target audience.
  • Its Content Requests feature lets co-workers look up shared content and collaborate on it easily.

Pricing

You can register for a content consultation on their website.

Contently ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Contently

ClearSlide Alternative #8: ON24

If you need an always-on customer engagement portal, ON24 is the apt choice for you.

The ON24 Engagement Hub module helps you delight audiences with captivating webinars and media content.

The ON24 Target module can help increase your lead generation rates by creating action-oriented landing pages.

Top Features

  • You can create relevant playlists of content pieces to keep your audience engaged longer.
  • You’ll be able to embed Engagement Hubs into your customer-facing channels so that customers have the resources they need at their fingertips.
  • It deeply analyzes the Engagement Hub and each content piece to build metrics that matter. This eliminates the guesswork about what works and what doesn’t.
  • You get reasonable SEO services so that your content’s reach and visibility improve.
  • To drive more traffic, ON24 converts live events into binge-worthy webinars that viewers can consume on-demand.

Pricing

Prices are available upon request.

ON24 ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: ON24

ClearSlide Alternative #9: Skyword

Skyword is a formidable ClearSlide alternative that provides end-to-end solutions for a positive experience customers will remember.

Using this platform, you can build a content marketing strategy, source talent, localize content, and track its performance.

Their powerful features can get you to the top of the stack in record time.

Top Features

  • It lets you tailor customized buyer personas and journeys and shows their alignment with the larger content strategy.
  • It maintains a rich talent pool of subject matter experts from varied domains. You can engage them as content contributors for your website.
  • The Skyword Enterprise Planner arranges your content projects by region, department, and campaign. You get a bird's eye view of the entire content strategy from one interface.
  • It helps you seize selling opportunities by giving you new insights about your product, market, and resources.

Pricing

You can request a demo or quote from their website.

Skyword ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Skyword

ClearSlide Alternative #10: Outgrow

The dark horse in the race of ClearSlide alternatives is Outgrow, a specialist platform meant for building interactive experiences.

Content made using Outgrow has a high degree of appeal owing to its palatable format.

Quizzes, calculators, chatbots, polls, and many other content types grab audience attention effectively.

Top Features

  • You get a library of tools and templates to build varied content pieces.
  • To maximize your content’s impact, it’s optimized for multiple screen sizes and browsers.

Plus, it’s branded so that the impact lingers in the audience’s subconscious long after the interaction is over.

  • Its powerful funnel analytics identify content consumption patterns and drop-off points.
  • If interactivities and surveys are your preferred means of customer engagement, you’ll find Outgrow’s Development Studio extremely helpful.

You can design questions, decide branching logic, and set output responses for different scenarios.

Pricing

Prices start atm $14 a month for making interactive quizzes only. For unlimited content types and volume, the subscription costs $95 monthly.

outgrow ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Outgrow

ClearSlide Alternative #11: Kapost

Content needs to deliver value and justify the marketing spend. If this is your principle, Kapost is a great ClearSlide alternative for you.

It unifies your siloed content under a central hub and restructures it for better accessibility.

Apart from that, it ensures that your content strategy is data-driven and echoes your brand voice.

Top Features

  • It helps you design targeted buyer journeys which are based on precise analytics and not guesswork.
  • It creates a searchable and sortable unified repository for your content. Custom taxonomy and advanced filtering helps ensure easy reporting.
  • You get to orchestrate entire journeys by using workflow templates, custom metrics, and agile storyboards.
  • Your cross-functional sales teams can collaborate in-platform by annotations and comments.

Pricing

You can contact their sales team to find out the prices.

Kapost ClearSlide AlternativeImage via: Kapost

FAQs

Q1. Does ClearSlide have any competitors?

Yes. ClearSlide competitors include:

  • HubSpot
  • PathFactory
  • Uberflip
  • Ion Interactive
  • Ceros
  • Showpad Content
  • Contently
  • ON24
  • Skyword
  • Outgrow
  • Kapost

Q2. What is ClearSlide?

ClearSlide is a content experience platform. It helps marketers create customer experiences that are designed to convert prospects.

Q3. What are the best ClearSlide alternatives in 2022?

The best ClearSlide alternatives include:

  • HubSpot
  • PathFactory
  • Uberflip
  • Ion Interactive
  • Ceros
  • Showpad Content
  • Contently
  • ON24
  • Skyword
  • Outgrow
  • Kapost

Q4. How much does ClearSlide cost? How does it compare to competitors?

For ClearSlide pricing, you will have to contact their customer support or sales team. Their pricing depends on the specific needs of your business.

There are many ClearSlide alternatives that offer many of the same features and simpler options at lower costs.

Q5. What are the web-based alternatives to Webex and GoToMeeting?

ClearSlide is one of the best web-based alternatives to Webex and GoToMeeting.

No ClearSlide Free Download? Which ClearSlide Alternative is Best?

The answer to that question depends on the specific needs of your business.

The efficacy of your content is reflected in its value, not volume. When content is personalized and experiential, it can drive stupendous returns.

These ClearSlide alternatives can assist you in whipping up such content and delivering it on target.

Many of these platforms are free to use and others have no-obligation trial periods. You can sign up for a demo of many of them as well.

Let us know if you found this article helpful. If you’ve used any of these tools, please share your experiences and insights in the comments below.

 

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14 of the Smartest Ways to Deal with Scraped Content https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-scraping/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/content-scraping/#comments Tue, 22 Feb 2022 04:00:36 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=17592 Plagiarism isn't just a problem for news articles in newspapers. It is an issue that has been plaguing the internet for a long time now.

You may create high-quality, original content. However, there’s always some other website out there, waiting to steal it and put it up as their own.

While this can be frustrating in itself, the problem amplifies when the website with the stolen content starts ranking higher up in the results on search engines.

They not only end up stealing your audience but even monetize it through scraped content, hence stealing your revenue too.

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But, what exactly is scraped content? And how can you deal with it? Let’s find out!

What is Scraped Content?

Scraped content, also known as content scraping, is a method of pulling content from websites using scripts. These scripts or web crawlers, extract the content from different sources and put them together on a single website.

People may steal your content for a variety of reasons. Some may want to make money out of affiliate marketing. Others may want to generate leads, or even increase ad revenue via rankings on search engines.

It is, however, important to understand the difference between syndication and scraping. Content scraping is when another website automatically uses your content without any prior permission.

On the other hand, syndication is when both parties agree to use the content under an agreement.

You have put a lot of effort into creating high-quality content. It sure didn’t come to you for free. And you have rights to protect it using copyright laws.

Before we get into how you can deal with content scrapers, let’s see how you can catch them first.

How to Find Content Scrapers

Finding and catching content scrapers may seem like a tough and time-consuming task. However, there are a few ways through which you can spot web scraping. Some of them are:

This is the simplest way of finding those who’re doing web scraping your content. All you need to do is conduct a search on Google's search engine with the titles of your posts.

While it does sound like a horrible method of finding web scraping, there are good chances that you may come across a few.

2. Trackbacks

If you’ve put internal links in your posts, you will get a trackback every time a website scrapes your content and links back to you. This way, you’ll easily be able to spot the content scraper without much effort.

However, if you’ve enabled Akismet, many of these trackbacks may end up in your spam folder. You may need to skim through those to spot them as well. Remember, this method only works if you have internal links.

3. Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools one of the best free SEO audit tools, can help you find web scraping too. Under the “Traffic” section, you will see an option called “Links to Your Site.”

There are some good chances that there may be some web scraping in this list. They may have loads of links that are pointing to your pages.

How to Deal With Content Scraping

Now that you know how to find content scrapers, let’s see how you can deal with scraped content.

It is important to create as many internal links as possible within your website. These links point to your older articles on web pages that are relevant to the one readers are viewing currently.

Interlinking helps your readers find new articles with ease and also makes the web crawlers process easy for search engines.

However, it even helps when dealing with content scraping. When someone steals your content, they may keep these links intact. And that can help you get some free links from their website.

Adding links to keywords that make it tempting for the readers to click on it can reduce your bounce rate.

At the same time, when this article is scraped, the audience of the scraper’s website may click on it too. This way, you’ll end up stealing the scraper’s audience as well.

Yet another way of securing the links further is by adding the Yoast SEO plugin. It lets you add customized HTML codes to your RSS feed. Through this, you can add links to your website in it.

2. The Do Nothing Approach

This is the simplest approach and is pretty self-explanatory too. Fighting content and web scraping can indeed be time-consuming. You will end up spending time and energy that can be used to create more quality content.

However, do keep in mind that this may not be the best approach that you can take. If yours is a high-authority website, then you can concentrate on doing your work without paying heed to scraped content.

But if your website isn’t well-ranked on any search engine, it may not be the best approach for you. Google AdSense may end up flagging your website as the scraper if it thinks that your scrapers are the original websites.

3. Ping PubSubHubbub

Google may spot the scraped version of your content before it finds your post. However, it isn’t sure which post is the original one and which is copyright infringement.

If you ping PubSubHubbub, you will inform Google that you are the main source of the content and wrote it first. This helps your content from being labelled as copyright infringement.

If you use a platform such as WordPress.com or Blogger, you may not need to do this. However, if you’re using self-hosted WordPress, you can choose to install the PubSubHubbub plugin to simplify the process.

4. Use Google Alerts

Google Alerts, one of the best free Google tools, is a great way of getting notified whenever a certain keyword gets indexed on Google. While it can be of great use to find brand mentions, you can also use it to find content scrapers.

Every time you publish a post, you can set up a Google Alert for the exact title of your post. Whenever someone does content scraping and publishes a post with the same title, you’ll be notified.

You may also pick out some unique sentences from your post and set up an alert for that. That can also help you find them.

Use Google Alerts Content Scraping

Image via Google Alerts

5. The “Kill Them All” Approach

You may decide to play it cool if you find that the scrapers are giving you free backlinks.

However, there may be other scrapers who remove the links after content scraping. They can strip it of all hyperlinks and you’ll end up losing all of your hard work.

When this happens, you need to use the “kill them all” approach. To do this, you’ll need to check your access logs and spot their IP address. You can then block the address in your root access file.

When you do this, they will no longer be able to steal content from you from that particular IP address.

Another way of doing it is by directly contacting the scraper and asking them to take the content down. You could even ask them to give you attribution as the original source of the content.

In case they don’t comply, you can file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) with their server host.

Yet another way of taking them down is by redirecting them to a dummy feed. In this feed, you can send them huge text feeds of gibberish or even send them back to their own server.

In the latter case, it’ll result in a loop that’ll cause their website to crash.

6. Stop Hotlinking Images

If you find out that people are doing content scraping from your RSS feed, then they may be stealing your bandwidth too. They may be doing this by stealing images from your website.

To stop them from doing so, you can make some changes to the .htaccess file of your website to disable image hotlinking.

After content scraping, there are chances that you may lose some valuable traffic. However, you can take advantage of that by simply adding affiliate links to certain keywords.

You can automate this process by using plugins such as SEO Smart Links and Ninja Affiliate.

This way, while you may lose out on some traffic, you’ll still end up making affiliate income from it. For all you may know, you might be even taking advantage of the scraper’s audience.

8. Summary RSS Feed

When you have an RSS feed, you have the option to go for a full feed or a summary. One of the pros of having a summary RSS feed is the prevention of content scraping.

To do this, you can head to WordPress and under Settings, click on “Reading.” In the field “For each article in a feed show:” change the setting to “Summary.”

This way, only the summary for the RSS feed will be visible and the content scrapers won’t be able to scrape the complete feed.

9. Limit Individual IP Addresses

If you’re receiving loads of requests from a single computer then it may be a content scraper.  One way of preventing content scraping is by blocking the attempts of computers that are trying to access your website too fast.

However, you also do need to keep in mind that some proxy services may present the traffic through a single IP address or domain registrar. This applies to VPNs and corporate networks too.

So you may end up blocking loads of legitimate users from accessing your website too in this process.

Additionally, scrapers who have better resources may circumvent this protection too. They may use multiple machines to run the domain registrar of the data scraping.

This way, only a few requests will come to your website from a single machine. Which makes it extremely difficult for you to block them out.

They may also choose to slow down their scraper so that it waits between requests. This way, it can disguise itself as a normal user.

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10. Change HTML Frequently

Content scrapers mainly rely on finding some patterns in the HTML of a website. Using these patterns, they help their scripts find the right content from your website’s HTML.

However, if your website’s HTML changes frequently, then you may end up frustrating the scraper.

This is because they may have to keep finding patterns every now and then. Due to this, they may stop content scraping from your website.

While it may sound like a tedious task for you, it’s not necessary to change the website completely. Even changing something as simple as a class or id in HTML is enough to throw the scraper off track.

11. Create a Login For Access

HTTP by itself doesn’t preserve any information from each request. However, most HTTP clients may store session cookies. This makes it a very conducive environment for a scraper to work as it won’t need to identify itself.

However, things change when there is a need to log in to access the page. The scraper would need to send some information for identification in every single request to view the content.

This information can be very handy to trace them back and find out who is scraping your website.

While it doesn’t stop the content scraping, it can definitely help you identify those who are doing it.

12. Use CAPTCHAs

The purpose of CAPTCHAs is to separate humans from computers. They present simple problems that humans can solve easily but computers find them hard to solve.

While this can help you separate the humans, it can also make you lose some valuable traffic.

The reason for this is simple. Humans find CAPTCHA extremely annoying to deal with. This is why you need to be careful when using it.

You could probably show the CAPTCHA only when a particular client has sent multiple requests in a short gap.

Use CAPTCHA Content Scraping

Image via Dropified

13. Make New “Honey Pot” Pages

Yet another way of dealing with content scraping is by coming up with honey pot pages. These are pages that humans will never visit. However, robots that would be clicking all the links on your website may end up there accidentally.

One way to avoid humans from opening it is by hiding it through the CSS command “display: none.” without the quotation marks of course.

Once the bots click on the URL and reach the honey pot page, you will find their information. Then, you can start blocking all the requests coming from that particular client.

14. Embed Information Inside Media

Content scrapers generally assume that they will be fetching a text string from an HTML file.

However, if the content of your website is embedded inside an image, movie, pdf, or other media files, it needs to fetch it from there. This, in itself, is a big task.

While this does help you prevent or reduce content scraping, it can affect your site speed as well. This is due to the larger size of the media files that will be used. It may also become less accessible for those who are blind or disabled.

Lastly, it will be difficult for you to update content easily when it has to be embedded inside the media.

Final Thoughts

Content scraping can be a pain to deal with and can even take valuable traffic away from your website, which can hinder your content marketing efforts.

However, by finding the right IP addresses of the scrapers, you can block them from accessing your website. And interlinking can help you get some backlinks from the scraper’s website.

You may even file a DMCA with their host when you find their IP address. Using CAPTCHAs can also stop the bots from entering your website.

Lastly, by cleverly inserting affiliate links into the text, you can make money from the scraper’s traffic too.

What methods do you use to deal with content scraping? Let us know in the comments below.

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Product Launch Content: How to Use Content Marketing Successfully https://shanebarker.com/blog/successful-product-launch-content-marketing/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/successful-product-launch-content-marketing/#comments Thu, 27 Jan 2022 01:40:09 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=9533 Worried that your new product will not take off as expected? That’s a perfectly reasonable fear and one that just about everyone faces before launching a new product.

As a business owner, you have complete control over how you promote the launch of your product. And a successful product launch depends (for the most part), on how well you’re able to use content marketing.

Most consumers find ads to be annoying and irrelevant. Many of them set up ad blockers on their desktops and even mobile devices. A study found that 26% of desktop users and 15% of smartphone users block ads on their devices.

This is why content marketing matters even more today. You can effectively engage your target audience by creating content that addresses their needs and interests.

In this post, we’ll discuss 6 effective ways to use content marketing for a successful product launch. So, let’s get started.

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6 Tips for Successful Product Launch Content Using Content Marketing

Content marketing can help you launch a product successfully by bringing in immense traffic, engagement, and sales.

Here are six tips to help you understand how you can use content marketing for a successful product launch.

1. Use Visual Content to Tease Your Social Media Audience

Social media offers a cost-effective platform to promote your launch. However, in order to engage your audience on social media meaningfully, you need visual content.

Most people use social media for entertainment, so you’re going to need something that will catch their eye, and keep them entertained. Visual content can help you do just this.

You can come up with visual teasers to stir the curiosity of your social media followers for a successful product launch. Maybe you could upload an image that only has a close-up view of the product and a date for the launch.

Or you could use an image with a launch date and a one-liner that highlights one of the product’s benefits.

Example: Samsung

An example of a successful product launch content, Samsung teased their social media audience with the following Instagram photo.

The image stirred the curiosity of their audience by showing a mysterious black box with a bluish glow against a black background.

The picture was supposed to entice the audience to attend the Galaxy 8 unpacking event virtually on the brand’s official website.

So it has the event name, date, and venue along with the product and brand name.

Samsung the next galaxy successful product launch

In addition to this content strategy, Samsung promoted the product launch date with the following image.

This image also maintains a high level of mysteriousness by showing only the figure 8 in a bluish glow against a black background.

The only other details are the brand name and the hashtag #TheNextGalaxy.

Samsung mobile the next galaxy successful product launch

2. Create and Distribute Intriguing Infographics

Your visual teasers on social media can build excitement for your launch and will be good for successful product launch. But for your new product to be a success, you need people to actually buy the product.

The problem is, it’s not so easy to get people to spend money on something that they haven’t even heard of, or aren’t sure will be a good investment.

So you’ll need content that will inform and educate your audience while intriguing them.

In order to do this, you can use infographics, or gifographics (animated infographics). These types of visual content can educate, and intrigue your audience at the same time.

Maybe you can create an infographics on the different parts involved in the creation process, or how the features can benefit users.

Or maybe you can even create an infographic about something related to your product.

Then you can distribute it to leading online publications and on social media with a description promoting the launch.

Example: Die Hard

For instance, 20th Century Fox promoted the 2013 Die Hard movie through infographics. They prepared a unique infographic for each of the Die Hard movies highlighting some stats and facts related to them.

Die Hard movie graphics successful product launch

They teamed up with Collider to promote these infographics, and also provided fans with a chance to win high-quality, limited-edition posters of these infographics.

3. Build Hype through User-Generated Content

You don’t have to create all the content yourself; get help from your fans. For effective content marketing for successful product launch, engage your audience.

Encourage them to create their own content with your branded hashtag. They can help you spread the word or create a call to action about your launch within their respective circles, and help generate buzz.

To encourage fans to create content for your brand, you can host a contest or a giveaway, where they could win samples of the new product, or some brand merchandise.

Otherwise, you could promote a chance to be featured in your brand social media page. All fans will have to do is create a piece of content featuring or related to the product and include a branded hashtag in the caption.

In order to generate high-quality user-generated content, and compel more people to talk about your launch, make sure you:

  • Offer a reward for participation. As mentioned earlier, you can combine these efforts with a giveaway campaign or you can offer a chance to be featured in your content when the product launches.
  • Come up with an exclusive hashtag to easily track conversations. The hashtag should ideally contain your brand name and product name. Or you could promote a couple of hashtags with your brand and product name as well as your campaign name.

Example: Sherlock

An excellent example of product launch is how BBC promotes the Sherlock episodes on social media.

Before each of the episodes aired, they encouraged fans to share their reactions to the episode using the hashtag #SherlockReacts.

Sherlock episodes on social media successful product launch

The prize was a feature in their weekly YouTube reactions show. Although this isn’t a physical prize, it works excellently for shows with a massive following such as Sherlock.

Thousands of fans submitted their reactions, many of which received more than a thousand likes and retweets.

BBC promotes the Sherlock episodes successful product launch

This helped BBC accomplish their goal of getting fans to talk about the new episodes and generating buzz for the show in general.

4. Distribute Content through Relevant Channels

You may have written some interesting articles, perhaps a white paper, or created fascinating infographics about your new product for successful product launch.

But what’s the point of it all if the right audience isn’t there to see it?

In some cases, it may be enough product launch to share the content on your blog posts or social media if you already have an established audience.

But for some brands or businesses, it would be wiser to distribute the content through relevant and reputable websites. Especially things like a white paper.

You can connect with reputable industry publications, and high-authority websites in a relevant niche for guest posting and/or product features.

There are two main ways to distribute content for promoting your new product:

Guest Posts

Guest posting or guest blog posts is an effective strategy to drive massive traffic to your product launch page.

You should write several articles that aren’t too promotional but provide readers with useful tips and information related to your niche.

Make blog posts about common open ended questions or concerns related to your industry. A blog post like this will help to get potential customers to trust your brand.

People need a reason to buy any product, so you should consider talking about the problem your product can solve. Make readers aware of why they should look forward to your product.

You can also share behind-the-scenes stories – stories about what drove you to create that product. Let people know how your product can help them.

Submit these articles as guest posts to some of the most reputable websites in your industry. This will help you gain quality backlinks to your product launch landing page.

You can attract a lot of potential customers who may be genuinely interested in your product.

Example: Green Flag Digital

Joe Robison of Green Flag Digital, for instance, wrote a guest post on Moz about technical SEO problems and how to fix them.

He provided readers with useful tips about detecting some harmful SEO issues that could damage their sites, showcasing his expertise in the topic.

guest post on Moz about technical SEO problems successful product launch
About Joe Robison successful product launch

At the end of the post, Moz published his author bio and encouraged readers to get the author’s latest ebook, which included a checklist for SEO emergencies. 

As you can see, the content isn’t exactly about the product, but is somehow related to it.

Press Releases

When a brand launches a new product, they need to spread the word. Most online publications aren’t interested in promoting products.

However, they may be interested in featuring your press release announcing the product’s launch.

A press release is a form of written communication in which a brand announces something important, such as a product launch or a company takeover.

In the world of online publishing, a reporter or journalist writes a story. And, if the story is interesting, others pick it up too. It spreads far and wide – from one publication to the other.

So, your aim should be to come up with a high quality, engaging press release about your product launch.

Here are some tips on writing a good press release that has the potential to go viral and make your product launch a success:

  • A good press release must provide answers to important questions such as who, what, where, why, and how – all related to your product launch.
  • It should be written in an easy-to-understand style and must not include confusing acronyms.
  • The press release announcing your product launch should be short and to the point. It should essentially be a summary of everything about the product launch.
  • It would be awesome if you can combine the product launch with an interesting story. You may include quotes from company leaders.
  • You should provide the contact information of someone in your PR team who can answer queries regarding the new product.

A well-written press release can bring great exposure to your product launch, making it a success.

Example: NewAir Appliances

NewAir launched a line of black stainless steel wine and beverage coolers. Andrew Stephenson, Product Director at NewAir, released a press release for the newly launched line to get press coverage.

Successful Product Launch

Image via Cision PRWeb

The press release helped create buzz among their retail buyers like Lowes, Costco, and Home Depot.

A TV channel and several blogs and magazines with large followings contacted the company to find out more about their new line of products. The PR campaign was a great success for them.

5. Create a Captivating Explainer Video

What if your product is a little more complicated to be explained in an infographic or an article?

You can’t create a lengthy text post explaining the product and how it works because you’ll easily lose the audience’s interest.

Instead, you can captivate, engage, and educate your audience by creating an interesting and informative explainer video. Here are a few tips to help you out:

  • For people to invest their hard-earned money in your product, they need to have a complete understanding about it and how it works. And your explainer video is supposed to help in achieving that goal of passing on high-quality information to an engaged audience.
  • In addition to explaining how the product works, you should also try to focus on delivering the message in such a way that people understand how they can benefit from the product.
  • For less technical products that don’t require much explaining, you can still create promotional videos that highlight the value of the product for the customer.
  • Or you also have the option of appealing to the audience’s emotions by telling an engaging and heart-warming story.
  • You can then distribute the video through your social media and YouTube channels, your blog/website, your product's landing page, etc.

Example: QuickShoeLace

QuickShoeLace video successful product launch

QuickShoeLace created a fun and interesting explainer video for their Kickstarter page. The video talks about how the new one-hand-tying shoelaces will make people’s lives easier.

It also shows how people from different age groups are using the product. The project managed to exceed their initial funding goal by several thousand dollars.

6. Invest in Influencer-Created Content

Celebrity endorsements are losing their touch with consumers leaning towards influential figures for product recommendations and advice.

Influencers are often seen as people who are experts in their respective categories and would give an honest opinion about a product or service.

Even for your product launch, you can work with trusted authority figures to win the trust of your target audience.

You can get influencers to create content that helps in successful product launch. In addition to helping you reach a relevant audience, this tactic will also help you win the trust of a new customer base.

Some of the best ways to leverage your content marketing and product launch promotion efforts with influencers are:

  • Provide influencers with exclusive access to your product before it launches and then have them write an honest review about the product.
  • Feature the influencer’s reviews and/or opinions about the product in your product website or social media as a form of testimonial.
  • Feature influencers in your explainer video by having them talk about their experience using the product. Or you could even have them explain how the product works.
  • Get influencers to create sponsored content that showcases your product in use so as to inspire their fans to try the product.

Besides helping you create promotional content, influencers can also help in promoting the previously-mentioned giveaways and contests.

They can encourage their massive fan base to participate in the contest and spread the word about your product launch on social media sites.

Plus, influencers have a knack for entertaining their audience. They already know what their fans like or dislike. So they should be able to help you spread your message in a way that the audience appreciates.

Example: Dysh

An excellent example of successful product launch is how the Dysh app partnered with four influential YouTubers – Grace Helbig, Hannah Hart, Ingrid Nilsen, and Mamrie Hart.

The startup wanted to drive as many downloads for the app as possible. But instead of just getting the influencers to promote the app, they made them part owners.

As part owners of the app, these influencers took to their blogs, YouTube channels, and social media to extensively promote Dysh and generate buzz.

For example, you can see Grace Helbig reposting pictures from the app in the following screenshot.

Grace Helbig reposting pictures successful product launch

She also regularly creates blog posts talking about the app, how it works, and why she loves it.

She infuses some of her humor and puns into the articles to make it fun and interesting, such as in the post, “Dysh My Sh*t.”

Dysh My Sh*t post successful product launch

Ready to Rock Your Product Launch Content Marketing?

These are some of the best ways you can use content marketing for a successful product launch.

You may have noticed that most of these tips talk about visual content, as it’s highly effective at engaging an audience – be it with social media teaser images, infographics, or explainer videos.

Additionally, you can engage your audience by getting them involved in the promotion process and encouraging them to create content for you.

You also have the option of getting influencers to create content for you and helping you get the word out.

As you can see, I’ve provided you with real-life examples for each of these tips so you can better understand how to apply it for your own campaign.

But if you still have some doubts about them, feel free to ask your questions in the comments below. Or you can just reach out to me for a more in-depth understanding of how to successfully launch your product.

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Top 10 Visual Marketing Strategies You Need to Know in 2023 https://shanebarker.com/blog/visual-marketing/ https://shanebarker.com/blog/visual-marketing/#comments Wed, 26 Jan 2022 01:17:15 +0000 https://shanebarker.com/?p=24914 Visual marketing strategies and content have garnered a lot of attention over the last decade.

Internet users, with an emphasis on Millennials and Gen-Z, spend most of their time consuming visual content, especially videos, on their mobile devices.

80% of marketers prefer using visual images as part of their marketing strategies, while 63% use videos in brand marketing.

In this post, I’ll go over the best visual marketing strategies that will help you design effective brand marketing campaigns for your online stores. 

But first, let us understand what visual marketing is.

What is Visual Marketing?

Visual marketing involves the use of videos, images, graphics, logos, and other multimedia content. Visuals let you engagingly convey your information.

Visual marketing strategies can be a great way to get the attention of your audience, even when they are only skimming through your article.

It’s usually used within a larger marketing strategy, helping the brand depict ideas and content better than what speech or text could do.

In the previously cited study, 68% of marketers said that they wanted to increase their use of visual images in their marketing strategies.

Additionally, 77% and 63% of marketers said they wanted to use more videos and live videos in their brand marketing, respectively.

visual images, videos and live videos stats Visual Marketing Facts

What Are the Most Common Visual Marketing Content Types?

Next, let’s take a look at the most common types of visual marketing content.

Images

As long as most current internet users can remember, images have been a part of the browsing experience.

An image is a representation of an external form, person, or scene.

In visual marketing, images can be used to:

  • Show what a product looks like or how it functions.
  • Show the quality of products.
  • Show products in use by other consumers.
  • Show images of the company and the brand logo.

What’s most difficult today in using images as visual marketing content is finding new ways to use images to market content in a market that has been staring at stock image advertisement photos for the last 20 years.

Videos

Video marketing was usually done on television through advertisements and product placements in movies and shows.

Recently, Facebook published some shocking findings. 

Using in-home eye tracking, they found that 94% of participants kept their phones in their hands while watching TV. They also found that participants only spent 53% of their time staring at the TV. The rest of the time was spent staring at their phone screen.

The most important thing for marketers though is the fact that the time they typically spent staring at their mobile phones was during ads.

This might interfere with the effectiveness of traditional TV ads. Not just that, but a lot of Gen-Z and Millennials have moved away completely from traditional TV to streaming video, where some formats are completely ad-free.

Thus, the way visual marketing concerning video is handled has changed a lot in 2022. Videos now include short 15-second clips, vlogs, and memes.

Infographics

Infographics are a combination of images and text.

Infographics are used to portray information in an interesting and visually-striking way. The idea behind it is that users can comprehend a lot of data easier in a visualization, than just writing it all out.

Infographics come in all shapes and sizes with no rules or limitations. The best advice is to keep infographics simple, easy to read and comprehend, with colors that pop and draw attention to the most important info.

Memes

A meme is a viral image, video, or even phrase that references pop-culture and daily life in a funny way.

Memes have taken on their own sub-set of marketing, considering the cultural impact memes have had in the last decade or so. 

Memes have been around for decades, with The New York Times Crossword using the word meme in its crosswords since the 1940s.

Memes can be used by brands and companies to take advantage of a trend to spark a conversation or share an idea. It can also just be funny, which should get people sharing it with all their friends on social media.

Memes can be tricky to master, as trends come and go in the blink of an eye. If you stay on top of the latest social media trends, though, you should be able to take advantage of memes to market your brand.

Presentations

Most web browsers can display interactive tools and slides on a website. 

These slides can easily be used to add presentations to your website. Presentations are a great way of offering more info in an interactive and easily digestible way.

Presentations can be used to show different products, different functions of a product, and even educational information on how to use a product.

Why is Visual Marketing a Must-Use? Visual Marketing Facts

In 2020 84% of all marketing content included some form of visual marketing. It’s considered that by the end of 2022, over 82% of traffic on the web will come from video content.

These statistics offer some insights into how important it is to have visual content on your website. Even then, you’re better off creating video content considering it is the most consumed content form.

The human brain is also capable of processing images much faster than text. We can process an image in 13 milliseconds, whereas 100 words, about as large as these last two paragraphs, takes at least 4.4 seconds.

That means it’s easier to convey an idea using an image rather than text or even speech. This is especially true when you only have a second or two to get the attention of the user.

Advantages of Visual Marketing

The most significant advantage of visual marketing is that it allows your ad to stand out. It offers a visual representation of what your brand stands for.

It’s also able to grab the attention of the user, and offer some insights in a second or two before the user scrolls on. This is something text or speech isn’t able to do.

Visual marketing can also be used to boost incoming traffic to your website. You can use sneak peeks, DIY videos, or video ads on social media to drive traffic to your website. 

You should also use visual marketing to create a brand identity. Creating a unique style will allow you to visual content that will immediately let users know it’s your brand. This consistency will increase brand loyalty and recognition.

10 Best Visual Marketing Strategies For You

1. People Prefer Visuals to Text

Reading long articles that are more than a thousand words doesn’t catch the fancy of all consumers.

Not everyone has the attention span for it. In fact, only 20% of readers finish reading an article. The average reader reads only 25% of an article.

Furthermore, 73% of respondents said in a survey that they have less time to give to reading and research.

However, they revealed that they were willing to spare over five minutes for interactive and visual content.

People Prefer Visuals to Text Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Demand Gen

By having a visual content marketing strategy, you can capture the reader’s attention.

They can help you break down complex subjects into easy-to-understand forms.

This, in turn, can help you increase the time people spend on your website.

According to a survey by Infographic World, 61% of consumers voted infographics as the most effective form of content for learning and retaining information.

They help them think deeply about a subject, consider making purchases, discuss topics with their friends and family, and change opinions.

survey by Infographic World Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Infographic World

When it comes to branded content, visuals win over text. Wyzowl found that 72% of consumers would rather watch a video than read text to find out more about a product or service. Especially on mobile phones.

HubSpot also found that 54% of consumers said they would like to see videos from companies or brands they support.

A majority of the respondents also said that they preferred videos that were entertaining, funny, and informative.

HubSpot stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via HubSpot

When it comes to attention span in real life, the length of your videos is also an important factor.

According to Vidyard, only 25% of the audience will finish watching a video that is longer than 20 minutes.

If you want to hold the attention of your audience with videos, keep them short.

Key Takeaways

Visuals can get the attention of your audience and help solidify your brand identity.

Instead of writing a lengthy article on how to use your product, opt for visuals. You could make a fun infographic with instructions on the process.

Alternatively, you could also create a video explaining the process. Just make sure that your videos aren’t too long.

2. Visual Marketing Increases Conversions

Facebook for Business found that 30% of US mobile shoppers consider video as the best medium to discover new products.

In addition to this, 48% of Australians said that they had purchased a product after watching a branded video.

Visual Marketing Increases Conversions Visual Marketing Facts

That’s all from Facebook. Google’s findings also reiterate this trend.

Google also found that shoppers, overwhelmed by choices, turn to online videos for guidance on what to buy. They also found that:

  • People spend double the time watching YouTube videos on the topic “Which product to buy” year-over-year.
  • The total watch time for videos on YouTube related to the topic, “When to buy” has increased by 100%.
  • 90% of shoppers have discovered new branded content and products on YouTube.
  • 60% of shoppers use online videos for inspiration and ideas for making purchases.
  • 50% of shoppers revealed that online videos have helped them decide on which product or brand to purchase from.
  • 50% of shoppers are likely to visit an online store or consider buying a specific product if it is mentioned in a video online.
  • 50% of shoppers stated that they used online videos while shopping in a store.
Think with Google Visual Marketing Facts
Image Source: Think with Google

Marley Spoon, a meal kit subscription service, tested this concept while trying to scale its marketing strategy. They wanted to raise awareness and grow their customer base.

They used a YouTube-only campaign, where they tailored every product explanation video to different audiences.

There was an ad showing how easy it is to use their service. Another one showed a family describing their experience in a humorous and emotive tone.

They used different videos but with the same objective. 

They included calls to action at the end of each ad, encouraging viewers to “Sign Up” or “Try Now.”Their brand awareness increased by 25%, while their branded search volumes increased 9.5 times. Subscriptions to their meal kit increased by 52% while ad recall grew by 49%.

Key Takeaways

Use great visuals to create brand awareness and a clear path to purchase. Identify user needs and employ content creation to address these needs.

The visuals will capture consumer attention, engage, and inspire them.

Include a call-to-action to encourage them to act.

A holistic visual marketing strategy can deliver both long-term and short-term goals.

3. Visual Marketing Messages Get More Engagement

Adding value to visuals makes it easy for people to comprehend and engage with them.

Animoto found that video is the favorite content format of consumers on social media.

Additionally, 47% of them enjoy watching ads on Instagram Stories.

Visual Marketing Messages Get More Engagement
Image via Animoto

Brightcove found that videos drive consumer engagement. 53% of adult consumers engage with brands after viewing a video on social media.

Additionally, 66% of millennials engage with brands after watching videos on social media.

Brightcove stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Brightcove

Consumers also like to share visuals more than text with friends and family. 48% of them are likely to share video content with friends. On the contrary, only 23% of them said they’d share social media posts.

Key Takeaways

When choosing a visual to share on your social media platforms, ask yourself:

  • How will my audience react to the visuals?
  • Do the visuals add value?
  • Are they easy to understand?
  • Does the image or video improve my message or explain it further?
  • Is there a better visual I could use?

If in doubt, go back and choose a more relevant image or video.

When adding visuals, remember that they are not decorations. They are there to add value to your content and can make or break it.

Don’t just add visuals to your marketing strategy because you need to. Choose visuals that are worth sharing. For example, ones with a color palette that matches your product.

Leverage content marketing software solutions to find images that are relevant to the content and your audience.

You want your audience to engage with your visual marketing messages, but they won't if the content does not inspire them.

4. Visual Marketing Increases ROI

The ROI of visual marketing will be the revenue you make compared to the money and time spent in creating or sourcing the visuals.

This ROI does not only include sales made but also includes other metrics depending on your goals.

According to the same study by Animoto, 93% of businesses get new customers through videos on social media.

Additionally, 63% of them got their best ROI from video, while 56% got it from photos and graphics.

Animoto social media roi stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Animoto

88% of marketers surveyed were also satisfied with the ROI of their video content. Additionally, 80% of them felt good about the ROI from video ads on social media.

The research also found that 64% of consumers made a purchase after viewing a video on Facebook. On the other hand, 48% of them purchased after watching videos on Instagram.

video drives purchase stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Facebook

Key Takeaways

Visual marketing can help improve your ROI because it helps your brand grab the consumer’s attention and connect better with them.

Measuring the performance of your visuals empowers your strategy with insights into how your company can deliver value. Based on these insights, you can improve your offerings.

To measure what’s working and what’s not, you can use analytics tools. You should record the reach to know how far the message has spread ever since you started your visual marketing campaign.

How many unique visitors saw the visuals? What is the engagement rate? You must have answers to these questions. This data allows you to understand how the audience is engaging with your visual content.

5. Visual Marketing Drives Ecommerce Sales

Splashlight commissioned a survey which found that:

  • 47% of American consumers rate high-quality images as the most important factor when purchasing from a specific brand online.
  • Nearly 50% of US consumers want to see 3 to 5 product images, showing the back, front, and side of the product, before making a purchase
  • 7% of online consumers find that model photos increase their likelihood of buying a product.

Key Takeaways

Consumers want high-quality product images that show them the different sides of a product. Product descriptions tell what the product can do, but visuals influence the consumer more.

They show what the product looks like, and if you use high-quality images, you increase your chances of conversions.

Combine these high-quality images with the power of influencer marketing in your marketing plan, and you can grow your sales drastically.

The influencer provides social proof and trust, which can increase your conversion rate.

6. User-Generated Content Drives Visual Marketing

Bazaarvoice found that although photos and videos from brands drive awareness and brand recognition, they suffer consumer skepticism.

45% of online shoppers think that stock or studio images by brands exaggerated product claims.

However, user-generated content in the form of videos or images is more likely to influence shoppers to purchase or try new products.

These kinds of user-generated content are also the deciding factor when consumers are choosing between brands.

56% of shoppers say that other shoppers’ images and videos give them a better depiction of the brand experience.

Bazaarvoice stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Bazaarvoice

According to Stackla, user-generated content is 9.8x more impactful than content creation from influencers. They also found that:

  • UGC images were 1.8x more likely to make people interested in traveling than influencer content.
  • 57% of consumers had made plans to dine at a restaurant based on videos or social images from family, friends, or peers.
  • 45% of consumers found that customer-created visuals influenced their decision when purchasing a car.
  • 54% of consumers bought consumer packaged goods based on videos or images from peers, friends, or family on social media.

Key Takeaways

User-generated visuals have an unmatched influence on target audiences. Consumers look for these visuals when making purchasing decisions.

Your brand identity cannot only rely on stock, staged, and influencer visuals to reach consumers. UGC can increase your authenticity, improve your brand image, and help you establish meaningful connections with your target audience.

Request that your customers share their experiences with your brand on social media and other review sites.

Nearly 49% of consumers are willing to share positive reviews on social networking sites or online.

Additionally, 54% of millennial women also share positive reviews to get others to shop from a brand that offered positive experiences.

7. Visual Marketing Enables Visual Search

Visual search is one that uses real images or screenshots. For example, when you search for a style match on Pinterest or point a Google Lens camera at an object, you use visual search.

It answers questions that are a bit hard to verbalize. In 2017, the number of Google Image searches constituted nearly 27% of all searches.

Moz stats on Google Image searches Visual Marketing Facts
Image via Moz

eMarketer also found that millennial internet users were most comfortable adopting visual search while shopping online.

eMarketer stats Visual Marketing Facts
Image via eMarketer

Visual platforms like Pinterest saw nearly 600 million visual searches every month in 2018 through Pinterest Lens.

People are embracing visual search to find products or images when they have a hard time verbalizing the search.

Key Takeaways

Visual search will accelerate in the coming years, and your brand needs to be a part of this trend.

The accuracy of the searches has increased with the advent of image recognition tools and search engines that recognize visual searches.

Marketers should optimize images for visual search by building an image library. Implement a strong SEO strategy that includes images.

As part of your visual content marketing strategy, you should also have a strong brand presence on Pinterest and include metadata in your visual content’s information as part of your marketing plan.

8. Create Content with Mobile Use in Mind

People spend more time a day on their mobile phones than any other source of media like TVs or radios. Users spend over 3 and a half hours on average using their mobile phones a day.

Thus, taking advantage of this very important piece of people’s lives is important. 

When creating content, think about how it will look on a mobile phone. Even better, create content for mobile devices exclusively.

This could be a TikTok video, Facebook ad, or Instagram Story. Any one of these will end up on a user’s mobile device screen.

Here’s an example video ad posted by Stella McCartney on her TikTok channel promoting new Adidas shoes.

Key Takeaways

Most people use their mobile devices daily to consume media. Moreso than television, which is why it’s important to use social media apps to get your visual content seen by people.

9. Create a Brand Identity and Image

Visuals aren’t just all about creating engaging ads, it’s about your brand’s image and what people identify with it.

A good name is a great start, but without a well-designed logo and aesthetic, the name won’t mean much.

Just think about the red Coca-Cola cans and their stylized text, or car brands and their logos.

create a brdand identity and image
Image via Instagram

It’s important to create an aesthetic and logo, but it’s also important to stick to it. Having consistency in your brand identity and style will help build trust between your brand and your audience, as well as increase brand recognition.

As we can see above, 6 consecutive posts on Coca-Cola’s Instagram all share similar aesthetics. These mostly have to do with a new line of Coca-Cola flavors coming out under the banner “Creations.”

Key Takeaways

Learning from larger companies like Coca-Cola is good, and as we can see they make sure to create an aesthetic, choosing colors carefully and sticking to a theme when launching a new product. 

Each one of their posts during the campaign shared similar color tones, style, and themes. This allows users to quickly identify the brand related to the post, as well as the product being advertised.

10. Create Visual Content for Your Target Audience

Content created for your target audience always performs better than content made without any audience in mind. 

The best way to find your target audience is to focus on the engagement rates of previous visual marketing campaigns. This will allow you to pinpoint specific subjects, styles, and content types that most of your audience will engage with.

Although targeted ads have been frowned upon and declared as an unfit use of personal data, younger internet users aged between 18-24 years old seem to have a different opinion, with 41% of users preferring targeted ads.According to research done by Meta, younger users’ attention is 75% on a video ad than older users over 65. This is why it’s important to create content that will attract your target audience and keep them till the end of the video.

Key Takeaways

Creating visual marketing content that engages your target audience is significant to keep their attention, increase lead generation, and possibly increase your conversion rate as well.

It’s also important since you won’t be wasting money paying for ads that users won’t even care about. Distribution of ads on platforms like Facebook and Instagram can be set to filter countries, age, and gender. 

You’ll only pay for each ad distributed, which means you send your ad worldwide and to all ages, you’ll be paying more for an ad that only relates to a fraction of the users that actually watch it.

What Are Some Good and Inspiring Examples of Visual Marketing?

There are plenty of excellent examples of good visual marketing online. Here are a few to inspire you.

1. Grammarly

One look at Grammarly’s Pinterest account, and you’ll quickly find yourself neck deep in memes and funny GIFs.

grammarly
Image via Pinterest

Grammarly is a grammar checking tool. It’s also able to suggest better phrasing and writing tips.

With the focus being on grammar, Grammarly uses their account to post memes and jokes about grammar. It perfectly fits their brand and shows that the brand isn’t scared to have a little fun.

2. Starbucks

starbucks
Image via Instagram

Starbucks’ Instagram account is a great example to follow when creating and posting on your brand's Instagram account.

Their logo is clearly displayed, and their bio is simple and changes depending on seasons, holidays, and special occasions.

This screenshot comes just as fall is starting. As you can see below, all their new posts share similar fall themes and colors.

starbucks
Image via Instagram

3. Wholefoods

Wholefoods’ Facebook page is full of excellent visual content. 

They’ve created a very passionate and vocal community, which is great for word-of-mouth marketing. They also spend a lot of time creating engaging content for their followers.

Freshly Ground Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter

Freshly ground honey-roasted peanuts. No more, no less.

Posted by Whole Foods Market on Monday, 19 September

In this video posted on their Facebook page, they show you how easy it is to get honey roasted peanuts and grind them. 

Posts like this quickly get shared and show possible customers cool things about the retail chain that make it special and set it apart from other stores.

4. Coca-Cola

Now for something a bit more grandiose. Most companies can’t afford a large marketing team, but the fact remains that the large marketing team behind Coca-Cola keeps creating stunning advertisements and visual content yearly.

What they achieve through marketing is most likely out of reach for most businesses, especially smaller businesses, but it doesn’t hurt to dream big.

Last year, they collaborated with Tyler, The Creator, to create an awesome song that went viral.

FAQs

Q1. What is the best way to create visual marketing content online?

You can create a variety of visual marketing content online including images, charts, infographics, and videos.
 
There are many tools and apps, beyond just graphic designers, that can help you create engaging visual content for your visual marketing strategy.

Q2. How do you promote a company's brand with a visual content marketing strategy?

You can promote a company’s brand image with a visual marketing strategy by using videos, images, graphics, logos, and other multimedia content.

Q3. What are some of the best visual marketing tools?

There are plenty of excellent visual marketing tools on the market. Some of the tools I recommend are Canva, Lumen5, and Bannersnack.

Are You Ready to Use a Visual Marketing Strategy to Promote Your Brand?

These facts about any visual content marketing strategy prove that you need visual marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. Especially if you are a small business.

However, prioritize quality over quantity to ensure that you create and publish engaging visuals on all social media platforms. These social media posts can help you get more customer engagement and conversions.

It’s time to begin investing in a visual marketing strategy if you haven’t already. The visual content will not only keep your brand relevant but also ensure that you stay ahead of trends and competitors.

What visual marketing strategy did we miss? Tell us in the comment section below.

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