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Today, many business owners and entrepreneurs agree that content marketing is an essential component for long-term, sustainable growth. However, a lot of businesses are still struggling to implement a successful content marketing strategy.
This article will share a few tips on how you can quickly improve your content performance.
Keep it simple and clear
Sometimes marketers might have a prejudice against clickbait headlines and content formats that are easy to read. This is especially typical in the fields of IT and high-tech. In their view, only longreads with a word count of over 2,000 rich in technical details and diagrams are worth publishing. Often it takes weeks, if not months, to prepare such materials.
We're not trying to say that longreads are a bad choice – they are certainly a great format for a specific audience. But still, statistics show that articles that have 5,000-10,000 symbols are much more popular.
Comparing the popularity of articles of different length on ZDNet.com
When it comes to finding an ideal format, How-to guides and articles with various lists (the so-called "listicles") are highly likely to strike the chord of almost any audience.
Try to make your text as easy to read as possible. Use informative headings, make subheaders to structure the text, add lists, checklists, figures, and infographics — all this captures your readers' attention and helps them dive into your content more deeply.
Choose relevant topics
When it comes to planning your publications, make sure you choose topics that are common and practical rather than "unique.” Another blog post on how to build a successful team is more likely to gain attention than a recap of somebody's thoughts on hiring people.
Of course, this doesn't mean you need to mindlessly copycat all hot articles on random topics. Instead, you can adapt some popular topics to your field of expertise to differentiate from your competitors.
Publish content regularly
Content marketing success largely depends on how regularly and how much content you post. No matter how profound and expert your articles might be, you won't get any significant results if you publish them once a month.
According to Hubspot stats, companies that post 16 or more materials per month get 3.5 times more traffic than companies issuing up to 4 posts. Therefore, the more high-quality content you publish during a period of time, the better your blog will perform.
Write for thematic communities
Medium is one of the most popular content marketing platforms. Many companies run their corporate blogs there, as well as individual bloggers who use it to promote their personal brand.
The number of views report on Medium
Articles published on Medium are indexed quite well by Google, so if you make it the first three places in search results, traffic flow will be more or less stable. The platform itself promotes the most successful articles via a recommendations system.
Here's a lifehack for effective content marketing on Medium – use the guest posting option in thematic communities (the so-called "publications").
To find popular publications in your field, try toppub. Another helpful resource, Smedian, lists publications that are currently looking for contributors, so you can contact them for a possible partnership. As soon as the editor-in-chief approves your application, you can send your articles for publication directly from your Medium profile, which is very convenient.
Distribute your materials
Content distribution is a separate promotional task. If you want your article to be read by as many people as possible, you'll need to work on its promotion.
For a start, you can post a link to the material on your own resources (email newsletter, social networks). If you need wider reach, share your article on external platforms like Reddit, or use paid social media targeting if it's in your budget.
Hacker News main page
For example, Hacker News is perfect for promoting IT and tech articles. It aggregates links to various technological publications. The website has over 11 million visitors per month.
Smile Bright Media has been engaged in the content promotion of IT and tech startups for more than five years. Here you can learn more about our services.