With the ever-changing algorithms of search engines and the ever-increasing competition in the digital space, it’s vital to stay ahead of the curve and adopt the latest trends and techniques to ensure that your content is seen by your target audience.
There are a lot of big wins to be had with paid advertising, no doubt about it. But there are even bigger wins (and a bigger ROI) to be had with content marketing. So, it’s time to put that content out into the world and watch the leads come rolling in. With these proven content optimization strategies and tips, it’s easier than it may seem.
#1. Create an Ideal Customer Avatar (ICA)
Whether it’s 2023 or 2033, this point should always be at the top of your must-do and must-have lists as a marketer. Producing content for everyone is a waste of time. When targeting all people at once, you won’t hit anyone.
Understanding people, which builds the backbone of your future customer base, is one of the most important steps when developing a content marketing strategy. Before making some posts, you have to understand your customers’ pains and issues, thus developing the list of profits you can offer. How to do that right?
Scheme of Building Your ICA
You don’t need to be completely strict on the exact fictional representation of your ideal customer (name, hair color, outfit, etc). More important is to get clear about the commonalities, the common characteristics that your top customers and audience members have in common.
Typically, it can be divided into three different categories:
— demographic (their age, gender, income, occupation, title);
— geographic (their city, state, province, country);
— psychographic (this is where the bulk of your ICA should really be formed — their values, attitudes, interests, beliefs, political affiliations, lifestyles, etc.)
For sure, you may also have multiple different ICAs. The trick is to serve them with different messages. You simply can’t appeal to them by using the same generic, broad, and bland terminology. There is a great expression that says “Customers don’t buy when they understand, they buy when they feel understood”.
Psychographics
As already mentioned, you should pay special attention to this point. Psychographics are the characteristics that relate to a person’s personality, values, interests, and lifestyle. Here are some ways to identify the psychographics of your ICA:
● Use customer surveys. Gather information on your customers’ attitudes, beliefs, and values, hobbies, interests, and lifestyle to understand the pain points you will try to solve with the help of your product or service.
● Analyze social media behavior. Social media platforms are a rich source of data. You can analyze the content they engage with, the groups they belong to, and the pages they follow to gain insights into their psychographics.
● Study customer feedback. Analyze the feedback you receive from your customers to identify common themes related to their psychographics. This could include comments on your website, social media pages, or customer support channels.
A well-researched and well-written ideal customer avatar is the base for all of the best content optimization strategies and key production of tailored and personalized content as well as lead generation. For the last one, SEO is an essential step. Leadgenapp.io has highlighted it more than once in their research and it’s hard to argue with that. That’s what our next content optimization strategy is all about.
#2. Make an Emphasis on SEO Optimization
Search engine optimization has been a crucial component of digital marketing for many years, and it continues to be a crucial factor in content optimization in 2023. In fact, according to a recent study, 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine, underscoring the importance of optimizing content for search engines.
What does it mean to optimize content for SEO, and how can businesses do it effectively? There are a couple of crucial elements to mention in this regard:
— Keyword research. Use keywords in a natural and strategic way, rather than “stuffing” content with them in an attempt to manipulate search rankings. To find relevant keywords for their content, you can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or SEMrush.
Knowing phrases that your target audience is searching for and insight into how competitive those keywords is half the battle. The right keywords attract links which are the gold mine for boosted traffic. Buying backlinks is another common strategy for improving website rankings and increase visibility of your content.
— Mobile Optimization. Google’s algorithm now prioritizes mobile-friendly content in search results. To optimize content for mobile devices, businesses should ensure that their website is responsive and that content is easy to read and navigate on smaller screens. This can include using larger font sizes, simplifying navigation menus, and using responsive design elements like fluid layouts and scalable images.
— Content Structure. Use headings and subheadings to organize content as well-bulleted or numbered lists to break up the text. Additionally, businesses should use descriptive and informative URLs that accurately reflect the content on the page. This can help search engines understand the content of the page and rank it more accurately.
#3. Choose Quality Over Quantity
Nowadays, the secret to getting the most bang for your marketing buck is all about prioritizing quality over quantity by creating better content. For as long as content marketing has been a thing, there has been a debate on which approach is better: quantity, where the strategy is to produce as much content as is humanly possible or quality where the focus is on creating fewer but higher quality copies.
Right now, for most customers, focusing on creating less but higher quality pieces of content is going to provide a better return on your time and energy investment.
For proof of this, you can check out the article on common SEO myths dispelled in 2023. What is more, just look at YouTube where you can see the change and trend in action with many channels switching away from a consistent upload schedule favoring, instead, releasing a video when it’s ready.
Best Approach for the Start
If you’re just getting started with content creation or marketing, the advice is to favor quantity over quality, at least in the beginning. This is because quality often comes from quantity. Moreover, you’re really going to need to put in the reps to build up that content-creation muscle. Not to mention until you have some content created and published, it’s hard to actually know what better actually is.
In these terms, the only metrics to take a look at are how your audience engages with and responding to what you’re creating. To keep you on track in the direction of creating better content, there are three rules to consider.
- Better content = relevant content. It means it resonates with the person it was created for. That’s when the ideal customer avatar comes into play.
- Better content = valuable content. It provides value to your audience in some way, whether by teaching them something, inspiring them, or even offering tension-relieving value.
- Better content = entertaining content. It’s not about creating a Hollywood-level production but putting a little thought into how you can make it more engaging.
However, these rules are not the only thing you need to consider while trying to get the most out of your content. The third strategy can be another powerful tool in your marketing toolkit.
#4. Try Out Tribe Building
One of the best marketing strategies that continues to deliver outstanding results and outsized returns for the effort that you have to put into it is tribe building. It has to do with creating a community or a group of like-minded people around a topic, business, industry, or market that you’re a part of.
Bringing a group of like-minded people together or being the source of information for that group builds a tremendous amount of trust, authority, and goodwill. It establishes your business and your content as a go-to resource that other people can count on.
Most importantly and most powerful of all though is that focusing on tribe building can build real relationships which extend far beyond those simple transactions that most businesses out there are trying to compete for.
There are tons of ways to build your tribe, host it or engage with them, including online discussion groups and forums. There are memberships, hosting Q&A sessions, and webinars.
In the past years, the focus used to be on a social graph, which are tribes built around personal and social connections. Now, thanks to our large, completely interconnected world, it’s tribes that are built on the interest graph, they are the strongest. Look, the ideal customer avatar is an essential part of this strategy as well. What is the next one?
#5. Rely on Video Marketing
Here is the cold hard truth — the future of marketing is video. The present of marketing is actually video too, especially the last five years or so. Almost every single social media platform out there is continuing to make prioritizing video content their primary goal
From the obvious players like YouTube and TikTok to less obvious ones like Instagram and LinkedIn, video is taking up more and more of the newsfeed. A recent study shows:
- 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool;
- 87% of marketers stated that video content has helped them boost traffic;
- 81% of marketers claimed that producing more video content has helped them drastically increase sales.
But where things get really exciting is from the customer’s perspective with people now watching an average of 19 hours of online video per week. This is an increase of just one hour per week compared to 12 months ago, but it’s an almost mind-blowing 8.5-hour increase per week over the past three years.
Take the Full Advantage of It
One of the best things about video marketing is that it makes it easy to reformat and repurpose your content. Let’s say you just recorded a long-form video for a brand-new YouTube channel.
Instead of just posting it and calling it a day, you could also get it transcribed and have a text version of the video that you can post on a blog or across social media.
Use the audio from that YouTube video and now you have a standalone podcast episode. Add video to your email marketing which could increase your clicks by 300%. Splice and dice it to share it across all kinds of different social media platforms.
The advice to go out there and start making videos can seem overwhelming, so let us break down a strategy that you can use to get started and possibly even end with. Just one simple thing could be your entire marketing strategy all wrapped up in one great and profitable point. And that is to start by focusing on shorts.
If we had to pick a single kind of marketing media to create, it would have to be short-form vertical video.
The kind of videos that you see as YouTube shorts, as Facebook and Instagram reels, and as TikToks that are 60 seconds or less. Nowadays, this is the kind of content that is proving itself not only with consumers but also with algorithms. That said, YouTube appears to be the best position to capitalize on these shorts.
However, that’s not video marketing is only fourth out of five strategies for content optimization. There is another ace up our sleeve.
#6. Streamline Your Email Campaigns
Email campaigns are an important part of content optimization strategy as they allow businesses to connect with their audience in a more personal and engaging way. Email marketing is a well-set mechanism that turns:
● new subscribers into potential clients;
● leads into new customers;
● new customers into repeat clients;
● repeat clients into regular ones (ultimately, these are the ones that ensure stability for your business.)
So, how can you benefit from that and where should you begin with? Start with simple segmentation. Divide your audience up to the point where you’re learning more about them while giving something relevant to them.
Create personalized interactions that increase customer lifetime value. While working with your email list, try to separate the following categories of subscribers:
● loyal followers and marketing leads;
● new subscribers;
● inactive followers.
The idea of targeting each segment with a distinct message or product is the heart of email marketing. Create a sales funnel around the purpose of helping your audience and use the entire arsenal of email marketing tools on the web.
The key to converting leads is to think inside the clients’ inboxes, understand their needs, and provide the maximum value.
Wrapping Up
As we look toward the future of content optimization, one thing is clear — the power of great content to connect with audiences will continue to be a driving force in successful marketing strategies.
By prioritizing user experience, targeting the right audience, and leveraging the latest SEO techniques, businesses can create content that not only informs and entertains but also engages new leads and turn them into constant customers.
