In this Article:
Content Marketing with Staying Power
Keeping your Online Marketing Efforts Connected
How to Control the Online Relationship
Ok, I get it. The thrill of the chase can be fun. It’s adventurous. It makes you feel alive, and gets those juices flowing. However, if the traffic to your blog is just a string of one night blog stands, then any amount of effort your putting in to creating great content, optimizing it with on-page and off-page SEO, and doing all that content marketing is really just a waste of time.
exhausting. Because “one and done” in the online marketing world usually means that they are done with you, your online business, and your blog after one visit if you don’t have the goods. You can’t put a notch in your lipstick case just because a person visits you. The reality is that most people don’t buy anything from you until they have had at least 6 marketing touch points.
Sorry to sound like a boring old married couple, but wouldn’t it be great if you knew that every week you could depend on many of the same prospects coming back for a visit. It’s an ongoing relationship. And even though it can have all those hum-drum, boring traps that every long-term relationship is exposed to, you can still spice things up (and you should), keep it interesting, and keep them coming back and wanting more.
Make no mistake, “boring” can actually become brand recognition and a familiarity and comfort in knowing that you, your business, and your website are a reliable place to visit for great content. That, my friends, is what a content marketing strategy is all about!
So the question becomes “how” to keep your visitors coming back for more week after week?
Simple Online Marketing Ways to Add Staying Power to Your Website
1) Create Amazing Content:
First, the obvious answer is to give them something of value. Sure, you can razzle dazzle them with a little flash to draw attention, but unless you have something of real value underneath all that flash, they will move on.
After all, you have to remember that people are distracted and their time is becoming more valuable each and every day. As an online business you must respect that time and give them the best stuff. If they can go to one spot to get the full package, then they won’t have to jump from site to site to site to find everything they need.
That’s why authority sites are such an amazing online business model.
2) Easily Link your Anchor Text to Other Pages
On page SEO can be set on steroids by using bold text, italics and links. These formatting tools help those search engine crawlers identify what your webpage is all about.
And, those formatting tools also help your readers (who are more often “skimmers”) hone in on words and phrases that are of interest to them at that moment.
Think of it this way. When you decide that you want something, doesn’t it seem like you see, hear, or read about that “thing” matter what it is? You instantly become more aware.
For example, at some point in my life I want to live in Malta – just for fun. A few years ago, I started to really think about it and within a six month period I met a man who lived in Malta for several years building some infrastructure for the country, I met a gal who lived there with her husband for a couple of years, I suddenly noticed tons of articles on Malta include an entire feature of Mediterranean cuisine and an article about swimming around a rock in order to regain your virginity (near Malta). And (this was the really crazy one) I was working in a store vault and one day the coin machine got clogged up. When I cleared it out, the coin that caused the jam was guessed it…Malta!
**yes, I purchased the coin and still have it!
Same thing with your site visitor. If they are on the hunt for a certain subject, they are going to become more aware of the information available. Make it easier for them to find by targeting your pages to specific keywords and then highlighting those keywords with formatting – bold, italics and links.
3) Finally, give them someplace to go when they reach the “End of the Road” – or Blogpost.
Confession – I used to do this by hand, carefully selecting which posts would be best for visitors to go to next. Not anymore. There are automated ways to do this through WordPress plugins. Pick one that works for you and plug it in. They give your visitor a taste of other stuff on your site that could interest them.
SimpleReach Slide (in beta, must apply for consideration)
Zemanta Plugin
Yet Another Related Post Plugin (YARPP)
Or search “Related Post” in WordPress
You should always have a CTA (Call to Action). They’ve reached the end of your post, which means that you have engaged them for about 500 words. That’s a pretty amazing thing in itself! So, be sure to ask them to do something. Share the content, write a comment, get on your list, or go to the next part of the series. The easiest way to get someone to take the next step is to ask. And, in the spirit of new media, it’s permission marketing.
Simple phrases such as “If you love this post, share it with your friends” followed by very easy to read social sharing icons are perfect (again, a plugin).
So, in that spirit, if you love this content, please share it with a friend, tweet it, Stumble it, add to your FB feed, pin it – whichever way works for you!
Until next time…
Dawn