INTRO

Welcome to Your Content MarketingGuide

What is content marketing?

There are a lot of definitions of content marketing floating around, but here’s ours:

Content marketing is a long-term, strategic marketing approach based on creating relevant and valuable content to build a relationship with a well-defined audience, and eventually drive them to take an action that achieves a business goal.​

Content marketing is an effective tactic, but it’s even more powerful when it’s combined with other types of marketing. Content should be used alongside social media, SEO, email marketing, paid ads, public relations, and influencer marketing. 

STEP 1

Create Your Content Strategy

How to Build Your Target Buyer Persona (with Free Template)

Buyer personas are critical components of a strong content marketing strategy. You need a clear and detailed understanding of your customer in order to provide the best content and collect the best leads. Download the template in this post and fill it out as you follow along. Read More

What is Cornerstone Content? The Definitive Guide

Cornerstone content refers to web pages that are essential to your site’s purpose (like this one!). They are gateways for new visitors and avenues to help them explore your site. On top of that, Google loves them. This article explains cornerstone content and teaches you how to make your own. Read More

STEP 2

Plan Your Content Topics

How To Create a Year of Blog Content in One Day

When you sit down to create content, you may struggle. You might think “I have nothing to say” or “No one wants to hear this.” The truth, however, is that you have more content in your head to say than you know. You just need a strategy to pull it out. Read More

How to Create a Blog Content Calendar [FREE TEMPLATE]

Your content calendar is the meat of your content strategy. It’s the document that lays everything out. This article teaches you how to create your own calendar for best results. Use the free template to get started! Read More

How to Predict What Content Will Do Well in Your Niche

Naturally, you want to create content that will produce the best results for your business. But how do you predict what will do well before you create it? This post offers several strategies to help you target the types of posts that work. Read More

Keyword Intent: The Answer to Attracting High Converting Traffic

You know the importance of using keywords in your content, but not all keywords are equal. The words people use can also signal their intent. This article teaches you how to predict your readers’ behavior by the words they search. Read More

How to Find Blogging Opportunities Others are Missing

At some point, you’ve surely wondered what your competitors are doing and whether you should be too. Read this article and watch the video to learn quickly find out what the competition is doing for any niche AND if it’s working. Read More

STEP 3

Craft Your Content

From Good To Great: How a Skilled Editor Can Transform Your Content

The best content is clean, clear, and free of errors. If you expect readers to view more pages and subscribe to your list, you need an editor to review your writing. This article explains the power of having someone else edit your content. Read More

3 Simple Formatting Tweaks To Make Your Content More Readable

The format of your articles are just as important as their substance. Your content should be easy to read (and scan) for readers to get the most value out of it. This article explains how to properly format a blog post. Read More

The 11-Step Recipe to Writing Powerful Business Blog Posts

Anyone who runs a blog will tell you that blogging is far more complex than throwing some words into WordPress and hitting publish. This article explains the 11-step process we go through for every piece of content we create for ourselves and our clients. Read More

7 Words To Cut From Your Content Immediately (Less Really Is More!)

Once of the best ways to improve your writing is to remove any unnecessary words. They distract and often confuse the reader. Here are seven words (or types of words) you should stop using. Read More

7 Ways to Boost the Credibility of Your Blog Content

Credibility is important for bloggers. If your readers don’t find you credible, they’ll bounce of your site and never return. While credibility is subjective, there are some steps you can take to make your content more credible. Read More

3 Types of Content People Love To Share [Infographic]

What makes one piece of content more share-able than others (even when they’re on the same topic)? Uberflip and BuzzSumo partnered up to analyze thousands of web pages to find the three types of content people share the most. Read More

How to Multiply Your Reach With These Content Repurposing Strategies

You’ve probably created a staggering amount of content already (just look at all your work documents and client files). This article teaches you how to repurpose all of that content, rather than creating from scratch. Read More

STEP 4

Promote Your Content

9 Ways Organic Content Can Improve Your Paid Ads

There’s no single tactic that will propel us to success. To grow a business, we need to be proficient with many tactics and build them together into a system. Combine together, paid ads and content are remarkably effective. This article explains why. Read More

How to Connect with the Best Bloggers In Your Industry

An excellent way to promote your content is to build relationships with other bloggers. We’ve had the opportunity to connect with hundreds of the best bloggers, so this article offers a few techniques to help you get started. Read More

STEP 5

Measure Your Content

7 Free Content Marketing Analytics Dashboards You Can Download

Most people aren’t aware, but there’s a large free marketplace for analytics dashboard. Just import one of these dashboards to your Google Analytics account and you’ll have all the information need to make informed decisions about your website and content. Read More

STEP 6

Scale Your Content Production

Outsourcing Blog Writing: 9 Critical Questions to Ask

When you’re ready to scale your content marketing, you may be faced with a decision: Do you hire and train someone in-house, or do you outsource to an outside company. That’s a tough question, but this article will help you determine which option is right for you. Read More

How to Hire a Blogger That Gets Results: The Definitive Guide

At some point, you may decide to hire a blogger to ramp up your marketing. But you can’t hire just any writer. You need a writer who understands blogging and content marketing. This article teaches you how to find a writer who’s perfect for your brand. Read More

BONUS

More Content Marketing Resources

What If They Steal My Content?

Are you worried that if you create content, you’ll just be giving away your ideas for free? Do you fear your competitors will steal them and use them to beat you? Those are valid concerns, but they shouldn’t hold you back. Read why you should create content anyway in this article. Read More

What I Learned About Image Copyright Law from an $800 Violation

Images are an important part of great content. They add value and help readers connect. But you can’t just any image. You have to source them properly. In this article, we explain how to find images that are safe for use. Read More

5 Content Marketing Habits That Cause Blogs to Fail

Many companies are working with bad marketing habits that have been around for a long time. A bad habit can kill your ROI, so we’ve outlined the five biggest content marketing habits we often see in B2B companies and how to fix them. Read More

The Best Content Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business (New eBook)

Choosing the right tools for your content marketing can be overwhelming. There are so many to compare and test. We put together a list of the best content marketing tools that we have tested and use ourselves. Read More