4 Tips for Content Promotion in 2018

Over the last year or so, there has been a bit of shift in content marketing. More and more brands are seeing that to see real success and results from their content they have to play the long game.

Trying to 'game' SEO with lots of short not so great posts on a variety of topics doesn't work nearly as well anymore.

Instead, a content strategy plan that focuses on the following is more important:

• Search Engine Optimization

• Building a strategic content library

• Performing content Audits

• Building relationships

I'm going to cover each of these a bit more in-depth.

Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Today, neither content nor search engine optimization will work alone. They must be combined into one cohesive strategy.

So what does that mean?

The first step is to get focused on the keywords you are going to target. Most brands try to rank for way too many keywords. Remember, SEO is all about the long game. It's far better to have a post that gets consistent traffic every week for two years than one that gets a massive burst over a week and a trickle after that.

Pick 3-5 main keywords to start that follow the intent of your target audience. Then, you can attach dozens of medium and long tail keywords that both relate to and enhance those main keywords that will make up much of your blog content.

Building a Content Library

Alright those 3-5 main keywords I mentioned, those are going to form the pillars of your content library. You want one post around each of your main keywords that is amazing.

You are far better off over the long run to spend hours creating killer pillar posts. These are where you are going to see that consistent long term traffic.

From there, create "spoke" content using those medium and long tail keywords for each of your pillars. When you do this, your content has more of a library feel than a blog.

Your site becomes a resource, a place where readers (and potential customers) know they can go to get all their questions on a particular topic answered.

Content Audits

Here's something that might sound crazy for a content creator to say: there are too many blog posts out there.

In the days of gaming SEO that was ok, but today you need to be savvy and plan. Part of that means creating less content. You're better off blogging an excellent post once a month versus 4-5 ok posts.

One area where you can improve right away is to do an audit of your current content. Look at your analytics and see what is getting traffic and what isn't.

Remove posts that aren't working and the posts that are ok, consider beefing up. Combine two or three posts into one monster post. Update old posts with new links, examples, images, and case studies. These are simple fixes that make your blog better immediately.

Building Relationships

This is often an underexplored part of content marketing. Building relationships with others in your industry and via social media is a great tactic to get your content out there.

When you create this sort of epic content that has lots of links and examples don't stop there. Reach out to the people and brands that you cite in your posts, send them the link and see if they will share it.

When you create genuinely good content and aren't pushy with your networking, more often than not you can get some extra shares, mentions, and backlinks on your posts.

Each of these can go a long way to promoting your content to new readers, raising your search engine rankings, and building up your expertise.