When it comes to online content, there’s one quality that distinguishes the best from the rest: relevance. In order to keep attracting new customers, you need to keep giving them fresh and interesting content to read. If you haven’t updated your site or your social media platforms in months, you aren’t making the most of your online presence. But it isn’t enough to simply keep updating—you need to make sure that the updates have value for your readers. Staying in touch with your audience’s interests and needs is key to the most successful content marketing strategies.
In other words, a content marketing campaign isn’t simply something you can develop, complete, and then ignore—it’s a never-ending process. If your online presence is dynamic and surprising, rather than static and predictable, you’ll be more likely to build a loyal audience and get the leads you’re looking for.
Why Fresh Content Is Essential
When you update your website or make a new post on your Facebook page, you’re giving your audience a new reason to pay attention to you. That, in and of itself, is reason enough to keep posting new content on a regular basis. But keeping your online content fresh and current has a number of other benefits.
- The more pages there are on your website, the more indexed pages you’ll have on Google. Making regular updates and changes to your website can also help to make it more prominent in search engine results.
- Having more online content also means that you have more content to optimize for search engines. This can translate into more visitors for your website. It’s important to use keywords and key phrases strategically to avoid being penalized, but SEO optimization should still be a key aspect of your content marketing strategy.
- Posting new content gives you the opportunity to connect directly with your audience. Whether you’re telling your readers about an exciting new product, educating them about the benefits of one of your services, or simply sharing some useful tips, regular updates will allow you to deepen your relationship with your customers and help you retain them.
Knowing When It’s Time to Change Your Strategy
One of the most important things to remember about content marketing is that it is a fluid process, rather than a static one. The requirements of your content are constantly shifting and evolving over time, which means that your process needs to change as well. It’s important to set clear goals for your online content, and to be willing to change your game plan when you aren’t meeting those goals. If your online content isn’t getting the results you’re looking for, don’t be afraid to rethink your approach.
Here are some of the reasons why you might want to alter your current strategy:
- Your website’s monthly traffic is declining. Lower website traffic is a sure sign that your current marketing strategy isn’t working—after all, one of the primary purposes of content marketing is to drive more visitors to your site. Take a look at your site and ask yourself what incentives your customers have to visit it. Do you update the site regularly? Is there a blog for your customers to follow?
- Your content isn’t being shared regularly on social media. Having your content shared on Facebook or Twitter is one of the best ways to get the word out about your company and its services. If it isn’t happening, maybe it’s time to rethink your content. Have you accurately assessed what your audience is looking for, and what they are most interested in? Is the content you’re posting fun, engaging, and informative?
- You aren’t getting many new followers on your social media platforms. One of the main goals when using social media to promote your business is to expand your audience. If you’re not picking up as many new followers as you had hoped, you may need to develop a different social media strategy. Are you actively interacting with your audience? Are you posting too many updates, or too few?
If you’re dissatisfied with your company’s current approach to content marketing, consider the potential benefits of reaching out to a professional content creation company. When you rely on outside help for your content, it will relieve you of the burden of producing the content yourself while also allowing you to take advantage of the experience, advice, and knowhow of full-time content professionals. Pennington Creative can take care of everything from the permanent web copy on your site to the regular updates you post on your social media accounts. When you’re looking to rework your online marketing strategy, contact our team to find out how we can help you achieve your content goals.
