Five types of content to fuel your marketing success

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Choosing the right content types for your business can accelerate your digital marketing success and better your SEO at the same time.

Dee Stephens from Clickass explains how content marketing and SEO ties in closely with one another. One important aspect that Dee mentions in her article is that content marketing and SEO both provides opportunities for backlinks.

Today I'll explain five methods to drive more traffic to your website.

1. High quality blog posts

Blogs are an effective way to drive traffic to your website provided you consistently blog and create quality content that offers a solution to your readers' question or problem. When launching a blog, you are essentially creating a resource for your audience and at the same time increasing your brand awareness.

Mike Liberman of Hubspot states in his blog that B2B companies that blog:

- Generate 65% more leads per month than those who don't.- Blogs gives websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links.

You might be thinking what is a high quality post? Let's have a look:

Anyone can start a blog and blog just for the sake of blogging, but consistently creating quality content takes time and something that your followers will value and in return reward you with a share on social media for their friends and family to see.

Keep these pointers in mind the next time you create your blog post:

1. Research your topic so that you are informed and in the know

2. Define your target audience and write for them
3. Use catchy headlines and ensure that your lead paragraph makes readers want to read more
4. Optimise your blog for SEO - avoid keyword stuffing
4. Break up lengthy paragraphs into smaller bits and use bullet points
5. Make your blog post interesting and useful
6. Proofread your blog posts and avoid grammar errors

7. Include a strong call to action

After a few months of blogging, you will definitely start seeing results and an increase in traffic from search engines.

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2. Guest blog posts

Guest blogs can be an effective way to drive traffic and profit when done properly. More than often people abuse guest posts as a way to promote their own website or product which without a doubt will earn you traffic but zero conversions.

Stella Robinsons wrote a brilliant article about increasing web traffic without being pushy - in her last paragraph she exclusively writes about guest blog posts structures and benefits.

To be successful with your guest post strategy, try and use these pointers to be as effective as possible:

1. Use an appealing headline for your blog post
2. Keep your content simple and jargon free
3. Angle your blog post to fit their audience
4. Stick to the website's guidelines about blog posts

5. Avoid promoting your website or product/approach with a different angle

Guest posting is a great way to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and drive brand recognition for your new business.

3. How to guides

Capture your readers' attention and demonstrate your expertise with how to guides which can be done through different forms of media.

Your how to guide can be used to:

1. Provide tips and pointers

2. Learn a new skill set

3. Complete a project

How to create the perfect how to guide:

1. Your guide should be something that adds value

2. Great design (legible and appealing)

3. Top notch content

*Be creative and make your how to guide in the form of instructional videos, series of blogs or photos.

An added bonus with how to guides is you can ask for your readers' email address in exchange for your guide.

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4. Infographics

Infographics are the in thing and a large percentage find it visually appealing. But what exactly are infographics?

Infographics is the art of combining data or information with visuals in a chart or diagram form.

What are infographics used for?

1. Simplify a complicated topic

2. Present survey data
3. Explain a process or how something works

4. Comparisons

1. Liked four times more than presentations and 23 times more than documents on slideshare.

How do I create my own Infographic? You could make use of a graphic designer if you feel you are not up for the challenge or you could simply sign up with a website called canva and create your own infographics for free.

Once you created your infographic, you can share an [http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-embed-codes-generator-infographic-content-ht embedded link]] and get readers to link from their website to yours.

5. Videos

Videos create a captivating experience for your audience and way more effective for psychological reasons. A video can be powerful and if executed well, you could generate a lot of revenue through video marketing.

What kind of videos could I create?

1. Company introduction video

2. Product videos

3. Explainer videos

A great example is Devon from devdondidit, who creates product videos and includes humour in them. Devon creates the funniest videos and showcases them on social media. To date he managed to gain 16623 followers on Facebook and 1697 on YouTube.

You can view his videos here.

Getting a video done professionally is expensive, but start small and record your own videos with the use of a high quality video camera, smartphone or digital camera.

How do I create a high quality video?

1. Keep it short (2-3 minutes)

2. Make sure your script is spot on
3. Find a good location with good lighting

4. Video and sound is of great quality.

Post your videos to your YouTube channel and get people to subscribe. A huge benefit is that google often display videos in their search results and this could drive traffic to your site if your videos are optimised.

There are tons of different types of content that you could creatively use in your content marketing strategy to harness your digital marketing efforts.

My advice is start with a blog and once you've mastered that, then slowly incorporate different forms of content into your strategy. Lastly, test which content types best suits your business.

Which content would you add to this list and why?