Now, this is a place where many of you hit a roadblock.
Before we proceed I would like to address this resistance.
I would like to remind you that, in the history of mankind the barrier to entry for creating content is at the lowest. There is no reason why you should not be creating content. Be it text, audio, music, video or kind of audio-visual format.
If fear of failure, judgment or negative feedback is what is stopping you, then let me remind you are better than that. Let go off<\/g> the thought what people might think or say. You have taken the initiative. That\u2019s all that matters.
And that\u2019s a win in itself.
Now let\u2019s get down to business, shall well?
\nStop writing Essays<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nBlame it on our education or whatever but the biggest problem with people writing online is, they automatically switch to writing essays.
The web is not the same as books or physical reading. People behave differently online, not to mention the million distractions they have.
Your job is to hear them and talk to them. Understand their problems and give solutions.
Imagine a friend walking up to you for advice on something. Would you start talking like how you would write an essay?
That\u2019s what I thought.
So keep it conversational. Like mentioned before, pretend you are writing an email to your friend and you are having a conversation with that person.
\nUse Sub headings<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nI hope you are with me when I say people behave differently on the web. We have already demonstrated in the previous point.
This applies to the way they are going to consume your content.
If you assume they are going to read then you are wrong.
People online scan and consume content.
Your subheadings act like headlines for the content that follows.
Again, it needs to grab their attention while they are scanning through the content and get them to read it.
That\u2019s where the magic is.
So use sub headings wisely and it would be even better if you treat them like headlines.
\nKeep the paragraphs short<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nWhat you are reading is a testimony to this point.
Look at the paragraphs. It might look odd and unconventional, but I have kept the paragraphs short intentionally.
Why you ask?
Mobile. Thats why.
More than 50% of your users are mostly going to be mobile users. You wouldn\u2019t want to give them a wall of text to read.
You might have also noticed that short paragraphs has a certain punch to it.
\nLose the jargon<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThis is another misconception most people carry.
They think using fancy words and complicated sentence structures is going to make them a good writer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might in certain contexts but not when you are writing online content.
Keep it simple.
You don\u2019t have to showcase your expertise in English ( or whatever language you are writing in ).
You are here to solve problems. And as long as you are doing it in a simple yet articulate manner people are going to be happy about it.
Besides, most of your users are going to appreciate you for keeping your writing simple and digestible.
\nUse visual reinforcement<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nI can\u2019t think of a worse cliche than \u201c a picture is worth a thousand words\u201d, because it is.
Spice up your content with images, graphs, infographics and other multimedia to keep it interesting.
You are truly reinforcing what you are trying to say with images.
Also, it serves as extra real estate for your SEO efforts. You can use alt tags, captions and file names to sprinkle your keywords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nUse AIDA<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nAwareness, Interest, Desire, and<\/g> Action. This is the journey your potential customer is going to take. Why restrict it to sales and purely marketing activities?
You can do the same with your content.
You first create an awareness in the reader about the problem and the potential solution. You create interest by telling them about the possible solutions out there. Then you can create a desire for your solution being the best and drive them to take action.
This simple framework which was devised a hundred years good still holds true even to this day.
\nEncourage user generated content<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nI am always game for some controversy. I like ruffling up the feathers.
Simply because it can create massive user generated content.
When you are writing, it helps to be have a strong opinion. Now not everybody is going to agree with you on that opinion.
And that\u2019s a good thing.
People are highly opinionated and would love to bring their side of the story to the table.
This makes your entire page richer with more content and better understand<\/g>ing of your audience too. Mind you, if you don\u2019t back your opinion with solid data, this is going to backfire massively.
I have done that mistake and trust me you wouldn\u2019t want to be there.
<\/span>Ensuring Virality <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIn epidemiology, the study of viruses and spread of diseases, there is a terminology called the K factor.
If the K Factor is 1, then it means there is a steady growth of viruses in a defined population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If it is less than 1 then the virus is on decline.
If it is more than 1, then it is the perfect recipe for a zombie apocalypse.
The world of digital marketing has conveniently borrowed this terminology and gone ahead to give it\u2019s own formula too.
K = I X C <\/em>I = Number of Shares by a reader <\/p>\n\n\n\n
C = % Conversion of that audience into readers.
So if each one you reader shared it to 10 of his friends and 1 of them actually read it then it will be
K = 10 X .1 = 1
Which means your content has a steady growth.
Ideally speaking you should be aiming for more than 1 and it\u2019s a difficult task to achieve but not impossible nevertheless.
There are a few things you can do to achieve the magic k factor of 1 and more.
\nUse emotional triggers<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nHumans are emotional creatures. And that opens us for certain vulnerabilities but at the same time, it is our survival mechanism.
All we need to do is tap into these emotions. If you are successful at it, then you get the best feedback from your reader – trust.
Once they trust you, not only will they return to read, they will also recommend it to others.
There are many types of emotions – awe, anger, lust, joy, surprise, fear and more.
Take your pick and see how you can connect with the emotional reader.
\nPractically useful content<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nAt the end of reading your piece of content, if the reader has a list of action steps he can execute he is always going to appreciate it by sharing it with others.
It becomes a library of concise information required to do a certain task.
If you can get your reader to do and achieve something from your content the reader will always attribute any kind of success to you.
And then the word spreads, fast.
\nTime the content<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nI was watching a very interesting TED talk the other day. It basically said that one of the most crucial factors for any startup to succeed is timing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It might seem unbelievable but it makes sense. You can\u2019t be too late or too early into the market. You have to time it at absolutely the right time.
The same goes with content. If you time it right and ride the wave of trending news stories, you have a higher chance of going viral.
Some people call it newsjacking but I find that term rather intimidating.
Nevertheless, it works like a charm.
\nPositive content tends to go viral<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nAs negative as people might sound, they actually prefer to spread happiness than negativity.
Usually, content with a positive tonality tends to break your analytics.
And why would you not want to keep it positive? It is going to reflect on your entire blog and brand anyway.
You can notch it by wrapping something negative with a positive sentiment and create good content out of it too if you are feeling adventurous.
\nSharing shouldn\u2019t be a task for your users<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThis goes without saying; don\u2019t make them look for your share buttons.
As a general rule, I like to use floating sharing buttons for my desktop version.
And definitely include Whatsapp<\/g> for the mobile version, especially if your audience is mostly Indian. The reach and impact of something going viral on Whatsapp is unparalleled.
\nEnsure your social images are perfect<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nSo you connected with your readers on an emotional level, got them to read the entire thing and got them to share it also. Now what?
If you go back to the k factor formula, you will realize that getting them to share is only one aspect of going viral.
Attracting the network of your initial network of readers is key. There is a good chance that your reader\u2019s network has no clue who you are and what the content is about.
This is why your social images or open graph images ( og image ) needs to be on fleek. It needs to tell your unsuspecting new readers a story. So spend some time designing a good social image for your posts.
And of course, don\u2019t forget the headlines.
\nDon’t put all your eggs in the same basket<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nWhat if you wake up one day to Google penalizing your website?
Even worse, what if search traffic was 100% of your traffic?
That\u2019s a nightmare I wouldn\u2019t wish upon my worst enemy.
This is exactly the reason you should be activating as many channels as possible for promoting your content.
Don\u2019t be at the mercy of these giant companies, diversify as much as possible.
Your traffic profile should have a very healthy balance between search, social, referral, email, social and direct.
Once you achieve this balance, every channel will feed into each other and your blog will become a perpetual traffic machine.
\nUse email to drive traffic to evergreen content<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThe money is in the list. So is traffic.
Slowly start building an email list by giving away something of value to your users.
Once they are in, keep sending them to your evergreen content. This way you are constantly and consistently adding value to your readers.
More importantly, everytime you publish a new article, you have a warmed up audience ready to receive your content in their inbox.
\nUse groups\/forums to drop links<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nForums and groups are ripe with discussions and quite often very chaotic.
Join groups and forums in your industry but don\u2019t start off by marketing your blog or content.
Your first step should always be to add value to the community without promoting yourself or before you expect anything in return.
Once you have done that, slowly start dropping links across these forums and groups.
The amazing thing about this is that these discussions rank very well in google for a lot of terms and drive indirect traffic to your content.
Come to think of it, how about you find out all the forums and groups which are already ranking and drop links there?
Food for thought.
\nComment on other blogs<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nI knew a blogger who only used this drive a steady stream of traffic to his blog. It was quite impressive to be honest.
Not only does commenting on other blogs help you drive traffic, it has many impactful benefits.
It gives you backlinks, helps you dilute your anchor text and most importantly help build relations with other bloggers.
You can use Google alerts to know when your favourite bloggers post fresh content and you can jump in and comment to be in the top.
Go get \u2018em tiger.
\nReuse and repurpose content<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nNow you can\u2019t really post a blog on Youtube, can you?
But if you converted your blog post into a video with a simple PPT and screen grab and put it up on YouTube?
While you are at it, how about you share the PPT on Linkedin and other places?
Have a designer on standby? Probably convert that piece into an infographic?
There are literally hundreds of ways you can repurpose your content and extract every bit of value from it.
But mind you, just because a blog did well, it might not perform as well on other channels and you should be ok with this fact.
<\/span>Plan & Organize Your Content<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nDiscipline is the foundation to achieve anything in life. And discipline comes from planning and organizing.
But don\u2019t be too hard on yourself. Not everyone is and can be always disciplined.
Look at me! Guilty as charged.
But you need to have just enough discipline to make an activity into a habit. Once the habit is formed, it will become like second nature to you. The effort you need to achieve the same task dramatically reduces.
Content marketing is no different. Let\u2019s see how you can unclutter your efforts and aim for that million session mark.
\nUse an editorial calendar<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nAs fancy as it may sound, it need not be. A simple editorial calendar with which posts go when is more than enough.
The objective here is create a sense of deadline and accountability for yourself. If your editorial calendar does this, you have won half the battle.
You might want to consider time between the first draft and when you hit the publish button.
Sometimes it really helps to sleep over your content and maybe get a fresh new perspective to your content.
So give some space for a couple of drafts and get everything around your content ready and let the world see it.
\nTake into account content promotion<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nYou need to spend 4X time and effort into promoting your content so don\u2019t forget about it.
Allocate a timeframe for promotions and what kind of promotions to do when on which channels.
\nAllocate the right resources<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nThis will only come into picture<\/g> if you decide to outsource your content creation and promotion. Not all writers are equal.
Some are better at certain topics than others. It\u2019s just the way it is.
It is your job to identify who is good at what kind of content and outsource it to the right kind of writers.
Not that writers aren\u2019t capable of writing about things beyond their scope, it just won\u2019t seem natural.
And trust me your readers will smell it from a mile.
\nUse data to write better content<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nOpen your analytics and look for the type and kind of content that has worked for you.
This doesn\u2019t mean only sessions. When I say work for you, I literally mean it.
It can be anything from leads, to backlinks, to sales and more.
Once you have baseline data, use it to benchmark it against all your future blog posts.
This will help your content truly resonate with your audience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nKeep experimenting <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n\u201cThrow a bunch of shit up in the air and see what sticks and what stinks\u201d
Pardon my French, but I can\u2019t think of any other statement which encapsulates what I am trying to tell than this.
This can easily be considered as a blanket rule across marketing too because assumptions take you only so far.
The only way to know what works is to try and fail and keep repeating until you hit the sweet spot.
\nWatch out for your competitors<\/strong> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\nOne of the CEOs of the startups I used to work for always used to tell this: \u201cWithout our competitors we are nothing. Who else will make our mistakes?\u201d
Makes sense doesn\u2019t it?
Your competitors is a huge source of insights and information about your audience and the kind of content they want to consume.
There are plenty of tools out there but Ahrefs would be a good start for you to spy on your competitors content performance.
Reverse engineer all your competitors content and they won\u2019t even know what hit them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>Conclusion<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\nIs this all it takes to get to a million sessions?
Sorry to break your bubble, but no. I am always be criticised for being too much of a realists but it is what it is.
You will need to do this consistently over a long period of time to achieve results<\/g> like this. But you don\u2019t have to get a million sessions every month. Maybe all you need is 10,000 or maybe it\u2019s just a thousand.
You can either leverage time or money. I would suggest you leverage time as much as possible.
Eventually, along the way, you will find the nuances of making your content marketing a success.
These are generalized ways to make your content marketing.
This is me helping you to go from 0 to 1
The journey from 1 – 100 is going to be all yours to own and revel in the success that comes with it.
When are you going to start your journey? Let me know in the comments.
\u201cOPEN YOUR ANALYTICS!!\u201d, she yelled even before I had opened my laptop. Not exactly the kind of greeting I was hoping on a Monday, but I bought it. \u201cThere are 6173 real-time visitors on the blog right now!\u201d, she was still jumping. I had never seen a number like that in real time analytics in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1000014,"featured_media":1000442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"default","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/15.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1000014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1003416,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/1003416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1000442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanjayshenoy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}