Content marketing is a form of marketing where companies focus on creating and distributing different content types (like blog posts, articles, and videos) to achieve different goals, which could range from attracting new customers to retaining existing ones.

When companies incorporate content marketing into their marketing strategies, they start to see that it offers many benefits. One is the fact that people are more likely to trust a brand that can provide tons of quality information about the service they provide as opposed to companies who don’t have any resources that show they understand the industry they are in.

Another benefit of content marketing is that it helps companies boost conversion rates. Statistics have shown that 61% of online consumers in the United States made a purchase after reading recommendations from a blog post. This tells us that creating a content marketing strategy is a way to increase conversions and gain more leads for your business. Content marketing also provides an opportunity for companies to boost your SEO rankings, which will make your site more visible on search engines.

Coming up with new content marketing ideas can get increasingly difficult over time, though. So, here, I’m going to provide you with my tips for brainstorming new concepts.

Focus on shareability

When coming up with ideas for your content marketing, you should remember the importance of creating content others will want to share with their own audiences.

There are many benefits to making sure that you have shareable content. Let’s take a look at some of them:

• When you place emphasis on making your content shareable, you make it easier for other sites and bloggers to link back to your website when creating content of their own.
• By creating content that can easily be shared across different platforms, you help raise awareness for your brand and increase the probability of fresh eyes seeing your content.
• Another benefit of creating shareable content is that it can help you reach the right audience or put you in view of people you might not have been able to reach with your website alone.

There are specific types of content that tend to be more shareable. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Infographics

Infographics are a type of visual content used to represent data or information in a clear and concise way. Using infographics doesn’t have to be complicated as there are tools that make it easy to create engaging and visually pleasing infographics, such as Venngage’s infographic maker.

When choosing types of shareable content you’re going to create, you should consider infographics because their very nature makes it easy for people to share them on social media platforms or other websites.

An example of sharable content is this infographic from Incapsula, a web security company that helps make websites safer and more reliable. This infographic is very relevant to their niche and provides plenty of helpful information.

This type of content is very shareable and can be referenced by other websites. Try to create infographics that pass a clear message and that can easily be added to content on other websites besides your own.

Interactive content

Interactive content includes quizzes, calculators, or anything else that allows users to engage actively with your website rather than passively scrolling through it. We will be discussing more on this later on.

Free tools

Free tools are another type of content that others can easily share. There are many types of free tools out there, ranging from invoice templates to survey forms that can be used by anyone and everyone who lands on a website.

An example of a free but valuable tool is the free invoice templates from FreshBooks, a company which provides accounting and invoicing solutions for small businesses.

They have made an invoice template that is available to anyone who needs it. This type of tool comes in handy for business owners and is something that will most likely get shared by different sites seeing as it provides a lot of value.

How-to guides

People are searching the internet daily looking for more information on how to do things. Creating how-to guides is a great way to take advantage of that, and it increases the possibility of people sharing your content when they want to refer to a comprehensive guide on a particular topic.

Use keyword research for inspiration

Keyword research can help provide you with content marketing ideas that you can use for your website. Keyword research involves finding relevant search terms and queries that people enter into search engines.

When conducting keyword research, you can use a keyword research tool to search for terms that are relevant to your business and select the ones with high search volumes. For example, let’s say you searched for the term “accounting tool” with WordStream’s free keyword tool.

It has brought up various phrases that have good search volumes — this is the number of searches that a keyword receives per month. Using commonly searched terms for inspiration will ensure that you create content on topics relevant to your ideal audience.

Creating content inspired by keyword research can be particularly helpful for SEO because you already know that people are searching for this content. When creating your blog posts, videos, or guides, make sure that you include your chosen target keywords in the title, subheadings, and throughout the body copy to give them the best chance of ranking well for relevant queries.

Answer common questions with your content

If you find that your customers usually have common questions, you could create content to answer them. But, to do this, you have to find the questions that they are asking. Here are some tactics you can use to identify them.

Keyword research

As I’ve already covered, keyword research can help you to discover what questions people are asking about specific subjects. Most search terms are short forms of questions that people are actually looking for answers to.

By listening to customer queries

If you have customers who always ask questions, pay attention to them and use those questions to create blog posts or other content to answer those queries. Chances are, other prospective customers have the same questions or concerns.

By paying attention to customer reviews

Try to look through your customer reviews, identify the common issues or concerns customers have, and create content to address these problems. It will help to improve your reviews going forward and will give your customers a better shopping experience.

Let’s take a look at some examples of businesses that do a great job of answering common questions with their website content.

The first example comes from a company called Utires. They have created an informative piece that answers the question of how often people should get their tires rotated and balanced. This post is effective from the beginning, as the title is in the form of a question that many people will be typing into search engines. This gives the website a better chance of ranking for this and related queries, which makes it easier for the company to reach their target audience.

The content is also comprehensive, informative, and provides a lot of value for readers.

Another example is a guide to Inspection Contingencies from The RealFX Group, a real estate company that sells houses to people in Austin and its surrounding areas.

This guide talks about Inspection Contingencies, which is a hot topic for many people looking to buy a home. The title of this post hits the nail directly on the head and is no doubt a question that is on the mind of a lot of this company’s prospective clients.

The RealFX Group is a good example of a company that takes note of the information customers are looking for. Creating this type of content is part of a good marketing strategy as it would make them more visible to their target audience who are searching for this kind of information on search engines.

 

And we also have a blog post from Ahrefs, a company that provides businesses with various digital marketing tools for keyword research, backlink analysis and other content marketing endeavours.

They have created a post on how to use Google Keyword Planner, a question that most

businesses owners will have once they delve into the world of paid ads. Google Keyword Planner is a tool that provides business owners with information about what search terms people are typing into the search engine. While it’s a very useful platform, it can appear quite complicated to someone who’s never used it before. So, Ahrefs has provided a guide that will help attract its target audience and also position the company as an expert in its field.

Consider repurposing your existing content

Certain content topics will work well in a number of formats. So, if you’re struggling for ideas, consider repurposing a piece you’ve already created. This could involve turning a blog post into a video, creating an infographic from a survey, or basing a podcast episode on a case study.

Here are some tips for successfully repurposing your content.

Adjust according to the format

When repurposing content, it is not enough for you to simply copy and paste information from one form to the other. For example, you can’t just copy the information from a case study into an infographic. You need to adjust the content and summarize the information for it to look good when presented in a visual way.

Add more value

When repurposing content, try to focus on adding more value for your audience. If you had created a blog post and are now looking to repurpose that into a video, try to do some research and see what information you can include to add more value for your audience.

Keep distributing your content

The good thing about repurposing content that is evergreen is the opportunity to distribute your content in new formats over time. In doing this, you increase your content’s chances of reaching fresh eyes and being visible to a new audience.

If you are skeptical about repurposing content because you think it’s the same as duplicating it, there’s no need to worry. Google has confirmed that presenting the same content in different formats won’t count as duplicate content and won’t hurt your SEO efforts.

Create interactive content that will attract your ideal customers

Interactive content is especially engaging, so it’s worth creating and publishing on your website where appropriate.

Interactive content can take many forms, and these include calculators, virtual try-on features, quizzes, games, and interactive maps that allow users to actively engage with your website.

When deciding what type of interactive content to create, try to focus on what will appeal to your ideal audience. For example, if your company is in the accounting industry, it would make sense to create something like a simple tax calculator that helps people predict their end-of-year tax.

Speaking of companies with interactive content, check out the online hearing test created by Helix Hearing Care that helps users determine if they are hard of hearing.

This free interactive content works well for this company because it is in line with the services they offer, and it is engaging enough to keep people on their website for a longer time. It also shows off their expertise and helps them build more trust with existing customers and those who are thinking of using their services.

Another example comes from Looka, a company that helps other business owners create free logos in a matter of seconds. They have created interactive content in the form of a quiz that asks different questions concerning a user and their business to create that perfect logo.

The tool uses very engaging questions and a variety of logo options to show customers what kind of logo would fit them best. This is an example of an interactive element that provides value for people looking for a logo or logo inspiration and is something that will attract people to their website

Here’s another example of interactive content from Clinique, a make-up and beauty brand. They have created a foundation finder that asks people questions about their skin color, ideal coverage, foundation form, and skin goals.

This feature is very interactive and is something that most users of this brand will appreciate. Plus, it is definitely engaging enough to help attract the brand’s target audience.

Summary

Content marketing is important for many reasons, but mainly because it offers a way for you to show off your expertise and attract the right people to your website.

As you create a content marketing strategy, make sure to focus on making shareable content, answering common questions your customers have, and creating interactive content that will attract and engage your ideal audience.

If you would like to learn more about optimizing your website and marketing your business, check out more of The Design Inspiration’s article and guides.

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Author bio & headshot:

Aaron Haynes is the CEO of Loganix, an SEO fulfillment partner that supports marketing agencies and professionals. The company specializes in helping businesses to improve their online visibility and ultimately make more sales. The Loganix blog has a lot more information and advice, so make sure you check it out if you found this article helpful.