Content Gap Analysis: What is it and How to do it?

As a long-term digital marketing strategy, content marketing helps businesses drive lead generation and conversion activities through the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and consistent content. However, a business can boost digital marketing campaigns only by creating and publishing content that potential and existing customers are seeking out on the web.

What is Content Gap Analysis?

Digital marketers use content gap analysis as a strategic method to identify the gap between the content published by an organization and the content desired by the audience. In addition to identifying new keyword opportunities, content gap analysis focuses on mapping digital content to various stages in a buyer’s journey – awareness, consideration, and decision.

According to SpyFu.com, “Content gap analysis is the process of anticipating what content your audience needs, determining how well your own content currently meets those needs and then working to fill in any gaps that exist between those two realities.

While analyzing the content gap, digital marketers evaluate the performance of a variety of existing content – web pages, landing pages, articles, blogs, ebooks, and social media posts. Also, they bridge the gap by creating fresh content as well as optimizing existing content. Digital marketers identify and analyze content gaps using multiple techniques:

How Do Digital Marketers Conduct Content Gap Analysis?

While conducting content gap analysis, digital marketers focus on evaluating the freshness, readability, understandability, thoroughness, and impressiveness of the content. However, they evaluate and analyze the existing content through a series of steps.

6 Important Steps in In-Depth Content Gap Analysis

1. Define the Target Audience Precisely

Digital marketers conduct a content gap analysis to achieve a variety of goals – increasing website traffic, generating more leads, or boosting the website’s search visibility. They must clearly define the objectives to boost digital marketing strategies by identifying the content gap accurately. Also, they need to define the target audience precisely to understand the customer’s lifecycle.

Digital marketers often define target audiences using existing buyer personas. As a semi-fictional representation of ideal customers, buyer personas depict important aspects of the target audience – interests, needs, behavior, pain points, challenges, and demographics. Digital marketers can define the target audience precisely by mapping out buyer personas.

2. Map the Buyer’s Journey

Most organizations these days generate and nurture leads by aligning digital content to three important stages in a buyer’s journey. They publish content to provide relevant information to the customer during the awareness, consideration, and decision stages. For instance, they influence the lead during the awareness stage through the awareness stage using informative blogs, ebooks, emails, and social media posts.

However, they share product reviews, pricing information, comparison guides, and demonstrations to influence the lead during the decision stage. That is why; digital marketers need to map out the buyer’s journey clearly, after defining the goals and target audience. The mapping will help them to understand the content desired by a lead at each stage in their buyer’s journey while conducting content gap analysis.

3. Conduct Market Research

Digital marketers identify the content desired by the target audience by conducting market research. While conducting market research, they gather feedback and suggestions from industry experts as well as existing and potential customers. They interview some of these industry experts and customers directly while gathering feedback from others by conducting online surveys.

Digital marketers can understand needs and expectations only by gathering information from leads at various stages in the buyer’s journey. They divide the customers and leads into various segments according to their current position on the buyer’s journey. Also, they frame and align the interview questions to each segment of customers.

The information collected helps digital marketers understand how the target audience searches for information, what kind of digital content they prefer, and what information they need. Digital marketers leverage the information to assess the content published by the organization as well as get fresh content ideas.

4. Analyze Existing Content

Digital marketers evaluate the performance of existing or published digital content by conducting content audits regularly. They can make content audit an important step in content gap analysis to identify the content gap. Digital marketers often start content audits by evaluating and comparing the performance of website content.

However, they must map the website content to the buyer’s journey to evaluate their performance accurately. They can evaluate the performance of each piece of content using multiple KPIs – search engine position, monthly traffic, click-through rate, and the number of leads generated.

Based on the content audit results, the website content can be divided into three broad categories – keep, remove, and optimize. They must keep the high-performing content and remove the low-quality or outdated content. At the same time, they must focus on bridging the content gap by updating, revising, or optimizing the average-performing content. 

5. Analyze Competitor Content

After analyzing and categorizing the content published by the business, digital marketers need to analyze the content created and published by competitors. The analysis will help them identify opportunities to outperform competitors by publishing better content. Also, the results will help them to understand what type of content competitors publish and how they move leads to the next stage in the buyer’s journey.

While conducting competitor content analysis, digital marketers often evaluate the performance of content appearing at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs). They further evaluate the content’s search performance using both topic and keywords as key metrics. Also, digital marketers use a slew of keyword research tools to find and evaluate content based on keywords relevant to the business.

6. Bridge the Content Gap

Finally, digital marketers bridge the content gap by revamping the existing digital marketing strategies. They share the content gap analysis results through various stakeholders in various forms – documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. In addition to highlighting the performance of different types of digital content published by the business, the results suggest opportunities to boost content performance.

Conclusion

As a multistep process, content gap analysis focuses on strengthening digital marketing campaigns through the creation and distribution of content desired by the target audience. Digital marketers can conduct content gap analysis using a variety of techniques. However, they must bridge the content gap early to meet the needs and expectations of the target audience and influence their purchase decisions.

Google and Bing update their search algorithms frequently to deliver the most relevant information to the searchers. They do not use content length as a key metric while ranking blogs and articles. However, several studies suggest that long-form content appears higher on search engine results pages (SERPs) than short-form content. Also, the longer pieces of content often dominate the first search engine result page. So, site owners and bloggers often wonder what is the ideal content length for their blog posts.

Backlinko recently analyzed 11.8 million Google search results to identify the factors responsible for making an article or blog appear on the first search engine results pages.

According to the analysis made by Backlinko,

The average word count of a Google top 10 result is 1,447 words. However, despite the fact that long-form content tends to be best for link building, we found no direct relationship between word count and rankings.

Backlinko suggests that longer content appears higher than shorter content on SERPs due to their ability to accumulate more backlinks. However, you do not write articles and blogs only for search engines. In addition to diverting organic traffic to the blog from search engines, you need to ensure that the content is read by real searchers and website visitors.

Medium recently evaluated the content posted to identify what post length captures the maximum attention and reading time.

According to Medium,

7-minute posts capture the most total reading time on average.

The average reading time declines when the reading time for a blog post increases by 7 minutes.

However, the online publishing platform adds that

great posts perform well regardless of length, and bad posts certainly don’t get better when you stretch them out.

Hence, the content length does not impact a blog post’s search engine ranking and reader engagement directly. While deciding the ideal content length for your blog, you must keep in mind some important factors.

Content Length for SEO: What Should You Keep in Mind While Determining Ideal Content Length for Your Blog?

Word Count is Not a Ranking Factor

While indexing and ranking websites, search engines do not use content length or word count as a metric. In 2019, John Muller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, confirmed the same while responding to a question on how to find word count in SERP on Reditt.com.

According to John Muller,

Word count is not a ranking factor. Save yourself the trouble.

Backlinks are more important than Word Count

According to the analysis made by Backlinko,

Pages with lots of backlinks rank above pages that don’t have as many backlinks. In fact, the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10.

While writing an article and blog, you can easily boost its search engine performance by getting backlinks from multiple sites. Backlinko draws the conclusion that longer content rank higher than shorter content on SERPs as they create more link building opportunities for writers.

Search Engines Prefer Comprehensive Content

The analysis made by Backlinko further suggests that search engines prefer comprehensive and well-researched content.

According to Backlinko,

Many SEO experts claim that comprehensive content performs best in Google. Put another way: content that covers an entire topic on a single page may have a direct or indirect relationship with rankings.

The search engines rank comprehensive content higher to meet all needs of or answer all questions of the searchers. While writing a blog, you must focus on writing in-depth and well-researched content instead of focusing on increasing the word count.

Post Length Impacts Average Reading Time

While writing a fresh blog post, you need to target both search engines and human readers. You cannot achieve the marketing goals without keeping the searchers engaged and persuading them to read the content. As mentioned earlier, the analysis made by Medium suggests that a blog or article cannot capture the attention of readers when the average reading time exceeds 7 minutes.

While writing a blog post, you need to ensure that a reader can read the content in less than 7 minutes. It is always important to review the content elaborately to identify the information that is irrelevant and can be moved. Likewise, you can conduct additional research to add more relevant information to the content.

Focus on Satisfying a User’s Search Query

Search engines prefer content that delivers the most relevant information to the searchers. Google even displays the most relevant information at the top of the SERP in the form of snippets. Before writing a blog, you must focus on identifying the intent of the target audience accurately.

Your content will complement a search query perfectly when it addresses the searcher’s intent.  You should further focus on creating content that meets the expectations of a user during different stages of the user’s intent. However, you must map the content according to your precise business goals while planning the blog.

Boost Content Strength by Incorporating Multimedia Content

You cannot increase a blog post’s search engine visibility simply by increasing the word count. You must remember that images and videos are more effective than textual content in generating quick SEO results. Also, many readers these days collect information by watching videos and infographics.

You can easily write SEO-friendly blogs by complementing the text with images and videos. You can even consider incorporating multimedia that makes the content more interactive. The combination of various types and formats of content will deliver better SEO results by satisfying users’ search queries.  

Conclusion

The search engines do not use word count as a metric for ranking articles and blogs. However, several studies suggest that longer articles and bloggers appear higher on SERPs than shorter content. While writing content, you must focus on keeping the human readers and searchers engaged instead of focusing on expanding the content.  

Also, you must write SEO-friendly content by implementing the latest search engine guidelines. Instead of being obsessed with word counts and ideal content length, you must target both search engines and human readers while creating fresh content. Also, you should implement some of the SEO best practices like implementing an on-page SEO checklist, proper interlinking between the website pages, etc. The quality of the content will help you to get more search engine traffic to the blogs and keep the readers engaged.

Many bloggers describe the content as the new oil. B2B and B2C marketers use the new oil to drive lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead conversions. A survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute suggests that 75% of companies already implemented content marketing strategies.

Also, companies have been increasing their investment in content assets and content marketing tools. Your company or startup can run content marketing campaigns to accomplish a variety of goals – create brand awareness, win customer trust, generate leads, and drive sales conversion.

But you should remember that content marketing has been evolving consistently. Marketers find it challenging to create content catering to various segments of target audiences. Likewise, they have to focus on optimizing the content for both search engines and searchers.

You can overcome major challenges by adopting content marketing best practices and monitoring content marketing trends. At the same time, you can make the strategy accomplish predefined goals only by focusing on 9 content marketing mistakes to avoid.

9 Content Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

  1. Not Understanding the Target Audience

Marketers often ignore the target audiences while selecting topics for content marketing strategies. They primarily focus on search keywords and industry trends. There are many instances when marketers damage brand images by ignoring the target audience.

You can avoid this content marketing mistake by creating realistic reader personas. The reader persona will help you publish relevant content by answering important questions like who will read the content, what information they look for, and how can the content provide the information required by them.

  1. Publishing Only Articles and Blogs

Most content marketing strategies focus on increasing organic traffic by publishing textual content like blogs regularly. But you should remember that readers these days prefer watching videos or listening to podcasts to reading long-form content.

Hence, your content marketing strategy must focus on the distribution and promotion of a variety of digital content – blogs, articles, short articles, checklists, how-to guides, infographics, podcasts, videos, graphics, and social media posts. The multiform content will help you cater to the varying preferences of target audiences.

  1. Ignoring Customer and Marketing Data

Most enterprises these days collect real-time customer data using CRM systems. Likewise, they invest in data analytics to convert website data into actionable insights. However, marketers often forget to plan data-driven content marketing campaigns.

You should remember that data, just like content, is described popularly as the new oil. When you review historical marketing data, it becomes easier for you to understand what did work and what didn’t work. Also, the data will help you increase the ROI by deciding what to publish, when to publish, and where to publish.

  1. Prioritizing Quantity over Quality

Many content marketers still believe that frequent content publication boosts a website’s search visibility. But search engines recommend webmasters publish high-quality content. Hence, no marketer can increase a website’s search engine ranking by publishing content that does not meet Google’s Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT) guidelines.

While making content marketing strategies, you should focus on publishing multiform digital content regularly. But you need to ensure that the content published by your organization is fresh, original, and engaging. Your content writers must improve content engagement by elaborate proofreading and plagiarism checking.

  1. Forgetting to Optimize Existing Content

Content marketing is not only about the regular publication of fresh and appealing content. The outcome of content marketing strategy depends on the creation of evergreen content. No organization can publish evergreen content without optimizing the published content.

In addition to publishing fresh content, you must revisit the older content from time to time. You can even conduct a content audit regularly to identify the published content that can be updated, expanded, or optimized based on fresh data and the latest statistics.

  1. Not Leveraging Content Syndication

Often marketers focus on optimizing and promoting content posted on the business’s official websites. This content marketing mistake makes it challenging for them to expand content reach and visibility. Smarter marketers boost content marketing campaigns by complementing content publication with content syndication.

You can increase content reach and visibility by republishing existing content on third-party websites or online platforms. The republication will help you earn backlinks, generate leads, and create brand awareness. But you can make the most out of content syndication by republishing the right digital content on the right website at the right time.

  1. Not Conducting Content Gap Analysis

While making content marketing strategies, marketers often focus on publishing fresh content frequently. But you cannot boost content marketing strategies without publishing content on topics wanted and preferred by your target audience.

When you conduct content gap analysis regularly, it becomes easier for you to measure the gap between the content published by your company and the content desired by the target audience. The analysis will bridge the content gap by publishing more relevant content.

  1. Ignoring Intelligence Technologies

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have already started transforming content marketing. At present, most content writers save time and effort using AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard.

Likewise, providers have been optimizing content marketing tools using AI and ML algorithms. Hence, you commit a big mistake by ignoring intelligence technologies while planning and automating content marketing. Your content marketing strategy must focus on leveraging AI instead of avoiding them.

  1. Expecting a Quick ROI

Often small businesses and startups invest in content marketing with the aim to increase ROI in a short amount of time. But you should remember that content marketing is one of the long-term digital marketing strategies.

A blog or article published by your business will increase website traffic or boost lead generation after a few months. Hence, you can accomplish short-term marketing goals by complementing content marketing with search engine and social media advertising.

Conclusion

As a tried-and-tested strategy, content marketing helps your business generate, nurture, and convert leads effectively. But you can make the most out of content marketing only by overcoming challenges. You can overcome various challenges by improving the quality of content assets, investing in content marketing tools, and adopting content marketing trends. At the same time, you should not forget these 9 content marketing mistakes to avoid.

Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT have already started transforming content creation and content marketing. Many bloggers and content creators leverage these natural language processing tools to produce a variety of topics without putting in extra time and effort.

They use the tool to produce a rough draft of an article or blog. Also, they share the same content with website owners and publishing platforms after editing and finetuning. Leading search engines like Google believe that webmasters publish auto-generated content with the intention to manipulate a website’s search engine ranking.

Google Search Central advises content creators and publishers to focus on creating original, high-quality, and people-first content instead of generating content using intelligence technologies. Also, it uses machine learning algorithms to detect AI content using signals like grammar, syntax, and text structure.

That is why; you can increase a website’s search engine ranking by posting human-generated content instead of AI content. There are many tools that enable you to detect AI-generated content. We are making it easier for you to optimize content for search engines by discussing some of these AI plagiarism checkers.

10 AI Plagiarism Checkers to Detect and Remove AI-Generated Content

GPTZero

As a classification model, GPTZero helps you know if the content is produced using chatbots. It indicates the percentage of AI-generated content included in an article or blog by showing a score. Makers have trained the AI plagiarism checker using a wide variety of AI-generated and human-created content. Hence, it detects the content generated using many popular chatbots accurately. Makers have been increasing the accuracy by submitting more text to GPTZero.

GPTRadar

GPTRadar detects AI-generated content using OpenAI GPT-3. OpenAI GPT-3 is defined as an autoregressive model with the capability to produce human-like text. Hence, you can use the plagiarism checker to identify content generated using ChatGPT accurately. However, GPTRadar produces more reliable results when the length of the content exceeds 400 words. You can use the online tool based on the pay-as-you-go pricing model.

CopyLeaks

CopyLeaks provides three distinct digital products – Plagiarism Detector, AI Content Detector, and AI Grader. As the names suggest, you can use AI Content Detector to check if the content is human-written or AI-generated. Likewise, you can use Plagiarism Detector to check if a piece of content is original or not using AI algorithms. At the same time, AI Grader helps educators assign grades to students quickly by evaluating thousands of tests at once.

Winston AI

The premium online tool helps content creators and web publishers if the content is generated by a human or a chatbot. Winston AI can check textual content as well as content extracted from images and scanned documents. It displays a score that makes you understand what percentage of content is human-written and what percentage of content is AI-generated. Also, Winston AI makes it easier for you to organize and categorize documents by adding labels.

Writer AI Content Detector

Writer helps users produce AI content that appears like being written by humans. In addition to facilitating AI content generation, Writer helps users detect and refine AI-generated content. You can use Writer AI Content Detector to check if any content appears to be generated by chatbots. The free tool enables you to detect AI content by pasting up to 1500 characters. But you can access the AI plagiarism checker as an API while using Writer App.

Writefull GPT Detector

The online tool launched by Writefull enables you to detect if the content is generated using ChatGPT, GPT-3, or GPT-4. You check AI plagiarism simply by pasting content in a textbox. It will show a score depicting the probability of the piece of content generated using any chatbot launched by OpenAI. However, Writefull is yet to update the GPT Detector to check the authenticity of the content generated by other chatbots.

Crossplag AI Content Detector

The premium AI plagiarism checker enables you to know if a piece of content is generated by a human or chatbot in seconds. Crossplag AI Content Detector indicates the percentage of human-written and chatbot-generated content in a piece of content in terms of percentages. It allows you to paste the content in a textbox or upload a file in multiple formats. You can consider this tool to detect AI-generated content free of cost.

OpenAI Text Classifier

OpenAI popularized AI content generation by introducing ChatGPT. The company recently made it easier for users to detect AI content by introducing a free tool called AI Text Classifier. You can use AI Text Classifier to distinguish between AI-generated and human-written content in seconds. However, OpenAI mentions that the tool still does not detect AI content with 100% accuracy. Also, it produces more reliable results when the length of the content exceeds 1000 characters or 150 words.

Sapling AI Detector

This AI plagiarism checker was developed by former researchers at Google, Princeton, and Berkley. Sapling AI Detector helps you check if the content is produced using language models like ChatGPT or GPT-3.5. It indicates if the content is original or fake by showing a score. At the same time, it highlights the sentences that look like being generated by chatbots.

AI Writing Check

The free online service is developed with the aim to help educators check if a student has submitted AI-generated content. But content writers and content publishers can leverage AI Writing Check to detect AI content with 80% to 90% accuracy. You can use the free tool to check the originality of only short-form content. Developers request you divide long-form content into individual sections to get a more accurate result.

Conclusion

You can detect AI-generated content using many free and premium online tools. Some of these AI plagiarism checkers detect content produced by ChatGPT and other chatbots developed by OpenAI. At the same time, several tools help you detect content produced using chatbots developed by various companies. Also, they differ from each other in the category of detection accuracy. Hence, you can optimize content for search engines more effectively using more than one AI plagiarism checker.

Content marketing creates opportunities for enterprises to win the trust of existing and prospective customers by establishing authority and showcasing expertise. 70% of B2C marketers and 73% of B2B marketers engage and influence customers by publishing a variety of content – blogs, videos, short articles, and graphics.

Also, both B2B and B2C marketers increase their content marketing budget every year. But intelligence technologies have already started transforming content marketing. You cannot run content marketing campaigns effectively without the automation of routine tasks and activities.

Your team needs content marketing tools to plan, create, optimize, distribute, and promote multiform digital content. At the same time, they need tech solutions to identify the target audience and understand what is working and what is not.
You should combine multiple tech tools to automate and boost content marketing campaigns. We are making it easier for your team to leverage content marketing automation by suggesting some of the best content marketing tools for you.

Shortlisting 17 of the Best Content Marketing Tools for You:

1. Clearscope

While planning content marketing campaigns, you must understand what the target audiences look for. Clearscope uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to help you boost the performance of content. You can leverage this premium tool to gather important information about high-performing content – content structure, content quality, word count, and keywords.
The insights will help content writers increase your website’s organic traffic by creating and optimizing content based on competitor data. You can use the tech tool in multiple forms, including the WordPress plugin and Google Docs add-on. You can assess the importance of this content marketing tool from the fact that it is currently used by companies like YouTube.

2. Planable

Content marketing has become one of the collaborative activities. You must facilitate seamless communication and collaboration between various members of the content marketing team to streamline multichannel content creation, review, and publication. Planable makes it easier for your team to speed up content review and approval.
Your team can use this project management tool to speed up the publication of a variety of digital content – blogs, newsletters, emails, and social media posts. You can save time by setting a custom approval workflow for each content or project. Also, you can streamline content distribution using the visual content calendar and content planner provided by Planable.

3. Grammarly

Search engines do not consider spelling and grammatical errors while ranking content. But they recommend webmasters publish only high-quality content. Writers cannot improve the quality of content without identifying and fixing spelling and grammatical errors.
Grammarly helps writers proofread and refine content using AI technology. The real-time suggestions made by the tool make it easier for writers to improve content readability by fixing spelling and grammatical errors, shortening sentences, and replacing confusing terms. Your writers can access Grammarly as a desktop application or a mobile app.

4. Copyscape

Several marketing blogs suggest that search engines do not penalize websites for publishing duplicate content. But you cannot meet Google’s expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness (E-A-T) when your content marketing strategy does not focus on the publication of original and fresh content.
Your content writers can use Copyscape to compare the fresh content with existing online content word by word. Hence, it becomes easier for them to produce original content by eliminating issues of content plagiarism or theft. Your team can use the premium version of Copyscape to check content originality before publication.

5. ChatGPT

ChatGPT is one of the massively popular and hugely-controversial tools in the content marketing world. Some analysts believe that the AI-driven chatbot has the potential to automate content writing end-to-end. At the same time, many bloggers have highlighted the flaws and inaccuracies in the content produced by ChatGPT.
Organizations find it challenging to prevent content creators from using this large language model. But you should encourage your team to leverage ChatGPT to reduce the time and effort required for content research and planning. Also, you need to ensure that no writer uses AI-generated content directly for content marketing purposes.

Here is our detailed guide to using ChatGPT for content marketing.

6. Canva

Your content marketing strategy cannot keep the target audience engaged without complementing textual content with appealing graphics. Your team can use Canva to create and customize graphics without being prior graphic designing experience. They can use this online design tool to produce professional-grade graphics with a wide range of images, templates, and visual content.
The graphics created using Canva can be evaluated and shared by various members of the content marketing team effortlessly. Also, the graphics can be published and shared without any restrictions. You can simplify graphic design using three distinct editions of Canva – free, pro, and team.

7. Venngage

Infographics boost content marketing strategies by adding a visual element to informative content. It is also one form of digital content that your target audience likes and shares regularly on social networking platforms. Venngage helps your team convert data-driven content into infographics in a short amount of time.
It allows content creators to access a robust library consisting of over 10000 templates, 3 million stock images, and 40000 icons. Hence, your team can use Canva to create infographics by adding the required visual elements to content and data. Also, the drag-and-drop editor provided by the software helps them produce infographics, charts, and presentations in minutes.

8. Vidyard

The premium video marketing platform helps your team host videos, use them for marketing purposes, and track their performance. You can leverage Vidyard to build and nurture customer relationships by recording personal messages. You can host these video clips in a centralized location after recording and editing.
Also, you can share them with the target audience by embedding video clips in emails, social networks, and CRM software. Canva helps to measure and track the performance of individual videos using data analytics. You also have the option to share the best version of a video by conducting A/B testing.

9. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is one of the content marketing tools that do not require an elaborate introduction. The widely-used graphic editor makes it easier for your team to create a variety of visual content – logos, social media graphics, blog covers, and screenshot-based tutorials. Also, your content marketers can design and edit graphics on the go using their mobile devices.
Once content marketers become proficient in Photoshop, they can create a wide variety of graphics without using pre-built templates or layouts. You can leverage the free edition of Photoshop to edit photos, change alignments, adjust colors, and remove unwanted parts. But you have to upgrade to the software’s premium edition to access over 160 million royalty-free photos.

10. Lumen5

Internet users these days spend more digital time on visual content than textual content. Content marketers leverage the surge in online video consumption by converting and repurposing blogs, whitepapers, case studies, and similar textual content. Lumen5 enables content marketers to convert blogs into videos using AI and machine learning technologies.
While using Lumen5, a content marketer can generate videos in two distinct ways – pasting the URL of the blog post or pasting the textual content into an editor. In addition to summarizing the blog post, Lumen5 add stock footage matching the scene. Your team can access the video content creation tool based on monthly or yearly pricing plans.

11. Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO is the most popular search engine optimization (SEO) plugin for WordPress. The features and tools provided by the tool help content marketers divert traffic to a website from search engines and social media. Yoast SEO helps your team optimize content for search engines based on relevant keywords and their synonyms.
Also, your team can use the tools provided by the WordPress plugin to boost a website’s search performance by creating internal links, adding structured data, and fixing 404 errors. Yoast is one of the SEO tools that take care of technical SEO activities. Also, it enables users to review Google and social preview before posting content.

12. Zoho Social

Internet users spend most of their digital time on social media. But the choice of the social network varies across internet users. Your content marketing strategy can boost lead generation and sales conversion only by posting content on multiple social networks. Zoho Social helps your team post content on several popular social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest.
Content marketers can use Zoho Social to schedule a large number of posts across social networks. Also, they can use the dashboard provided by the software to keep the target audience engaged by responding to their comments. Zoho Social makes it easier for your team to understand how the target audiences interact with your posts using analytics.

13. Trello

Trello is not developed as a content marketing tool. But the teamwork project management tool is used widely by enterprises to organize content marketing campaigns. Members of your content marketing team can use Trello to capture ideas, plans, and tasks. They can prepare to-do lists to track important content marketing activities.
Trello makes it easier for them to track content marketing activities using lists, cards, and boards. At the same time, Trello helps them automate repetitive tasks like changing project status, assigning tasks, and sending emails using a native automation tool. Individual members of your team can use the free edition of Trello as an easy-to-use project management tool.

14. ClickFunnels

ClickFunnels is a cloud-based lead generation platform. It is developed with features to help marketers visualize and customize a customer’s journey. Your team can use pre-build sales funnel templates to convert a website visitor into a customer by guiding him step-by-step through the buyer’s journey.
Your team can leverage these features to build websites, blog sites, and landing pages. The drag-and-drop editor provided by the software enables them to create digital resources without writing lengthy code. Also, they can choose the best version of a web page or landing page by conducting A/B testing. ClickFunnels use analytics to help marketers understand what is working and what is not.

15. Google Optimize

Content marketers use this free tool provided by Google to keep website visitors engaged by optimizing and personalizing their experiences. Google Optimize helps them compare different website experiences by conducting A/B testing, multivariate testing, and split URL testing.
It combines statistics and analytics to help users understand what version of website content keeps visitors engaged based on real-time data. Marketers can use Google Optimize to run multiple tests on website content in a short amount of time. Also, they can decide the actions required to boost the website’s user experience by reviewing the elaborate test results reports produced by the software.

16. Semrush

Semrush is developed as an all-in-one content marketing platform. Your team can use plan, create, and optimize content. Also, they can boost the performance of content marketing campaigns by measuring the performance of their own and competitors’ content.
While planning content marketing campaigns, your team can use the software to perform content gap analysis, identify relevant topics, and find popular audience questions. Content creators can leverage the information to produce relevant and original content for the target audience.
At the same time, Semrush helps them optimize the content for search engines by refining metadata and finding external link-building opportunities. The content creators can further use the actionable insights provided by the software to optimize the content based on the performance of external content.

17. Google Analytics

The popular web analytics service helps enterprises run data-driven content marketing campaigns. Marketers can use Google Analytics to understand what type of content is more effective in achieving preset goals based on real-time website data. The data-driven insights provided by the software help them understand who is visiting a website and what type of content they prefer.
The insights help content creators to produce relevant content tailored according to the preferences and expectations of website visitors. At the same time, marketers can use Google Analytics to measure content performance using important metrics like page views, bounce rate, keyword ranking, and organic click-through rates.

Conclusion

Intelligence technologies have been changing the way content marketing strategies are planned and executed. Providers have been upgrading the best content marketing tools for you using artificial intelligence and data analytics.
Hence, you should prioritize the content marketing tools that help you improve content marketing strategies by leveraging real-time data and emerging trends. However, your automation strategy must focus on choosing and combining the right content marketing tools for you.

Individual content creators can earn between $300 and $400 per month by publishing blogs. Likewise, enterprises publish blogs to accomplish multiple marketing goals – increase website traffic, drive lead generation, strengthen brand positioning, and boost sales conversion.

But no individual or enterprise can accomplish preset goals only by publishing blog posts regularly. In addition to publishing fresh content regularly, they have to focus extensively on improving content engagement. They have to monitor what percentage of readers interact with your blog and how they interact with the published content.

Also, they have to measure content engagement using commonly-used metrics like subscriptions, likes, comments, and shares. You can get better results by making content engagement strategies an integral component of content marketing strategies. Here are some content engagement strategies that you should implement to make your blog popular by achieving a high content engagement rate.

11 Proven Content Engagement Strategies to Grow Your Blog’s Audience

1. Know Your Target Audience

You cannot increase content engagement rates without understanding the blog’s target audience. You can start analyzing the target audience based on their demographics. Also, you can use the buyer personas created based on real-time data to know the needs, interests, pain points, and content consumption habits of the target audience. The understanding will help you divide target audiences into small and special groups. You can write blog posts by focusing on individual segments or groups.

2. Focus on Answering Their Questions

After analyzing the target audience, you need to explore ways to create content that is relevant and useful for them. You can increase content engagement rates by publishing blogs that answer the questions asked by them and solve problems faced by them.
Likewise, you can educate the target audience by writing blogs on emerging industry trends, relevant search keywords, and popular social media hashtags. The target audiences will return to your blog when you provide comprehensive and in-depth information on relevant topics.

3. Set Content Publishing Frequency

You can increase website traffic and content engagement rate simultaneously by posting quality blog posts regularly. Popular bloggers increase content engagement rate by publishing new blog posts at a gap of two weeks. Your content engagement strategies must focus on setting publishing frequency initially. You can make readers come back by posting blog posts according to the publishing frequency.

4. Experiment with Different Content Formats

The average time spent by internet users with online video has been increasing year by year. Likewise, many internet users these days prefer listening to podcasts to reading blogs. Hence, you can increase content engagement rates only by experimenting with multiple content formats, including ebooks, webinars, podcasts, infographics, and case studies. The multiple forms of content will make your blog appear fresh and keep the target audiences engaged.

5. Keep Headlines Catchy

Before reading a blog post, every reader sees its headline. Many readers do not read the blog post if they do not find the headline catchy and engaging. While selecting topics, you should craft unique, clear, and concise headlines. At the same time, you need to ensure that the headline communicates the nature of the content without any ambiguities. It is also advisable to craft multiple headlines for a single blog and choose the most engaging one by performing A/B testing.

6. Include Real-Time Data and Statistics

Modern readers expect bloggers to support claims with facts and figures. You can make your blogs more convincing and credible by supporting information with the latest statistics and real-time data. Popular bloggers engage include the latest statistics in their blogs to highlight the significance of a topic or the relevance of a strategy. Hence, you should support claims with real-time data to keep the content relatable and engaging.

7. Interact with Readers through Comments

Often enterprises disable the comment section in a blog to avoid negative comments and reviews. But popular bloggers increase content engagement rates by leveraging the comment section. They keep readers engaged by responding to their comments and reviews. Smarter bloggers even boost credibility by handling negative comments strategically and proactively.

8. Enables Your Target Audience to Listen

The rising popularity of podcasts suggests that younger audiences prefer listening to long-form content instead of reading. You can keep the new-generation readers engaged by creating opportunities for them to listen to your blogs on the go. In addition to optimizing your blog for mobile devices, you should embed speech-to-text tools. The tool will enable readers to listen to your blog post just like podcasts and audiobooks.

9. Consider Giving Incentives and Rewards

Many B2C companies these days increase content engagement rates by giving incentives or rewards to the target audience. They incentive readers to share the content, post a review, or participate in a survey. They usually provide incentives in the form of discounts or coupons. Hence, the target audiences popularize a blog with the intention to buy the product or service at discounted rates.

10. Measure and Track Content Engagement Rate

You can increase content engagement rate only by understanding if your blog posts are keeping readers engaged or not. Marketers measure content engagement rate using a slew of metrics, including average time on page, bounce rate, page views, email signups, site visitors, social shares, impressions, comments, and average season duration. You can track these important metrics regularly using web analytics solutions like Google Analytics.

11. Optimize User Experiences

While making content engagement strategies, you should remember that your blog’s user experience directly impacts content engagement rates. You can boost your blog’s user experience by making it accessible on computers and mobile devices instantly and seamlessly. However, it is also important to monitor your blog’s user experience continuously. The monitoring will help you identify and fix specific issues affecting the website’s user experience.

Conclusion

You can make blogs resonate with the target audience and make them take some kind of action by implementing content engagement strategies. But you must not forget to evaluate these content engagement strategies using the right metrics and real-time marketing data. Regular performance monitoring will help you boost your content engagement rate by taking the right action at the right time.

Popular search engines update their search algorithms frequently. Each search algorithm update aims to provide more relevant and updated information to the searchers. Hence, you can boost organic traffic to your website by focusing on keeping its content relevant and up-to-date. In addition to posting fresh and well-researched content regularly, you must focus on boosting the performance of the existing content on search engine result pages (SERPs).

As a white-hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique, a content audit helps you assess and analyze the performance of the existing content on your website. The content audit result will help you to identify the content that needs to be updated, removed, redirected, or consolidated. You can even improve the search engine visibility of the website by removing the low-performing and underperforming content.

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According to the B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends: Insights for 2022 report,

62% of organizations have documented content marketing strategies, 75% of organizations are expected to increase their content marketing budgets, and 30% of organizations spend more than 49% of their marketing budgets on content marketing.

In 2023, B2B companies and startups will invest in content marketing campaigns to generate leads, drive sales, and promote customer loyalty. Also, they will nurture leads and subscribers by creating, distributing, and promoting a variety of digital content – blog posts, infographics, videos, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, and case studies.

But your B2B company or startup can increase B2B content marketing ROI in 2023 only by understanding what is working and what is not working. Also, you need to track the existing and emerging trends that will shape content marketing in 2023. We are making it easier for you to refine your organization’s content marketing strategy by highlighting some of the major B2B content marketing trends for 2023.

Identifying 17 B2B Content Marketing Trends for 2023 

1. Omnichannel Approach

In 2022, 59% of content marketers consider blogs as the most valuable channel. B2B companies generate, nurture, and convert leads by distributing and promoting digital content through owned, paid, and shared media. They will continue to distribute content through multiple content marketing channels in 2023.

The omnichannel approach will help them reach a wider target audience. But they will focus on keeping the messaging consistent across distribution channels. Also, they will make the multi-format content deliver a reliable experience by focusing on the expectations and interests of prospective and existing customers.

2. Customer-Centric Content

60% of B2B organizations use SEO as a tried-and-tested content marketing strategy. They optimize the content for major search engines like Google and Bing by applying many on-page and off-page SEO techniques. But no business can increase conversion rates only by focusing on search engine optimization.

In addition to boosting the content’s search visibility, marketers have to focus on the needs and expectations of searchers. Content creators will keep readers engaged by creating informative content. Also, they will explore ways to create content that is original and unique.  Hence, SEO strategies in 2023 will focus on both search engines and searchers.

3. Brand Personalization

Leading brands influence customers and prospects by creating unique and personalized experiences. They switch from a mass marketing approach to brand personalization to influence the target audience by delivering relevant offers and messages. In 2023, B2B companies will make their brands stand out from competitors by focusing on brand personalization.

They will collect real-time information from various communication and marketing channels to identify the needs, interests, preferences, and expectations of B2B customers. Marketers will deliver personalized and targeted content to a prospect according to her current position in a buyer’s journey. Also, they will generate more leads and drive sales conversions by offering exclusive perks to each buyer across the sales funnel.

4. Content Remarketing

Remarketing is one of the hottest B2B marketing trends for 2022. B2B companies run remarketing campaigns to influence prospective customers when they access competitor websites. B2B marketers target and reengage website visitors using a variety of content.

Creators have to keep in mind the offering in which the prospect has shown interest. Also, they will personalize the content according to the prospect’s purchase history, purchase intent, and position in the buyer’s journey. B2B companies will continue to create data-driven and customer-driven to persuade website visitors to take the desired action.

5. Influencer Content Marketing     

Influencer marketing will remain one of the important trends in B2B and B2C content marketing. Companies will partner with B2B influencers to create and distribute content that prospects will trust. They will further pay B2B influencers to promote their products or services by writing a blog or posting videos.

However, B2B influence content marketing strategies will help businesses achieve long-term marketing goals. Also, companies will look for B2B influencers whom the target audience reads, follow, watch, and listen to. In 2022, 86% of B2B companies find success with influencer marketing. The number of companies leveraging B2B influencer content marketing will increase in 2023.

6. Sales and Marketing Alignment

In 2022, 49% of B2B companies find it challenging to align content creation, distribution, and promotion across marketing and sales teams. The sales team does not utilize a significant percentage of content created for marketing campaigns. The misalignment makes it difficult for them to create content that influences a prospect in different stages in a buyer’s journey.

In 2023, most companies will focus on integrating content activities across marketing and sales teams. They will make marketing and sales professionals work as a single team. The unification will result in the creation of content that meets the needs of salespeople and marketing professionals. Professionals can share information and suggestions to boost the value of cross-functional content.

7. Interactive Content Experience

Unlike static content, interactive content engages target audiences by focusing on personalization and participation. Consumers these days love content that they can interact and engage with in their own way. In 2023, B2B companies will boost content marketing campaigns by producing a variety of interactive content.

The interactive content will deliver relevant information and desired messages while providing readers or viewers with options. For instance, B2B companies will allow customers to access information by reading an article or watching a video. Also, they will create infographics to make B2B professionals get the information in seconds.

8. Strategic Video Integration

In 2022, 67% of B2B marketers create and upload videos on a weekly or monthly basis. They will continue to create short and long videos in 2020 to convey information to the target audience in a captivating way. But they will explore ways to make the most out of the video assets by focusing on integrating videos into content marketing strategies strategically.

B2B companies will create videos according to predefined strategies. Also, they will mix and match different types of B2B marketing videos according to specific goals. At the same time, creators will focus on making the video clicks deliver additional information in a faster and more captivating way while standing out from the crowd.

9. Data-Driven Stories

B2B companies make customer data collection a continuous process. They analyze data collected from real-time sources to identify the needs, expectations, and pain points of customers. In 2023, many B2B companies will boost content marketing campaigns by humanizing real-time data.

Content creators will leverage the data to understand the real problems faced by a customer. They will create content that highlights the effectiveness of a product/service in solving specific problems. Hence, content creators will humanize data by creating case studies that will promote a brand by connecting with B2B customers emotionally.

10. Industry Expert Positioning 

In 2023, content marketing strategies will focus on projecting brands and entrepreneurs as industry experts. B2B companies will continue to produce content and create ads that help the target audience access the latest industry information, detect emerging industry trends, and finetune their strategies.

Businesses will conduct original research to create content that wins the trust of readers and outperform competitors. Content creators will leverage the original research to create business case studies that summarize real-life business scenarios and help B2B customers solve real-time problems.

11. Shoppable Content

Shoppable content is one of the emerging content marketing trends for 2023. Most B2C companies post shoppable content on various digital platforms to enable readers to purchase the product directly. Shoppable content marketing strategies focus on creating direct shopping opportunities for readers while producing articles, blogs, images, and videos.

Unlike the B2C buying process, the B2B buying process is complex and involves multiple decision-makers. But B2B companies can publish shoppable content to enable buyers to place an order when they are in the last stages of the buying process. However, B2B businesses have to keep the shoppable content personalized and targeted to increase conversion rates.

12. Content Shortening

In 2022, long-form content is more effective than short-form content for B2B companies to increase organic website traffic from search engines. They will continue to create and publish long-form content in 2023 to get more backlinks and social shares. But bit-sized content is currently one of the hottest B2B social media trends for 2023.

B2B companies will publish short-form content to provide the information required by the target audience quickly and exactly. However, they will encourage readers to gather additional information by accessing long-form content. Many companies will repurpose and shorten existing content to leverage the emerging B2B social media trend.

13. No Controversies

B2B companies have been enhancing brand reputation by supporting many social causes. In addition to meeting the needs of target audiences, B2B content marketing strategies these days focus on covering relevant social causes. But there are many instances when brands become controversial by publishing content on controversial or sensitive topics.

In 2023, brands will avoid controversies by publishing content that fosters inclusivity and supports diversity. Content creators will create content on sensitive issues thoughtfully and empathically to create content that makes readers respect the B2B company without hurting their sentiments.

14. AI-Generated Content Humanization

Artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms enable machines to create a variety of content based on specific keywords and key phrases. Many companies already invest in AI content generators to write long-form and short-form B2B marketing content without increasing time and cost. But robotic messaging and lack of creativity often affect the quality of AI-generated content. Hence, they do not leave a long-lasting impact on readers like human-created content.

In 2023, digital marketers will explore ways to humanize AI-generated content. They will deploy content writers to alter and finetune the content created by machines. The writers will use AI-generated content as the first draft of an article or blog. They will replace many lines to engage readers by expressing a brand’s personality and voice.

15. Content Audits

A significant percentage of organizations are yet to make content audits an ongoing process. But a surge is being noted in the number of organizations making content audit an integral part of content marketing strategies. In addition to assessing content quality, content audits help businesses to measure content gaps, facilitate content repurposing, and remove outdated content.

In 2023, many companies will audit the performance of published content to find opportunities to improve and alter. They will measure the performance of various forms of digital content – blogs, infographics, case studies, whitepapers, videos, podcasts, and ebooks – using relevant metrics. Also, many companies simply content performance analysis by investing in content audit tools.

16. Emerging Content Marketing Metrics

In 2023, businesses will measure and track the performance of each B2B content marketing strategy using distinct metrics. For instance, they will track the performance of SEO campaigns using metrics like search engine ranking, overall search traffic, traffic sources, and backlinks. Likewise, they will track the performance of the content on social networks based on the number of likes, shares, comments, and mentions.

But these metrics make it challenging for decision-makers to measure the performance of individual pieces of content and all content distributed. Hence, they will mix and match multiple content marketing strategies to know what is working and what is not. They will focus on combinations of metrics that help them informed decisions by providing actionable insights.

17. Content Marketing Outsourcing

The report published by the Content Management Institute suggests that 75% of large companies outsource content work. Also, the companies outsourcing content marketing are more successful than the companies doing content marketing work in-house.

Hence, companies will continue to outsource content marketing work in 2023. But they will look for partners who have adequate topical expertise and understanding of the target audience. Also, businesses will expect partners to provide strategic advice. 

Conclusion

In 2023, your B2B company or startup can attract, generate, nurture, and convert leads by running omnichannel content marketing campaigns. But you must understand what is working and what is not working to make content marketing strategies achieve preset goals. At the same time, you must keep the strategies relevant and competitive by considering both existing and emerging B2B content marketing trends for 2023.

On-page and off-page SEO techniques help you divert organic traffic to your website or blog site regularly. But you cannot make the website visitors read the website content without increasing the content’s reach. As a multichannel promotional approach, content amplification enhances your content’s reach by distributing digital content through multiple online platforms and channels.

According to Content Marketing Institute,

Content amplification is a multichannel approach that uses paid, owned, and earned media to promote and distribute content. The goal of amplification is to increase your brand’s reach while encouraging your audience to move seamlessly through your sales funnel.

In addition to informing more customers about the content, content amplification helps you reduce bounce rate and increase average session duration. But you cannot promote each piece of digital content on a large number of online platforms and channels without investing in extra resources. The content amplification tools make it easier for you to increase content reach using multiple delivery channels.

You can use Content amplification tools to promote your content using shared media, earned media, owned media, and paid media without escalating digital marketing costs. They create opportunities for you to generate more leads and increase conversion rates by merging the right delivery channels. You also have the option to choose from a wide range of content amplification software solutions according to your content distribution strategies.

9 Content Amplification Tools for Increasing Website Traffic and Content Reach

1. Facebook Ads

2 hours and 24 minutes are the average time users spend on Facebook every day. You can leverage the massive popularity of the social network to increase content reach significantly. Facebook Ads allows you to promote content by targeting users based on their location, profile information, and demographic. The ads published on the Facebook platform appear on the newsfeed of users. But users can differentiate the ads from organic posts by seeing the label promoted or ad.

2. Promoted Tweets

The daily average time spent by users on Twitter currently stands at 31 minutes. You can promote your content on the micro-blogging site by promoting tweets. Twitter allows you to include text, images, and videos in the Promoted Ads. Also, the Promoted Ads appear on users’ newsfeeds like regular tweets. The users can like, retweet, and reply to the ads. But Twitter distinguished promoted content by adding the label promoted.

3. Taboola

Taboola creates opportunities for you to promote content and increase website traffic by reaching 1.5 billion users across the world. You have the option to promote digital content by publishing content, video, and social ads. Also, the content amplification tool displays your ads in a non-intrusive format on reputable websites. The links appearing on third-party sites will increase traffic to your website or blog. But the links often appear as online ads. Hence, audiences can easily distinguish the links from organic content. 

4. Outbrain

The web recommendation platform promotes digital content on high-traffic and high-domain websites. Outbrain makes more people read your articles and blogs by recommending them to readers. The content amplification tool makes over 344 billion recommendations to readers across more than 55 countries. You can opt for Outbrain to increase content reach. But you lack the options to distribute and promote content by targeting specific readers. Also, Outbrain displays the links to your website or blog just like online ads.

5. Buffer

Unlike other content amplification options, Buffer helps you promote digital content on multiple social networking platforms. It makes it easier for you to publish content on social media by providing content publishing tools. You can use the content publishing tool to schedule and publish content on popular social networking platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn using a single dashboard. At the same time, you can track and analyze the performance of content using social media analytics.

6. HootSuite

HootSuite helps you manage multiple social media profiles and publish content on multiple social networks using a dashboard. The social media dashboard supports many popular social networking platforms. Also, you have the option to integrate HootSuite with several social networks. In addition to scheduling and publishing content, you can use the tool to know which user is clicking on what type of content. You can further increase the number of social media followers by running contests or sweepstakes.

7. Storify

Storify drives content amplification by creating stories and timelines on popular social networking platforms and high-traffic websites. The users can find your content by initiating a search using Storify. Also, they can promote the content by dragging them to their timeline.

 The content creators can add context to the link to your website or blog by adding text. You can analyze the social media posts gathered in a single location to know what audiences are liking, sharing, and saying. But you must remember that Storify, unlike other content amplification tools, does not provide options to promote content.

8. Mailchimp

The widely-used digital email marketing platform increases content reach using emails. You can leverage this freemium marketing automation tool to amplify content by sending email newsletters. Mailchimp makes it easier for you to design email newsletters by providing ready-to-use email templates. Also, you can design customized newsletter templates using the email designer provided by the tool. But you can leverage this content amplification tool when after creating an extensive and engaging email list.

9. ShareThis

You can leverage the web tools provided by ShareThis to amplify content across the open web through the audience. These web tools make it easier for you to simplify content sharing by embedding share buttons, react buttons, follow buttons, image share buttons, and social media feeds in web pages and blogs. At the same time, the data analytics tools provided by ShareThis predict future trends and detect deeper insights. Hence, ShareThis creates opportunities for you to amplify content using multiple delivery channels.

Conclusion

The content amplification tools help you increase website traffic and content reach simultaneously. But you can leverage the content amplification software only by publishing high-quality digital content. Also, you must keep in mind the target audience and desired content promotion channels to choose the right content amplification software.

Every business can boost lead generation and lead conversion by launching a variety of digital marketing campaigns – search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, content marketing, and email marketing. But no business can run any of these digital marketing campaigns without creating and distributing high-quality content.

According to the updated content marketing statistics posted on HubSpot,

Blogs are among the primary three forms of media used in content strategies today. Also, 89% of content marketers used blog posts in their content creation strategy in 2020.

Copywriters and digital marketers cannot drive digital marketing campaigns without writing and publishing blogs regularly.

While writing blogs for digital marketing campaigns, you must focus on choosing the right topic and integrating the right keywords. At the same time, you need to ensure that the content is fresh, original, and engaging. That is why; you must adopt useful tips for better content writing to write articles and blogs to deliver the desired marketing message quickly and effectively to the target audience.

9 Useful Tips for Better Content Writing to Boost Digital Marketing Campaign Outcome

1) Understand and Remember the Purpose

While creating content for digital marketing campaigns, content writers write a variety of blogs – business blogs, corporate blogs, affiliate blogs, and service blogs. But every type of blog is written for a specific purpose and to deliver a particular marketing message. Before writing an article or blog, you must identify and understand the message to be delivered to the readers. The understanding of marketing messages will help you to structure and write content by gathering relevant information from various sources.

2) Spend Some Time on Research

No blogger or content writer can create engaging and trendy content without conducting elaborate pre-writing research. You must spend some time gathering the latest and relevant information about a particular topic before writing the content. While conducting research, you must focus on gathering up-to-date information from reliable online sources. Also, you must focus on making the content more relevant and engaging by gathering the latest statistics, metrics, and industry data.

3) Improve Both Readability and Scannability

The readability and scannability of your content will impact the performance of digital marketing campaigns. While writing content, you must keep the content readable and engaging by adopting simple best practices like using simple words, avoiding jargon, keeping the sentences short, and use a conversational tone. At the same time, it is also important to keep the content scannable by adopting best practices like writing short paragraphs, keeping sentences concise, using heading and subheadings, and presenting information as lists.

4) Focus on Creating Evergreen Content

While creating content for digital marketing campaigns, writers create both trendy and evergreen content. Businesses do not remove blogs from their websites regularly. That is why; you must focus on creating evergreen content while writing an article or blog. You can keep the content relevant in the long run only by choosing the appropriate topic. Also, you must use information that showcases both authority and expertise and focus on presenting the information by targeting the beginners. You can easily create content that lasts longer by trying to answer the questions asked by customers or clients.

5) Keep Headline and Intro Compelling

You cannot persuade a reader to read an article or blog completely without keeping the headline concise and compelling. The headline must be compelling and impactful enough to make the reader finish the piece of content by providing relevant information in seconds. It is also advisable to include instructional phrases in the headline to get more shares and likes on social networks. At the same time, you must complement the strong headline with an introduction that compels readers to scroll down. The intro must convince readers that they will get ideas and information that are both useful and relevant.

6) Embed Multimedia Content

You cannot boost the performance of digital marketing campaigns only by writing fresh and compelling textual content. As highlighted by several studies, blogs/articles with images and videos are more effective in attracting and engaging readers than various categories of textual content. Hence, you can make your content more impactful only by embedding the relevant images, visuals, graphics, or videos. You can embed multimedia content in an article or blog to illustrate or explain a point more clearly. At the same time, you can engage and impress the readers by including memes.

7) Optimize the Content for Search Engines

Major search engines recommend businesses update their websites frequently and publish fresh content regularly. The articles and blogs written by you will divert organic search traffic to a website when the content is optimized for search engines. While optimizing content for search engines, you must keep in mind the latest search engine guidelines. At the same time, it is also important to adopt a slew of SEO best practices – create scannable content, embed keywords naturally, place keywords strategically, link the blog internally, and refer to external links.

8) Proofread and Edit the Content

Often spelling and grammatical errors affect the impact of original and insightful content directly. Editing and proofreading are important tips for better content writing that enable you to convey the marketing message to readers effectively and accurately. You can easily identify the spelling and grammatical errors by getting the content reviewed by another content writer or digital marketers. Also, you can improve the quality and readability of the textual content, without putting in extra time and effort, using widely-used online writing assistants like Grammarly.

9) Don’t Forget to Check Content Originality

Major search engines do not penalize websites technically for duplicate content. But they reward websites that publish unique content. After editing and proofreading the content, you need to check its originality and uniqueness. You can easily check content originality and uniqueness using one of the widely used plagiarism checkers like CopyScape, QueText, or Grammarly. These plagiarism checkers will help you to identify and remove duplicate sentences and phrases from a blog or article in a few minutes.

While planning digital marketing campaigns, you must focus on the quality and quantity of content. In addition to publishing content regularly, you must focus on improving the quality of articles and blogs by adopting useful tips for better content writing. Also, you must look for content writing tips regularly to create content that drives digital marketing campaigns by remaining relevant and trendy.  

While writing fresh articles and blogs, you have the option to combine a variety of content – static content, dynamic content, and interactive content. The static content does not change from time to time, while the dynamic content is updated constantly according to the latest information and emerging trends. At the same time, interactive content evolves regularly based on user input. Several studies suggest that interactive content is more effective than static content in educating the audience, generating more leads, creating brand awareness, and driving sales conversion.

According to the DemandGenReport.com,

Bringing static content to life with interactive elements positions B2B marketers to better engage with their audiences. In fact, research shows that 93% of marketers agreed that interactive content is effective in educating buyers versus just 70% for static content. 81% of marketers agree that interactive content grabs attention more effectively than static content. Also, 70% of marketers say that interactive content is effective at converting site visitors.

You can no longer keep influencing the purchase decisions of prospects and leads only by posting static and text-heavy content regularly. Your content creation and marketing strategy must focus on converting static content into interactive content. You can use interactive content as a powerful tool to accomplish key marketing goals like capturing valuable customer data, increasing reader engagement, and promoting brand loyalty. You can make your blogs interactive by incorporating these 12 types of interactive content.

12 Types of Interactive Content You Must Incorporate in Your Blogs and Articles

1. Interactive Infographics  

Interactive infographics are a form of new-age interactive content.

According to the visual content marketing statistics posted on Venngage.com,

“Infographics are more effective than videos and presentations at achieving marketing goals.”

In addition to facilitating data visualization, infographics are one of the most readable and sharable types of interactive content. However, you have to put extra time and effort to create infographics that deliver your desired branding message. In addition to picking the right topic, you must focus on presenting complex information in intelligible and compelling ways.

2. Interactive Video

The popularity of interactive videos as a digital marketing tool has been increasing consistently. Unlike textual content, video clips keep the target audience engaged by creating an immersive experience. Most brands these days experience with ideas to create videos that retain the attention of viewers on the content. You can always embed videos in your blogs to make the static content interactive. Also, interactive videos will help you to deliver the desired brand messaging to the target audience without disrupting their ongoing activities.

3. Polls and Surveys

Social networking platforms make it easier for you to conduct polls and surveys without investing extra resources. You can conduct a poll to collect customer data, understand customer preferences, or get customer feedback by answering a single multi-choice question. Likewise, you can conduct surveys to collect additional information by making the customer answer a slew of multi-choice questions. Many website visitors love to participate in polls and surveys. But you must plan the polls or surveys strategically to make them appear fun and unobtrusive.

4. Interactive Calculators

Online calculators are one of the types of interactive content that produces results based on the information submitted by a person reading your blog. You can use interactive calculators as a useful marketing tool to collect additional information about the leads. The calculators will help the readers to evaluate the available options when they are at the consideration or decision stage of the buyer’s journey. Also, they enable readers to get instant results simply by submitting relevant information. You can use interactive calculators to help readers calculate ROI or savings.

5. Assessments

According to Content Marketing Institute, assessments are one of the most effective types of content used in various stages of a buyer’s journey. Each buyer wants to understand and evaluate her precise needs using a variety of parameters. While creating blogs, you can use assessment as a powerful tool to collect valuable information by making the reader answer a slew of questions. In addition to keeping the target audience engaged, the interactive content will help you to gather the information required to send personalized content.

6. Interactive eBooks and Whitepapers

Despite being static content, eBooks and whitepapers are used widely by B2B marketers to generate more leads. You can make eBooks and whitepapers more effective as lead generation tools by making them interactive. While creating eBooks or whitepapers, you must focus on visualizing information and incorporating animated charts. The interactive content will keep the readers engaged and make them share information by making the longer content easier to read and scan.

7. Interactive Emails

You can easily convert a lead into a customer by sending personalized and targeted content through emails throughout the buyer’s journey. You can make personalized and targeted content more effective by sending interactive email content.

According to MartechAdvisor.com,

Adding videos to your email content can boost click rates up to 300%, while interactive email content increases the rate of click-to-open by 73%.

You can easily make the emails interactive by conveying information or highlighting key points using animation.

8. Product Recommendations

Major online retailers like Amazon these days drive sales conversions by recommending the right product to the right lead or prospect. They use advanced algorithms to recommend relevant products to a prospective customer based on her purchase history and recent online activities. You can easily influence the purchase decisions of customers using a sophisticated product recommendation engine. The new-age product recommendation engines recommend the best products to customers using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML).

9. Data Visualizations

Images are more effective than text at making human minds consume information and process data. You can use data visualization as one of the most effective types of interactive content. While presenting information, you must explore ways to convert large datasets into easy-to-digest graphs, charts, and visuals. The data visualization will keep the target audience engaged by making them consume large and diverse data in a few seconds.

10. Diagnostic Tools

Most people these days look for free online tools to assess, check, and evaluate various things. You can easily make your blogs interactive by offering easy-to-use diagnostic tools. In addition to keeping the visitors engaged, the online diagnostic tool will make users return and trust your brands. You can offer a variety of diagnostic tools according to the nature of your services. For instance, you can use online tools to assess the search engine performance of a website to boost digital marketing and interactive content marketing efforts.

11. Online Contests

Many bloggers these days organize online contests regularly to create brand awareness and promote user-generated content (UGC) generation. You can easily make the readers share your blog posts and post comments by organizing content. Social networking platforms make it easier for you to organize contests and opinion polls without investing extra time and effort. But you must plan the contests strategically to generate more leads and get new email subscribers.

12. Mixed Reality

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are two emerging technological trends that have the potential to change the way websites are designed and developed. Many websites already leverage AR to blur the line between physical and digital. Also, 5G will soon enable users to access many unique AR and VR applications in the near future. While exploring ways to keep your blogs interactive, you must consider implementing some of the

On the whole, interactive content is more effective than static content in capturing the attention of readers and influencing their purchase decisions. But the interactive content does not make well-researches and text-based content obsolete. While writing fresh blogs, you must focus on integrating a variety of interactive content seamlessly into your blogs and articles. The interactive content will make your blogs more effective in generating leads and driving sales conversions.

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