Blogging: Stop Following, Start Exploring

The title “Stop following. Start Exploring.” is the slogan for a popular Indian educational portal Shiksha (means education), but it also holds true for bloggers. As a newbie bloggers, most of us start with choosing a niche for our blogs. Some of us don’t even know what niche we should choose. Whether, it should be a multi-niche blog or  a single niche blog, etc.  Now even if you somehow figure out the niche you are interested in and created a blog with related domain name, the next step is to curate contents for the blog.

The old saying in the blogging world is “content is the king”. But, how true is that? I would say very true and content is the only thing, which differentiate your blog from the millions of blogs on the internet. Now to create contents for your blog, the popular method is to bookmark popular websites related to your niche and try to figure out what is working for them and what is not. For example, if you are interested in gadget niche you may follow something like GSMArena, Anandtech, Phonecurrent and create a similar website.

Bookmarking popular websites isn’t a bad idea nor analyzing them. However, following them extensively to the core where you start focusing on only a few popular blogs and trying to be like them will not take you anywhere. After a year of blogging, you will find yourself nowhere in the crowd and you may ultimately quit blogging. And the popular blogs which you were following w

Why? Because, you chose to follow them, and they chose to explore.

#Stop Following 

No popular websites on any niche became popular overnight. There are various factors, which have contributed to their success. They have started early, they chose a niche which wasn’t populated by that time and most of them are godfathers of their niche. They started from the scratch and were really passionate about what they are doing.

Now among all these factors, there is one more thing which has made them what  they are now. Now, before I spill the beans, let me ask you one thing.

Which popular blogs, those bloggers used to follow? Note that there weren’t many popular blogs that time and almost everyone was a beginner.

The answer is none. Instead of following anything, they choose to explore things, which were related to their niche. They still do the same and we still do the same as well. That is following them.

I began my blogging journey with the same attitude of following some of the most popular blogs related to technology niche. I started as a writer for tech blogs, which helped in learning about blogging. Later, I created my own blog in the technology niche. Fortunately, after 6 months of blogging I was in better position than most of the tech bloggers in the same field who started even before a year than my blog went live.

You may call it a luck or just coincidence, I was able to choose topics, which were low competitive as well as had high search volume without using any SEO software. I did apply some basic SEO techniques, which worked perfectly well with the blog. After 8 months of blogging, the blog was getting around 300K pageviews a month, among which 90% of the traffic was organic, 2% from social media and 8% from referral.

Woohoo, happy ending, right? Nope.

Now after 2 years of starting the blog, the blog is still in a strong position, but couldn’t bring the satisfaction a genuine blogger will look from his blog. If I ask myself how exactly is my blog different from thousands of other technology blogs on the internet? How many topics I started before anyone in the web world and found solutions for them? well, I barely could answer anything. Except the fact that it has grown large, brings good revenue and I never applied any Black hack techniques. Is that enough? Well, at least not for me.

#Start Exploring 

Since I keep creating new blogs every now and then, this time I thought of building a blog, which purely contains solutions or topics discovered by me (mostly). The blog is Technicalnotes and as the name indicates, it is a tech blog and technology is the niche I love.

For this blog, I stopped following and started exploring. I also did not use any off page SEO tactics to make it achieve good rankings in search results. It wasn’t necessary because the contents in the blog were first to be published in any blog on the internet. As far as link building is concerned, if you are the first one to publish anything important, the links will flow automatically as the popular tech blogs will pick your contents and link back to them as reference or source. Basically, you are making them follow you, instead of following them.

Now talking about the result so far (though, it’s too early), in last few months the blog has grown much faster than I thought and the results are impressive. It has quality  and unique posts. The links coming to the blog are natural and at the end of the day you will have something original, which you have created by exploring things instead of following.

Conclusion 

If you are a newbie, have started blogging in 2015-2016 and looking for a long-term goal, I would recommend you to start exploring things on your own than simply following the footsteps of the popular. Try to create your own contents, do extensive research and then publish your post. It may look difficult in the beginning, but you will grow to be a much experienced and mature blogger with an opinion over the years.

Blogging is a crowded place with more number of spammers coming with new tactics to trick the Google algorithm every day. Now if you don’t create a unique blog with unique contents, then there is no reason for Google to rank your blog higher than the blogs which has contents similar to your blog and have published it before you could. And the possibility is that Google may just destroy all your hard work by penalizing it for the crime you didn’t commit while targetting the spammy blogs. Now it’s completely your choice to create something which is worth having and boosting about or just follow the masses.

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The 5 Key Pillars You Need for Epic Content Marketing Success

Content and knowledge in the past was trapped on film reels, photo albums, printed books and filing cabinets.

To consume content required sitting down in front of a television, reading a book, opening a folder or finding a device plugged into a wall. It was stuck in time and space.

Creating content was also clunky and it needed big bulky movie cameras, tape decks and pen and paper. Printing presses were the expensive machines that only newspaper barons could afford. It then became digital and started to be loaded onto mainframes, personal computers and hard drives.

Laptops gave content more freedom but without the web it was still hard to move. The advent of the web gave content more distribution power but the web was slow. Modems opened up the door but the floodgates were still locked. It wasn’t until smart mobile devices and fast 4G wireless networks became mainstream that content creation and its distribution exploded.

The social mobile web took content global and made everyone publishers. This shift is new and it is rocking the business boat.

Why does business need to embrace content marketing?

People now consume most of their information online and on the move. You need to put your content where they are. This means on social media and also on the devices that attract our eyeballs. That is the ubiquitous smart phone.

Social media networks over the last 10 years have generated a lot of media attention and consumed our consciousness. But it’s not the network but the “content”it delivers that is where the real magic happens and engagement occurs. You don’t engage with Facebook but the content that you discover. Social is really just the distribution network for video, text and images that take people through the sales process.

“FREE” Visual Content Marketing Webinar

Join me and Jonny Hendriksen, the CEO of Shuttlerock where you will learn:

• The importance of visual content for any content marketing strategy
• How to use images to create exciting content, boost visibility on social media, and turn customers into brand advocates.
• How to get your customers to share their experiences with your brand through images
• How to use use visual content to build your database of qualified leads with visual content

You will discover the tools you need to be great at visual content, regardless of whether you are a small business or a massive brand. Register now.

Content marketing is not a quick fix

Content marketing is not an exercise in quick marketing success or a silver bullet. It is a strategy that needs time and persistence. It requires continuous marketing, rather than just one off campaigns to realise its full benefits.

These include:

• Growing brand awareness
• Building trust
• Create credibility
• Promote industry “thought leadership”
• Makes people share and subscribe
• Crowd sources your marketing for free
• Drives inquiries and leads
• Sales
• The holy grail – Produce brand advocates

Content has some other side benefits. Google hates silence. So creating digital content on your website, blog and other online assets is essential to optimizing for search engines. If you want to appear in search engines when people type in those key words and phrases then learn the art and science of search engine optimisation.

The challenges

So we have seen the opportunities. What are some of the challenges?

Understanding the digital marketing game

The marketing game has been changed forever. Many traditional tactics don’t cut it anymore. Print is dying, direct mail is too expensive and often ineffective and schmoozing at golf days is a waste unless you have more money than a sheikh with a harem of oil wells.

The digital content marketing game means understanding the growing role of digital content, mobile, search engines and social media to be (D)iscovered, (E)ngage, (F)ollow and create a loyal (T)ribe of fans that become customers – “DEFT”

Obtaining the resources

Unless you get the backing of the CEO and management to provide the resources including money, platforms and people then your success will be muted, not appreciated and ignored. You need to work out a way to get the CEO as a “believer”. The problem is that they have built their success on the old paradigms and you will have to work out a way to evangelize the people in power who will resource your efforts.

Starting without certainty

The new frontier of digital marketing often means starting the journey with little proof of future success. The more traditional the industry the bigger the opportunity but also the larger the doubt.

Creating the content

The content game is one you need to enter with your eyes open. It will need insight, endurance and persistence. It is not about doing just a post every month and expect the sales to just happen. Hubspot recently posted a blog outlining 44 types of content that need to be considered in your creation efforts.

Daunting isn’t it.

But there are some ways to create content efficiently in the new age of digital content marketing. You just need to understand the game and how it is played.

The content marketing landscape

The content marketing landscape is large. It includes almost every type of company and organisation. It includes B2C and B2B, small and large. The knowledge web demands content creation and feeding for many reasons, such as:

• Getting ranking on search engines
• Educating customers
• Driving brand awareness

Much innovation is occurring and new ideas are emerging all the time in how content can be created, optimized and distributed.

Global business to consumer brands (B2C) such as Red Bull have publishing companies as subsidiaries, Big boring B2B brands such as General Electric are using photos and mobile sites like Instagram.

Niche industries such as Real Estate are using creative content and content hustling to drive traffic and create brand awareness. One of the standouts in amplifying content is Movoto. They are using the tactics of the the fastest growing publishers and websites on the planet to produce and hustle their content. They have been called the “Buzzfeed for real estate”.

New rules and demands

Even in the the news and publishing sector content marketing is challenging the stalwarts like the New York Times, Forbes and the Guardian . Upstarts like Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Digiday, NiemanLab, Viral Nova  and 9gag are throwing down the gauntlet to the old guard. They are moving the goalposts and  creating new paradigms.

This includes:

• Hourly news cycles instead of 24 hour news
• Publishing content without editing or proofreading
• Demanding journalists create their own brand and use the social channels for additional distribution
• Requiring social network savvy writers
• Paying journalists for clicks, sharing and traffic and not a salary
• Using technology and mobile platforms to drive article and content distribution
• Curating content and not just just unique content

The 3 types of content sourcing you will need to master

Your biggest challenges will be producing content and it’s distribution. That’s the bad news. The good news is that you don’t have to do it all yourself.

Let’s look at the content creation piece. The 3 “C’s” of content production

1. Creation of unique content – Creating great original content is a time consuming challenge. You need inspiration, time and skill. This can be outsourced or done in house, either way this takes time and effort.
2. Curation – Curation is finding what content works in your niche and then collecting, curating and adding your own creativity and touch to the content. It could be adding your own voice in the introduction and your take on the the original content. Curation done well can be a powerful form of content marketing. The new breed of online publishers that understand content marketing such as Buzzfeed and Upworthy are in the most part very clever curators that know how to publish and make it easy for content to be shared and go viral on social web. Traditional news publishers such as the New York Times are in a game of catch up!
3. Crowdsourced – People love to share their content, whether that is photos, images, videos or content that resonates with them.

Where do you start?

Get management on board. That is the biggest challenge. Without their backing you will be like one legged man in a kickboxing competition.

So selling the potential is paramount. Use case studies, excite and evangelize. You may also need to add a bit of fear. Highlight what the competition are doing, display how start-ups are disrupting.

So what are the key steps?

1. Map out a clear strategy

This means at a high level, understanding your target customers, deciding on what goals you want to achieve and creating and optimizing content across all your digital channels to achieve those goals.

a. Understand your target market

Demographics are a sterile form of way to start to understand your customer. On a social web their “social personas” will be be a “real” and authentic guide. Running surveys on your blog, website and Facebook will also provide insights.

The other important way to gain understand is to see what content resonates with your readers. Writing content around their pain points will also allow you to find out what information they are really looking for.

Often you will be surprised.

b. Get clarity on your goals

Let’s put this into a sales funnel. Do you want to achieve brand discovery, engage, build followers and subscribers and achieve sales.

You may make just one or two a priority initially. Here are the 5 key stages.

1. Discovery – First you have to be discovered
2. Engagement – The  you will need to see what content engages with your customer. Be prepared to experiment.
3. Following and subscribing – If they like what they read and view, they will follow on social networks and subscribe to your email list
4. Sales – As credibility and trust is built through online content they will then inquire and become customers
5. Raving fans and advocates – Building such loyal customer advocates that they line up to buy or create content about your brand

c. Select the team

Depending on the budget and resources, it maybe in house or external. Free contributors or paid.

d. Select the platform and tools

The tools will vary according to the size of your organisation. At the budget end of the spectrum you will be using a mix of cobbled together free tools that help you create, distribute and measure the success of your content marketing efforts.

1. A blogger will use low cost platforms and apps such as WordPress, Mailchimp and Hootsuite. Plugins for WordPress such as Co-Schedule can provide an editorial calendar that helps you create and share your content online
2. Small to mid size organisation might use Marketo, Hubspot, Infusionsoft and Ontraport. These are often CRM’s that don’t cost a fortune but allow you to scale your content marketing efforts.
3. Larger organisations have a different level of content marketing “at scale” needs that will need Enterprise class platforms and these include software such as provided by Sprinklr, Adobe and Salesforce to name a few.

If you are serious you are going to need a digital marketing platform of some type or a collection of tools that work well together.

e. Map out the 12 month content marketing plan

There are two key types of content marketing plans.

1. Campaigns – the one offs every quarter or month or year
2. Continuous – the continuous creation of content, posts, tweets and distribution. This will also require setting up an editorial schedule

2. Produce epic content

Don’t underestimate the challenge of feeding the content marketing beast. It will need inspiration and creators.

a.What it will need to do

Content will need to consider a range of different types of engagement.

1. Educate – Blog posts that educate
2. Entertain – Fun videos that are just plain fun
3. Inspire – Make a difference in your customers life by inspiring them to take action
4. Inform – Keep them up to date with the latest industry news and trends.
5. Convert – Content is a waste of time unless it leads to converting them to customers

Content needs to be created that achieves one or more of these types of engagement

b. The 4 types of media that you will need to consider

1. Text – blog posts, whitepapers and ebooks
2. Images – Photos, charts etc
3. Videos – Youtube, vine and Instagram
4. Podcasts – Apple iTunes or other platforms such as SoundCloud

c. How to create content

We mentioned this in the introduction but it can be any of these three.

1. Unique content
2. Curated contention
3. Crowd sourced content eg. Shuttlerock

3. Optimize content for everything

Content needs to be optimized . Here are some of the optimization strategies that need to be part of the content marketing best practice.

1. Reading and viewing – This includes a well optimized structure for easy and quick reading
2. Search engines – Create a list of 25-50 key phrases that customers will use to find you in a Google search
3. For traffic – Traffic is the first thing before engagement so you need to learn about the art of headlines writing and making it easy for people to share your content.
4. Conversion – Converting traffic into an email subscriber and buyer means constant testing and experimentation.
5. Mobile – If they can’t easily subscribe, read, share on a mobile you could be losing 50% of your customers

4. Market your content everywhere

Content creation is only half the solution for content marketers. You need to “hustle” your content. This means marketing it on on multiple channels.

You aim is to make it move. Pay for traffic or just plain hustle it to online awareness. This includes:

1. Social – Build global content distribution by growing your social media networks.
2. Email – Grow and use your email list to attract leads and traffic. This can be done with free ebooks and even Facebook.
3. Search – Optimizing for search engines is a long term strategy that should start to be done from day one. Eventually it will drive more traffic than social networks to your blog and website. Some research shows that it could be as high as 300% more.
4. Referral partnering with online influencers and websites – This tactic can lead to fast and accelerated traffic.

Learn more by reading:

64 Tactics to Drive Traffic to Your Blog

The Ultimate Guide on How to Get More Blog Traffic

22 Headlines That Went Viral

5. Keep experimenting

You will be measuring the success of your content marketing by monitoring website traffic, email subscriber rates and much more. Content marketing is a journey and not a destination.

It will require constant testing and experimentation. Coca Cola use the 70/20/10 ration with 10% of all their content being out their experimentation.

Be prepared to fail cheaply often and fast. The digital and social web allows you to do that without huge expensive investments.

What about you?

What do you need to work on? Do you have the content but no traffic. Is your traffic failing to convert to sales? Do you need to build online distribution for your content.

Look forward to hearing your stories and insights in the comments below.

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