Content marketing is recognized as one of the most effective ways to grow a business and attract new customers. To be successful with content marketing, you need to share high-quality content regularly. But it can feel difficult to constantly think of useful and insightful topics that attract the right audience.
This is where online tools like Google Trends come in handy. Learning how to use Google Trends for your content marketing gives you a valuable resource for relevant, trending topics that people want to engage with.
As you read on, we’ll explore how to use Google Trends for SEO and improve your content marketing strategy.
What Is Google Trends?
Google Trends is a search feature offered by Google that shows you the most popular search terms for a specific period. Current trends are from the past 7 days, while past trends date back to 2004. The Google Trends site also allows you to check the frequency of specific search terms. On the results page, you can see the interest over time, interest by subregion, and related topics.
You can also adjust your search based on the industry, category, time frame, location, and type of search (image, shopping, news, web, or YouTube).
Google Trends can be a valuable tool for conducting market research. It gives you insights into the seasonality of search terms or even helps you gauge how much interest your products have in a certain geographic region.
Query vs. Topic in Google Trends
Google Trends gives you information on both search terms and topics. A search term is a specific word or phrase, while a topic is a group of search terms that fit into the same general concept. Google Trends measures and ranks these categories differently, so accurately comparing search terms and topics is difficult. Instead, you should compare search terms to search terms and topics to topics.
How to Use Google Trends: 11 Innovative Ways
With the help of Google Trends, you can create better, more relevant content that your audience will want to read. Try these 11 ways to use Google Trends for content marketing.
1. Conduct Market Research
Google Trends is a valuable tool for conducting market research. It can give you insights into the seasonality of certain search terms or even help you gauge how much interest there is for your products in a geographic region.
For example, let’s say you are a brick-and-mortar business based in Columbus, Ohio. You are considering building a second location in Indianapolis, Indiana. By checking Google Trends, you can find the popularity of terms relevant to your business in specific locations. If the search volume is low, you might need to reconsider your plans.
2. Discover Relevant Trending Topics
If your team struggles to find fresh topics for content each month, Google Trends is a great resource. You can explore the most popular searches nationwide or narrow it down to a specific location or timeframe. Use the charts to help visualize and compare terms.
When choosing your Google Trends topics, make sure the topic:
Is something that would interest your target audience.
3. Improve Your Keyword Research
While creating high-quality, relevant content is the most important part of content marketing, you should also consider your search engine optimization (SEO). SEO strategies help improve your search rankings for specific keywords. And Google Trends can help you do better keyword research.
Use the Explore feature and enter a keyword or phrase you are considering. You will see a breakdown of interest over time, along with the interest by subregion. Then you can try various search terms to see which are the most popular.
More popular search terms will give you better results. This is because more common keywords increase the chances of someone discovering your content and are more likely to be used in regular conversation. When creating content, you’ll want to use these keywords naturally. Keep in mind that other businesses are likely to use similar keywords, so you should narrow down some long-tail or focus keywords that are more specific to your business and content.
The “Related Topics” section on the Explore page is a good place to brainstorm similar topics and keywords. It can even help you discover a topic or angle you hadn’t thought of before.
4. Create Your Content Calendar
A content calendar helps you organize your content strategy around the types of content you create and when you post. Engagement is a huge metric to consider as you plan the release of your content. Knowing how to time your content to trends and what people search for is a great skill to cultivate, and Google Trends can help you plan and schedule your content calendar accordingly.
For example, if you want to write content about cooking, the Google Trends results show significant search peaks in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas. The weeks before these holidays would be the ideal time to share your relevant cooking content so it’s easy to find when someone searches for it.
Another example is the term “wedding invitations.” This term shows a surge between early January and the end of February. That’s because there are likely a lot of couples who get engaged between Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
While some keywords get used more often at certain times, other keywords will show you when to avoid talking about certain topics. This could be because of a lull during one season, like the summer, for certain keywords that are relatively popular the rest of the year.
Utilizing Google Trends data for each topic on your content calendar will help you plan the best times to post your content.
5. Enhance Your Branding
You can also use Google Trends to check the popularity of your brand. While this feature might be more effective for larger brands, even small businesses can use this feature by limiting the search to your local area. When you use this feature, you can even narrow your results by your specific industry.
Another way to improve branding? Google Trends lets you search for popular terms related to events in your area. For example, let’s say there is a large conference held in a nearby city each year. If you’re in the hospitality industry, you can search keywords related to your business. Then capitalize on the popularity of the event and create content that can introduce a new audience to your brand.
6. Focus on Local Shopping Trends
Google Trends gives you the option to isolate your query based on the type of search. If you select Google Shopping, you can find shopping trends in your area. By searching for products related to your business you’ll see when people in your area are searching for and buying them.
For example, within the past year, across the United States, people shopped for makeup most often in the week leading up to Halloween. However, if you narrow it down to a specific state or city, the results may look different. With just Iowa selected, people shopped for makeup most frequently in the first week of August.
With this kind of data, you can focus your content on the right shopping trends at the right time. This may help you sell more product during high-demand times.
7. Use Google Trends for Newsjacking
Newsjacking is a content marketing tactic where you take advantage of a recent, well-known news event and find a way to play off its popularity. You can use Google Trends to track the latest news events that might be relevant to your brand. The best way to do this is to sign up for a Google Trends subscription. With this, you choose how often and how many noteworthy events and trending searches you want to see.
A great example of newsjacking is Calm, a meditation app. In 2020, the brand paid to sponsor much of CNN’s election coverage. It ran frequent 30-second ads during and leading up to election night–a time when many people feel anxious. The ads focused on the brand’s mission to “make the world happier and healthier” without any political messaging. The goal was to give viewers a brief break from the stress and anxiety of the election season. The campaign paid off, and Calm saw a boost in its growth.
Newsjacking does not have to be complicated or even a major campaign. Sometimes a simple tweet or social media post that connects the news event to your brand can be a fun way to engage with your audience.
8. Consider New Product Innovations
If you are considering developing new products or adding new options to your existing products, Google Trends can help you capitalize on the latest search trends. You can use this to guide your product innovations and content marketing.
Start by searching for a general topic in Explore. Then, check the “related topics” and “related queries” sections to find rising trends. Anything marked with “Breakout” indicates growth that’s over 5000% over the previous period.
These trending topics can help you gauge interest in innovations for your products. Consider creating content around these new ideas to see how your audience reacts.
9. Explore Broad Categories
If you want to explore general categories, Google Trends lets you do this without entering a search term. In the category drop-down, choose your preferred category and the region, time frame, and search type you want to see.
From here, you can explore similar search topics and queries. This may give you inspiration for new content that you haven’t explored yet.
10. Use Google Trends for Topic Clustering
Topic clustering is an effective content marketing strategy that helps teams shift their focus from highly specific keywords to core topics. With topic clustering, you organize your website around pillar pages. These pillar pages focus on the core principles of your business. From there, you create cluster pages that link to the pillar page.
Google Trends can make topic clustering easier. Search for your pillar keywords and then explore the related topics and queries. These lists can give you ideas for your related cluster pages. You can further refine your search criteria by specifying a Category.
11. Capitalize on Stable or Emerging Trends
Before beginning your Google Trends search, start with an outline of topics or terms you would like to target. Perhaps you have an overabundance of some products, and you would like to create content to highlight these products.
You can use the long-term data in Google Trends to see the stability or growth of certain terms over time. For the time range, you can select 2004-present to see the full range of Google data.
For example, if you choose the broad category of “Home & Garden,” there is a gradual decline in the earlier years and then steadier growth more recently. If your business sells home and garden products, like outdoor pavers, you can search for this term and see that it is a stable, seasonal product. Whereas the term “xeriscaping” has seen a gradual increase over the past few years.
Data like this can help guide your content marketing and even the products you choose to sell.
Trust Your Content Marketing to the Experts at Express Writers
Managing content marketing and SEO on your own can sometimes feel overwhelming. If you ever feel like you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re not getting the results you want, it might be time to consider outsourcing to a content writing agency. At Express Writers, we only hire the best writers with expertise in a wide range of areas.
Our team can help you take advantage of the latest Google Trends, build a content plan, and create content customized to your business. Whether you need one-time assistance with a difficult topic or want to create a long-term partnership, we are here to help.
Are you ready to get strong results from your content marketing? Contact Express Writers today and we can help you decide which services would be the best fit for your brand.
The holiday season is a special time of year. Many of us spend time with friends and family, give thanks for the things we have, and share gifts with our loved ones. But when you run a business, the holiday season is likely the busiest time of the year for you. Planning in advance and creating a holiday content marketing strategy can help take some of the stress out of the holiday season for your business.
Quality holiday content marketing can help you connect with your audience, appeal to new customers, and increase your brand awareness.
If you are unsure where to begin with your holiday content, this guide can help you get started.
What Are the Benefits of Having a Holiday Content Marketing Strategy?
If you’ve never put together a holiday content strategy or tracked the analytics of your holiday content, you might not realize that there are a number of benefits for your business. Here are a few:
1. Increases Demand for Your Products and Services
Consumers spend more during the holiday season than any other time of year. This naturally leads to an increased demand for products and services. With consumers in an active buying stage, this is an ideal time to roll out time-sensitive offers. These deals also work well with Black Friday and Cyber Monday promotions and give customers an increased sense of urgency or a fear of missing out (FOMO).
With the right holiday content marketing strategy, you can showcase high-value products and cater to customers who are ready to buy or could be ready more quickly.
2. Improves Brand Awareness
With clever, memorable content during the holidays, you can give your brand awareness a boost. By creating customer-focused, engaging content for each holiday between Halloween and New Year’s Day, you can find a new target audience and build your loyal following.
3. Unleashes Your Creativity
Customers respond best to creative, relatable content. The holiday season is the perfect time of year to show off the more personable side of your business. This type of content presents the chance to add some fun to your brand image.
While you might not use this relaxed type of content any other time of year, the holidays give you more freedom to try new strategies and new content types. The addition of personality may earn you new customers and brand fans. So, don’t be afraid to take some risks. With so much holiday content out there, you don’t want to get lost in uninspired content.
4. Grows Your Business
With a creative holiday content marketing strategy, you can potentially attract and retain new customers. This makes the holiday season the ideal time for business growth. In addition, keep an eye on the performance of your content during the holiday season and then implement some of the strategies that perform well in other parts of the year. This will be especially important if you discover a new strategy for your content.
5. Offers Opportunities for New Product Launches
The holiday season gives many businesses the unique opportunity to release new products and services. That’s why you’ll often see big tech innovations come out near the holidays. Plus, many consumers enjoy holiday-themed products. If this is something your business can offer, consider releasing some limited-time products. Promote these new products on social media and through your other holiday content.
Customers who are drawn in by your fresh products might be enticed to stay and buy other non-holiday products. You’ll find this is true if the new product performs well for them.
12 Content Marketing Strategies to Try During the Holiday Season
Since most folks celebrate something during the winter holiday season, not having a content strategy for the holidays really isn’t an option. Take advantage of the buzz and popularity with a few different strategies. Here are 12 specific actions you can take to improve your holiday-themed content.
1. Start Early
You might still feel the lingering heat of the summer, even if the leaves have already started changing color. No matter what season it is, you can never start planning too early for your holiday content.
Do some market research to see what people are interested in this year, check out your competition’s content, you can even start planting hints of your upcoming content months in advance. It’s important to carve out plenty of time to craft creative, engaging content that will help you stand out from your competition, especially if your sales pick up in Q4.
2. Capitalize on Black Friday and Cyber Monday
Consumers and businesses have long been conditioned to expect great deals and compelling offers during the holiday season. If it’s difficult for you to give customers a significant discount, think of a way to add value to your products or services. For example, if you are a B2B business, you could offer a free consultation with the purchase of a corresponding service.
Use the first tip and start teasing your Black Friday/Cyber Monday offers in advance through email marketing. This will build anticipation. Then make your deal even more enticing by offering it for a limited time. It’s a great idea to include a countdown timer on the offer page to increase the FOMO.
You could even take the opposite route like outdoor brand REI did with its #OptOutside campaign. It closed all its stores on Black Friday and encouraged people to head outside. Even though it was a controversial choice, it got people talking about the brand and made them a little more human.
3. Be Inclusive
While the holiday season is packed full of traditions, you should consider moving beyond the norm to be more inclusive with your content. Many customers will quickly turn away from a brand if they feel its messaging excludes certain groups.
Target did a great job of creating inclusive content with its 2021 holiday ad.
To be more inclusive with your holiday content, consider:
Staying neutral: Instead of focusing on and naming specific holidays, focus your content on themes of spending time with loved ones, the change of seasons, and the upcoming new year.
Highlighting diversity: With the incredible diversity in the United States, your brand has a great opportunity to include those who usually feel left out. Instead of marketing gifts “for him” and “for her,” find a more neutral way to categorize your products. You can also highlight lesser-known world holidays that many people celebrate in the United States.
Relieving stress: While some people are filled with “comfort and joy” during the holidays, others find it to be the most stressful time of the year. Whether it’s family issues or just the stress of planning, many folks find the holidays challenging. Your brand can offer holiday content that recognizes these difficult feelings while offering a bit of a break. Use humor, showcase your charitable giving, and show appreciation to your customers to help brighten their mood during the holidays.
4. Continue Offering Value
While some of your holiday content marketing might focus on your limited-time deals and promotions, you should continue offering the same level of valuable content you usually do. If you all share for weeks on end how to get the latest deals from your brand, you’ll find customers might start ignoring your content.
You can still produce value-rich content that deepens your relationship with your current customers and draws in new ones. Find a balance between value-driven and promotional content to maintain and build on the trust you worked hard to establish.
5. Get Personal
You spend most of the year maintaining the professional image of your brand. The holiday season gives you an opportunity to get more personal and show your customers who you really are. This is a great time of year to showcase your employees or show off the fun you have at your holiday office parties.
Consider creative content ideas like:
Having employees write letters to Santa
Sharing pictures of your holiday decorating content
Your CEO recording a personal message for your customers
Creating an online cookbook of holiday recipes
6. Share Some Humor
Many people don’t feel the holiday cheer because of family difficulties, seasonal depression, and the overall stress of the season. To brighten their spirits, consider sharing some holiday humor. Google did this exceptionally well in 2018 when it invited Macaulay Culkin to give a glimpse into adult Kevin McCallister’s life with the hilarious “Home Alone Again” campaign.
In the video, there are numerous updated shots of adult Kevin reenacting classic Home Alone scenes, but this time, with the help of modern Google aids.
While your brand might not have the same resources as Google, you can still create funny holiday content. Consider:
Awkward family photos in Christmas sweaters
Song parodies
A letter from your new CEO, Santa, and the changes he is making
A holiday content for your customers
7. Give Back to Your Community
While many of us share gifts with our loved ones during the holidays, there are people who do not have the money or resources to do so. Focus on the season of giving and share how your business is giving back.
There are countless opportunities for businesses to give back to their communities. If you don’t have one already, consider starting a charitable giving campaign or promoting regular volunteer hours with your employees. You can also partner with local nonprofit organizations to find specific ways you can help. Try to find a group that aligns with your values. Perhaps there is a local homeless shelter in need of blankets or a food bank struggling to meet the needs of the community.
Share your charitable efforts in your content and invite your customers and readers to participate in their own way. Be sure your charitable activities and the message you share are authentic.
8. Look Back at Your Year
Whether you love or hate the “year in review,” it is a great way to connect with your audience and show how your brand has grown. To make your year-in-review message resonate, consider these tips:
Use visuals: Reading thousands of words of straight text can be tiresome. Break up your content with pictures, infographics, or even videos.
Focus on your customers: While the review is about your business, it is really about your customers. How did your customers affect your brand this year? Do they influence product changes? Find ways to make them feel recognized and appreciated.
Tell a story: While you are focusing on highlights from the past year, make sure you are telling a cohesive story. Lead your readers through an exciting year and invite them to continue their journey with you next year.
Spotify has become a master of this strategy with its “wrapped” concept. It showcases the best and most popular audio content from the past year.
9. Have an Omnichannel Content Strategy
You don’t have to start from scratch with your holiday content marketing strategy. There may be topics you can repurpose either from previous years or from one platform to another. For example, let’s say you had a popular blog post. You can take that blog and break it into multiple Instagram posts or even a marketing email. You could even expand on a popular topic and produce an e-book.
A diverse, omnichannel content strategy will organically lead customers from one platform to the next while telling a complete story. This is a valuable strategy to use all year, not just during the holidays.
10. Start a Tradition
Do you have a product or service that could be slightly modified to fit the season? If so, this is a good time to start a holiday tradition that your customers look forward to every year. For example, every year Starbucks releases red cups for the holidays. These cups signal the return of some of their seasonal drinks and for some people, it can be a hotly debated topic, especially when they changed to a two-tone design.
11. Start a “12 Days” or “24 Days” Campaign
Many businesses capitalize on feelings of anticipation and play on the classic “12 Days of Christmas” song with a “12 Days” campaign. What you do or offer during those 12 days will depend on your business. Perhaps you release a new limited-time deal each day or host a customer giveaway. You could even put a charitable spin on it and make a new charitable donation each day.
One way to up the ante is by tying your donation to the amount of audience feedback you get. These types of promotions can be very compelling. One study from Deloitte showed that 81% of consumers expect to be influenced by holiday promotions.
Another option is to use the theme of a 24-day advent calendar. Did you know the first chocolate-filled advent calendar was invented by Cadbury in 1958 (thank you, Cadbury!). Since then, many people love the anticipation of opening a new door each day and getting a treat. Offer your customers a daily surprise for 24 days, and you will likely get a positive response.
12. Create a Holiday Content Calendar
Once you have your list of holiday content marketing strategies, you should organize it into a calendar. With a content calendar, you space out certain types of content and schedule when you will publish each piece.
You also need to consider the time it takes to write, produce, and edit each piece of content. Include these dates in your calendar, too.
Get Quality Holiday Content Crafted by Experts
You might be good at running your business, but not so good at writing killer content. That’s okay. You need a professional content writing agency that knows how to create high-ranking content without sacrificing quality. When you choose Express Writers, that is exactly what you’ll get. We’re ready to help you implement your holiday content marketing strategy.
Our team of writers is the best in the industry. We offer a wide variety of package options, whether you want a one-time blog or a full suite of custom content.
As an online content creator, it’s essential to pay close attention when Google makes algorithm updates.
These changes can directly impact how your content ranks on the search engine results pages (SERPs). This means being prepared to adapt your strategy to the algorithm to secure a spot on the coveted first page of Google. You might think this task is challenging, but it’s all about staying up to date with Google’s best practices.
The most recent update, announced in August 2022, is the Google Helpful Content Update. The update seeks to better identify low-value content, meaning high-quality, people-first content will generate more organic traffic and rank higher.
And since it finished rolling out on September 9th, we wanted to explore everything you need to know about the Helpful Content Update and dive into what it means for you and your content marketing efforts.
What is the Google Helpful Content Update?
To better connect people with information that brings them value, Google says that they prioritize ranking “original, helpful content written by people, for people, in search results.”
Combined with the rest of Google’s ranking signals, this update will settle into an algorithm that detects low-quality content lacking meaningful engagement. It is a site-wide signal that homes in on sites with a large quantity of unhelpful content before penalizing them by decreasing site traffic.
Frustrated users express on social media or blogs that they land on pages that provide no solutions to their search questions but rank on top pages in search engines. So, Google has taken these conversations to heart and wants to use the algorithm to reward creators who provide human-first content to their readers.
The Helpful Content Update is just one part of a large effort to make it easier to find helpful content when searching. While this update might not feel widespread yet, it has caused some shakeup in search results as the algorithm works to recategorize sites.
What Does the Google Helpful Content Update Mean for Content Marketing?
Since websites that engage with their audience to provide helpful content will climb higher in the SERPs and generate more organic traffic, it’s important to know what will affect you as a content marketer.
After all, when Google makes changes, you’ll also need to make changes to your content strategy. Here’s what you should know:
Focus on People-First Content
The term “people-first content” comes directly from Google. But what exactly does this mean? First and foremost, it’s about providing great content and a positive experience for your website readers.
If you post content to your site, it’s your job to think about the target audience of your content and write with them in mind. Does this mean you should abandon the SEO best practices you’ve been implementing all this time? Absolutely not. It just means you should focus on creating high-quality content first and then incorporate search engine ranking factors to provide additional value to searchers.
To ensure your website and its content have a people-first approach, Google encourages you to ask yourself the following questions. If you can answer yes to them, you’re likely on the right track.
Does your intended or existing audience find the content useful because it came directly from your business site?
Does your content establish first-hand expertise and in-depth knowledge?
Is the purpose or focus of your site clear?
When someone reads your content, will they leave feeling they’ve gotten enough knowledge to achieve their goal without needing to search elsewhere?
Will reading your content leave someone feeling like their experience was satisfying?
We get it. You want your content to rank, so you implement all the SEO best practices the experts recommend. While there’s nothing wrong with that, it does become an issue when that’s all you’re focused on. If you aren’t prioritizing your human reader, your content (and rankings) will suffer.
To determine if you’ve previously been taking a search engine-first approach with your content, Google has shared the following questions to ask yourself. If you answer yes to the majority of these questions, consider reevaluating the content on your site to focus on people first.
Does content draw people from search engines over prioritizing content made for humans?
Do you produce large quantities of content on different topics in hopes that some could perform well in search results?
Do you use automation extensively to create content on many topics?
Do you end up summarizing other existing content without adding new insight?
Is your content focused on what’s trending instead of topics you’d write about for your existing audience?
Do readers finish your content and feel like they need to do another search for better information?
Is all of your content a particular word count because you’ve heard or read that Google has a preferred word count? (They don’t.)
Are you exploring a niche topic area but lacking real expertise because you thought you’d get search traffic?
Does your content promise answers to questions that have no answer, like mentioning a release date for a product, movie, or TV show that hasn’t been confirmed?
How to Abide by the Google Helpful Content Update
There are a few things you can do to transform your content strategy moving forward. Following these tips will ensure you focus on your readers and keep Google happy by extension.
1. Stick to Your Niche
Once you’ve narrowed down your niche, Google’s advice is to stick with it. After all, it would be a little confusing if we started publishing recipes on The Write Blog, wouldn’t it? We know our niche and understand that our audience comes to us to learn everything possible about creating high-quality online content.
If you’ve been publishing content outside of your niche, it’s time to make a change. You don’t want Google to think you’re more focused on search engines and rankings than your human reader. From here on out, focus your approach and create content that establishes your authority in your industry.
Confused about what your niche should be? There are a few things you can do to find your business niche. This is essential to show your industry differentiators to your audience through the content you craft. You’ll know for sure your base comes to you for your product, and now that you’re creating quality content, the leads that find you will know from the beginning why they ended up on your site over a competitor.
2. Showcase Your Expertise and Authority
Are you helping your readers when you write about topics you don’t have experience in or passion for? Probably not. These topics require a knowledge base you don’t have, and a reader can usually tell when you have the correct experience. For instance, the last thing you want to do is write a review about a product or service you’ve never even tried.
Instead, focus on content that allows you to showcase your expertise and authority on a subject. Which topics can you talk about confidently for hours on end? What does your product do, and do you have a long-form blog to help your potential clients understand why it’s important? By putting thought into the content you produce, your strategy is more focused on the authority you have in your field.
In time, people will begin to see you as a trustworthy resource. This keeps people coming back to you when they need information about your industry. Now, you’re establishing your brand and building a back catalog of content people can return to over and over.
3. Make Sure Your Website Has a Clear Purpose or Focus
It can be tempting to cover a wide array of topics on your website to attract more readers. However, this is unlikely to generate the best results. For one, your target audience will have a harder time getting to your website, and they’re the ones whose attention you need to grab. And now, the Google Helpful Content Update craves focus for your website’s content.
The content that you publish should have a primary purpose, and Google has the ability to crawl your site and find the focus of your content. If readers can’t find the main idea because you’re all over the place covering every topic under the sun, they won’t find your content helpful. Instead, they’ll be confused. Additionally, search engines will have a difficult time understanding your website, and it won’t be categorized correctly.
If your content has one main subject area, Google will know where to put you when searchers start looking for information that’s part of your expertise. You’ll avoid falling victim to trending topics that are outside your niche, and your target audience will find you more easily.
4. Provide Plenty of Information to Address a Reader’s Questions
When you open a blog post you found after conducting a Google search, you expect it to answer all of your questions, right? But in reality, we know that far too often, this isn’t the case. We stumble upon lackluster content that barely addresses our needs. It’s frustrating and winds up sending us back to the Google search page to find another resource instead.
Even before the Google Helpful Content Update, your content marketing should center on a human-first approach. Provide articles with statistics, verifiable evidence, and information so your reader doesn’t feel the need to conduct a second search to find better content. One way to determine this is to look over your content and search for specific statements that offer actionable advice or information to answer questions successfully.
Don’t be afraid to go above and beyond by providing detailed, long-form blog posts. Not only will your reader appreciate having access to all of their desired information in one place, but Google will reward you by pushing up your page in the SERPs.
5. Always Deliver a Satisfying Experience
The overall experience you provide to your readers makes a difference. If you want people to come back to your site and Google to rank you high in the SERPs, you need to deliver a satisfying experience every time. This means that your content should be clear, answer all the questions a reader has, and focuses on the topics that interest them. You want your audience to stay on your site for longer, and when they leave, they should be satisfied with the answers they found.
It’s also smart to consider the user experience of your website. The last thing you want is to send a reader running because your website is slow to load, has confusing navigation, or is cluttered with too many ads. If you’re not sure if your website is impressing visitors, have a friend or colleague visit your website and give honest feedback about how they think your site functions.
Get People-First Content Written by the Experts
Express Writers is a content writing agency focused on developing people-first content for our clients. We aim to provide you with the highest quality articles to boost your business. And our SEO content writers understand Google’s algorithm as an additional asset. That means we make sure to put your audience first with every piece of content we craft. This way you can be sure you always deliver a satisfying experience.
Your business needs strategy and purpose behind every piece of content.
That’s why it’s so important to set content marketing goals. With clear goals in mind, it’ll be easier to determine if your efforts in business are worthwhile before you spend too much time or money on them. Plus, it enables you to make adjustments when your strategy isn’t meeting expectations.
But how do you set goals that are exciting to pursue? And how do you achieve them with ease? This blog shares some helpful tips to guide you in making your content marketing efforts more effective than ever.
How to Set Content Marketing Goals
Content marketing is a powerful and effective way to help you reach your business goals, whether those goals include generating brand awareness, increasing sales and revenue, or improving customer loyalty. However, many businesses go wrong when they create content simply for the sake of creating content. They then fail to make their content memorable, and it gets drowned out by competitors.
Instead of publishing content without a purpose, you need to set specific and measurable content marketing goals if you want your ROI to skyrocket. Your content marketing goals should always be formulated around specific business objectives you’d like to achieve. Just follow the SMART goals framework.
Determine your big picture goals and then map out how your content can make it happen. These goals should be relevant to your business and its vision. And they should be time-bound, with a plan to reach your goal within a set time period.
Content Marketing Objectives That Matter in Business
In business, there are a variety of content marketing goals you could pursue. They can be short-term and long-term goals. You might even set goals based on different stages of the customer journey.
To help you come up with exciting goals to go after, here are a few suggestions:
Brand Awareness: It’s important to raise awareness for your business and communicate what makes you different from your competitors. You can measure brand awareness through website traffic, social media following, email subscribers, and social listening.
Website Traffic: Without generating traffic to your website, it can be difficult to increase sales. Tracking page views and traffic sources to see how people discover your business and the content you publish means you’re always on top of any changes.
Conversions: Now, conversions can look like a few different things. For instance, you might want to convert more website visitors into email subscribers or convert them into paying customers. Both are great and will require you to measure the success of your landing pages to determine if they’re encouraging people to take that next step with your business.
As an example, if you want to generate more brand awareness, you might set a goal to increase website traffic by 50% over the next quarter. To achieve that goal, you could commit to posting one or two new blog posts every week that are optimized to attract organic traffic. This goal is simple but effective.
6 Tips for Achieving Content Marketing Goals With Ease
Once you’ve set some content marketing goals to achieve, you’ll need to figure out how to make them happen. Here’s some advice to help you reach your goals with ease to ensure your business thrives:
1. Create a Plan to Make Your Goals a Reality
Once you know what you want to achieve, you may be tempted to dive right into the content creation process. However, you should first create a plan that clearly outlines the steps necessary for making your content marketing goals a reality. By taking the time to map out a strategy, you’ll know what kind of content you need to create, allowing you to move forward with purpose. Plus, you will have identified any other actions necessary to create your desired results in business.
When creating this plan, consider any resources you will need. Who on your team will be involved? How much time and money will it require to complete tasks? You don’t want to overcommit or underestimate what can realistically be accomplished within your designated timeframe.
2. Assign Team Members to Goal-Related Tasks
You’ll need to get your team on board to follow the plan you’ve mapped out. Let them know your goals and share the plan you’ve outlined. During this stage, give them the opportunity to share their own suggestions for achieving your goals. They may have ideas that hadn’t occurred to you before. This shows you value their opinions.
Then, divide up the workload among all the team members involved in the project. Base their assigned tasks on their unique strengths and interests. Everyone gets the opportunity to shine, which makes work more enjoyable for them. Plus, they’re able to direct their attention to specific areas as opposed to managing an entire campaign from start to finish.
3. Set Up Tracking Tools to Measure Success
As mentioned before, it’s important to set measurable content marketing goals. If a goal isn’t measurable, there will be no way to know if you’ve achieved it. It’s the difference between saying you want more website traffic versus saying you want to increase traffic by 50%. The latter is something you can track and see within your analytics.
So, before you begin putting your plan into motion, make sure you have the necessary tools to measure your success over time. For instance, Google Analytics is a go-to for content creators and marketers. It allows you to measure website traffic, traffic sources, and more. Additionally, the built-in analytics that social media platforms offer can help on your journey to becoming a content marketing master.
However, there may be some other tools you’d like to use as well. SEMrush is a favorite for SEO and competitor research. Yoast is popular for WordPress bloggers who want to optimize their content. And, of course, BuzzSumo is great for discovering the most popular content in your industry. Determine which tools are most important to you and factor them into your content marketing budget.
4. Monitor Goal Progress Regularly
With the appropriate tools in place, you’ll be able to frequently check in on your progress as you work toward your content marketing goals. How often you dive into your analytics will depend on the designated timeframe from the goal-setting stage. For example, with a short-term goal, you might analyze your data daily or weekly, depending on what’s most appropriate for your situation. Long-term goals, however, will likely be tracked monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
5. Be Willing to Tweak Your Strategy and Experiment
As you track and measure your progress, you might notice when your content marketing efforts aren’t performing as well as you’d hoped. In those moments, don’t get discouraged but try to be flexible. This happens to everyone from time to time! However, many businesses get so stuck in their ways that it’s hard for them to manage flexibility.
You never want to be so rigid in your content marketing strategy that you’re unwilling to make changes as you pursue your goals. Sometimes you need to adjust along the way based on what’s performing well and what isn’t. This is why we rely heavily on analytics to see what resonates with our target audiences. From there, make changes to increase ROI.
Another important element of being flexible is being willing to experiment. When done well, trying new things and testing out the latest content marketing trends can yield fantastic results. Always be willing to experiment to see what works best for your business and what appeals to your audience.
6. Don’t Give Up Too Early
These days, we all want things in an instant. But when it comes to achieving your content marketing goals, it’s going to take some time to make them a reality. When your goals seem impossible to reach, don’t give up. Stay committed and trust in your ability to make big things happen.
Sometimes a deadline will pass, and a goal still hasn’t been reached. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean that it’s time to abandon that goal. It just means you need to revisit your strategy, make tweaks, and show persistence by continuing to move forward with confidence.
Let Us Help You Reach Your Content Marketing Goals
A huge part of reaching your content marketing goals is consistently publishing high-quality, valuable content that your audience and Google will love. But what if you don’t have time to create quality content? What if writing isn’t your strong suit? Don’t worry because you can hire a team of expert writers to plan and create content that will make your business shine.
Visit our Content Shop to learn how Express Writers can help.
You spend quite a bit of time, effort, and money when it comes to your content marketing efforts. So, don’t you want to make sure you’re seeing a return on your investment? Of course!
That’s why it’s crucial you take the time to measure your content marketing success so you can see what performs well and what doesn’t. This way, you’re able to focus on creating the content that’s going to generate the best results, allowing you to get more bang for your buck.
But how do you go about tracking this type of data? We’re breaking it all down for you in this month’s #ContentWritingChat. Let’s dive into the tips!
#ContentWritingChat Recap: Measuring Content Marketing Success With Amanda Webb
This month, we're joined by Amanda Webb (@Spiderworking). She's a digital marketer and will be sharing some tips on measuring content marketing success.
— Express Writers | Your Content Writing Partner (@ExpWriters) May 3, 2022
Our guest host for this month was Amanda Webb. Amanda is a digital marketer who knows a thing or two about diving into your analytics to determine whether or not your content marketing efforts are paying off. After all, her mission is to help boost your ROI in business!
Q1: Why is it important to track the success of your content marketing efforts?
A1: Creating content takes time, a lot of time. Is that time being spent wisely? Are you spending time on the right thing? You need to measure to know you aren’t wasting that time PLUS most importantly, that you are delivering results for your or your client.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
As Amanda pointed out, it takes time to create great content. And because our time is precious, it’s important that we’re being smart about where we’re directing our attention. You wouldn’t want to continue investing a bunch of time into something that isn’t working out, would you? By measuring your content marketing success, you’re able to spend your time more wisely.
A1: By tracking the success of your #ContentMarketing, you'll have a better understanding of what resonates with your audience. Then, you can create more of the content that WORKS. #ContentWritingChat
When do a deep dive into your analytics to see how your content is performing, you’ll also gain a better understanding of what resonates with your target audience. This will allow you to create more of the content they want and enjoy.
A1. The first goal of content is to provide value for your target audience. Without measurement, you’re only guessing about whether or not you’re doing that. #ContentWritingChat
Dana knows it’s all about providing value to your audience. But how will you know you’re providing value unless you actually review the data to see how people are responding to your content? You won’t! Tracking key metrics will allow you to create a more effective strategy moving forward.
A1: If content is king, why risk appointing the wrong content for your audience? Tracking helps determine what works, but it also helps a strategy evolve with the times.#ContentWritingChat
Don’t risk publishing the wrong content! Do the research to figure out what your audience wants to see from you and you’ll drive more traffic, engagement, and conversions.
Q2: How do you know which metrics are important to track? Should you track the same things for every piece of content or does it change with each content marketing campaign?
A2: Each piece of content needs a goal. ➙Is it designed to grow your audience? ➙Is it designed to improve brand awareness? ➙Is it designed to grow your email list? ➙Is it designed to sell? When you know the goal measurement becomes easy.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A2: Some metrics will be the same for every campaign. ✓You’ll want to know if you are reaching people. ✓You’ll want to know if the people you reach are consuming the content. But after that, you’ll need different metrics depending on your goal.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
Always make sure to set goals for every piece of content you create. Amanda shared some great examples of common goals you might work toward, including building brand awareness, growing your email list, and increasing sales.
A2. Typically the most important metrics would be associated with your marketing goals as the most impactful with your audience. It may vary by campaign, especially if campaigns are being run for different objectives. #ContentWritingChat
— Andrew C. Belton, MBA (@AndrewCBelton) May 3, 2022
The metrics you track will always be tied back to your marketing goals. And as Andrew pointed out, this can vary by campaign depending on what the purpose of the campaign is.
A2: Determining which metrics to track ultimately goes back to the goals you've set for your content/campaign. This can change from time to time.
However, it's always smart to track traffic, engagement, conversions, etc. #ContentWritingChat
For Carla, it’s all about tracking conversations and conversions. Both are crucial metrics to pay attention to when you’re a business owner or marketer.
Q3: What about vanity metrics? Are they worth tracking?
A3: Everything can be a vanity metric even leads & sales. You can get 100s of leads but they’re not good if they don’t convert. You can get 6 figures in sales but is only relevant if you didn’t spend 7 figures to get there. #ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A3: Things that are traditionally considered vanity metrics matter too. Audience growth can be important, if you don’t have an audience no one knows about you. But it’s not relevant on its own. Ensuring the audience is full of the right people is.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
Amanda offered some great insights on vanity metrics. And as she said, audience growth is great to track, but you want to make sure you’re building an audience of the right people if you want to see long-term success.
A3: Vanity metrics are useful if you are trying to gain buy-in. However, never let vanity metrics detract from your primary tracking and reporting.#ContentWritingChat
Just make sure the vanity metrics aren’t distracting you from the main goals of the campaigns you’re running.
Q4: When do you measure content marketing success? Weekly, monthly, quarterly?
A4: If you’re launching a new piece of content, strategy or campaign, monitor it daily. This can tell you if there’s something wrong & give you an idea of the response.
Don’t act on a small data sample, wait at least a week before you draw any conclusions. #ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A4: For ongoing content or strategies measure weekly or at the very least monthly. It will help you determine the direction of future campaigns. #ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
It’s clear that Amanda sees the benefit in regularly tracking key data for content marketing success. She suggests monitoring new content or campaigns on a daily basis. For more long-term strategies, she suggests monitoring data on a weekly or monthly basis. Doing this allows you to tweak your strategy as needed.
A4. I typically do a quick weekly review just to get a sense of how things are going as I promote the content and then monthly and quarterly I’ll do a deeper dive where I’ll identify trends and take it into consideration regarding the overall strategy. #contentwritingchat
— Andrew C. Belton, MBA (@AndrewCBelton) May 3, 2022
Andrew likes to do a weekly review to get a sense of how his content is performing. He also does monthly and quarterly reviews, which allow him to go deep into his analytics and gain a better understanding of how his content is performing.
Q5: What are your go-to tools for tracking the success of your content marketing efforts?
A5: Google Analytics are your best friend. Make sure you set up goals if you are still using Universal Analytics. If you’ve made the move to GA4 set up Events and Conversions#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A5: I use Toggl to track the time I spend on marketing content and promotion: https://t.co/aiG6E9GU7Y Time is money (or so they say) so it’s important to monitor how much time content is taking.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
Amanda shared a few great tool suggestions, including Google Analytics, which is a staple for any content creator. She also recommends using a time tracker like Toggl. This allow you to see how much time you’re spending on marketing tasks.
A5. My go-to tools are Google Analytics and Hootsuite. I like to receive regular automated reports. #ContentWritingChat
— Andrew C. Belton, MBA (@AndrewCBelton) May 3, 2022
Andrew’s favorites include Google Analytics and Hootsuite. If you use a third-party social media scheduling tool like Hootsuite, their analytics will be so helpful in measuring content marketing success.
And don’t forget! There are built-in analytics for many of the platforms we use on a daily basis. For instance, Twitter has analytics that provide a wealth of information about your content and your account growth.
Q6: What do you do when you’re not seeing your desired results? What strategic actions can you take to drive more traffic, engagement, and sales?
A6: If you’re not seeing the results you expected devise a theory for why this may be and then test it. For example: ➙Is it the headline? Test different headlines ➙Is it too long? Test a shorter version ➙Is the call to action wrong? Test a different CTA#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A6: Don’t be afraid to give something up if it’s not working. But gather a decent sample size before you make that decision. Decide in advance what that sample is. ⏱It could be time: A week, a month, a quarter 👀It could be views: 100, 1k or 10k #ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A6: Before you axe something look for the ‘Covert Benefits’. These are results that don't lead directly to sales but provide other benefits. Eg; New clients always mention my Digital Coffee show, it doesn’t drive direct sales but it builds trust so people buy.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
Sometimes the content you worked so hard to create doesn’t perform as well as you’d hoped. It happens to the best of us and is no reason to be discouraged. Instead, follow Amanda’s advice. Figure out why your content is working by tweaking different elements to see if anything changes. You can swap your headline or test different CTAs to see what works best.
There’s no shame in abandoning a content format or strategy that isn’t working for you. Just make sure you’ve allowed ample time to measure your success to see if there are any benefits before moving onto something else.
A6. For published content, creating new fresh copy and images can be effective, as well as adjusting the times that the content is shared on social. For newer content, implement the elements above that you’ve seen previous success with. #ContentWritingChat
— Andrew C. Belton, MBA (@AndrewCBelton) May 3, 2022
Updating copy and adding new images can go a long way to refresh your content and drive more interest. And as Andrew said, something as simple as changing your posting schedule on social media can make a huge difference when it comes to driving impressions and engagement.
Q7: When is it worth putting advertising dollars behind a piece of content to generate more attention for it?
A7: If your content isn’t working, don’t immediately put money behind it. If it’s not working organically, chances are it won’t work in an ad and it will be expensive to promote it.
Instead, rework it until it performs and then put ad spend behind it.#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
A7: Put ad spend behind sales content so that the audience you have built and nurtured will see it. They are the people most likely to buy. But always test that sales content (you can do that within the ads interfaces).#ContentWritingChat
— Amanda Webb – Digital Marketer 👩💻 (@Spiderworking) May 3, 2022
Amanda’s advice is to not put money behind a piece of content that isn’t performing well organically. She suggests making some tweaks to boost performance before putting a portion of your advertising budget behind it. She also said it’s smart to put money behind sales content so you can increase conversions.
Want to join the next #ContentWritingChat? It happens on the first Tuesday of every month at 10 AM Central. Just follow @ExpWriters to stay updated.
