If you think only blogs can drive traffic to your website, you need to think again. Here we have listed the result oriented content types that boost your traffic and conversion rate as well.
“Content is King” is the most exploited phrase in content marketing. It was arguably coined by Bill Gates in 1996 when Internet was in infancy.
During these 20 years, digital world has changed a lot and it has become more common than you think. But what Mr Gates said is still relevant. Unique content rules the digital marketing world and is important for your website as it attracts traffic, improves SEO and increases conversion rates. Over the years, content has become an “umbrella” term for video, audio, and visuals. And these new content types have proved successful as they are more engaging and captivating than mere textual form.
Therefore, you should go beyond to these sophisticated forms of content to generate traffic, rather than just sticking to the text posts and old publishing norms.
Here we have come up such content types to boost your traffic and conversion rate as well:
#1 Videos
Videos should be the part of your content marketing strategy. While interactive and informative for the users, video content gives you an attractive and extremely sharable medium to approach your target audience. Not only this, videos can also improve your SEO efforts.
Go through some video marketing stats to know why video content matters:
- 1 minute video is equal to 1.8 million words
- 52% of mobile traffic is a search for video.
- Video posts gets more engagement on Facebook
- 25% users lose interest in a company if it doesn’t have video
- 40% of customers visit the site after seeing it’s product video
- Social video increases 1200% shares than text and videos
- Businesses using video get 41% more traffic than image based sites
Besides your own videos, you can embed YouTube videos on your webpage.
#2 Long-Form Content
While users like to read short and precise content, long form articles have their own benefits. Long-form term is used for the articles exceeding 3000+ word count. How they can drive traffic to your website?
First and foremost, they do better than the short form contents of 300-500 words while having the same keywords.
For Example: Convince & Convert ranks for how to escape Google penalties which is content of about 1500+ words.
You can incorporate more and more keywords in long form content while there is always an opportunity to create semantic keywords (when users search with different keywords). Google also recommends long form contents as they cover the broad topic. Besides, they have better sharing rate on social medial platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
You can use long-form content for tutorials, stories and case studies, predictions and forecasts and opinions.
#3 Evergreen Content
If you have a copy of Reader’s Digest, you would like to keep it for years. Why? The magazine publishes timeless and valuable articles that stay relevant for the years to come. Creating such types of content for your website is extremely beneficial. These content types are also known as evergreen content.
Here is the simple yet best definition of evergreen content given by Wordstream:
“Evergreen content is SEO content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers.”
For example, home remedy for acne would be the same after 5 or 10 years. Similarly, your blog published in 2015 on “depression managing tips” would be equally useful for someone in 2030. Evergreen content boosts keyword ranking and enhances site traffic due to its timeless nature and duration on the webpages.
Following themes works best for Evergreen Articles:
#4 How-To Content and Tutorials
Hubspot has cited “how-to” posts in its category of most shared content. “How to” blog posts are tried and tested way to attract users for finding solutions. If you have such solution, you have an opportunity to create a golden content. Is it so simple?
You have to be familiar with your user’s problem. For example, you can write on How to Optimize Your Content for Google Quick Answer Box and can provide the solution to what most people struggle with. Once you’ve found an issue, start offering step by step guide on its solution. Make sure to provide clear and practical steps.
#5 Lists
“Lists” headlines have always been attention grabber, whether they are on magazine covers or on the websites. “6 Simple Ways to Save Money” is likely to attract more clicks than “Simple and Quick Ways to Save Money” or Top 10 Digital Marketing Experts and Keynote Speakers to follow in 2017 as people will surely look to this type of content.
According to Copyblogger.com, a “headline that lists a number of reasons, secrets, types, or ways will work because, once again, it makes a very specific promise of what’s in store for the reader.”
#6 Infographic
Infographic is a portmanteau of two words—information and graphic. It is a graphical representation of the data or information. Infographic is an interesting way to present your content in visual format. It not only grabs user’s attention, but also provides easy explanation which can be otherwise difficult with large text chunks. This is why infographics get more shares and views than other content types. You can use Infographic to explain complicated data like statistics, science experiments and research work.
#7 Podcasts
Over the years, podcasting has been emerged as the popular content type. According to one study, podcast listening increased 23% between 2015 and 2016 while 64% podcasts are listened on a smartphone or IOT device.
While podcasts are easy to produce, it is an interactive way of conveying information to your audience and podcast also help in boosting the businesses. Besides, the “audio format” of podcasts facilitates people to listen wherever they go.
To get it started, all you need a microphone and recording software. You can use SoundCloud Audio embeds to publish episodes on your blog.
#8 Product Review and Comparison
These types of blog are useful for the business selling tangible products and services. For example, you can prepare a content to compare your products within your own brands or with competitor’s services. Be honest with your reviews and comparison by telling the pros and cons of each product. For that, you can use the views of developers, manufacturers and service providers. In this way, you develop a trust with your audience, which in turns fetch more traffic to your business.
#9 Presentations and Slides
PPT slides not only give amusing presentation, but also help you drive traffic to your website. These slide show presentation can engage the audience like infographic and video (at some extend). You can submit your PPTs to high traffic websites like Slideshare that gets over 60 million visitors per month. And 20% visitors on Slideshare come directly from Google!
Read here how Ana Hoffman’s 9 slide presentations received 2, 43,000 views in 30 days.
#10 Research and Original Data
A factual and well researched article wins over user’s trust and has more chances to drive the traffic than superficial or subjective articles.
For example, using facts, case studies and expert’s comments in your blog titled as “Lemon for Health Problems” will make it looks authentic, which in turns builds trust. No wonder if these articles get more shares on social media platforms.
While abovementioned content types are the traffic generator, you have to choose the right one for your website.
How to know which content can work for you? All you need to know your audience and their requirement.
For example, short and concise content would be good for your mobile users while infographic can go well with every website. If you own health and medication website, you can use long form content and research/original data to keep everything clear and accurate for your audience.
So try aforesaid content types to give your users something new, something interesting, which in turns benefit your website.