Use a Content Marketing Plan to Increase Traffic and Convert Visitors

The shear number of online marketing tools available at your fingertips can be pretty overwhelming. Developing a content marketing plan to increase authority, web traffic and leads is a critical step to take with any of your online marketing efforts. However, in order to translate online activity into business, you need to understand how all of these tools work together. A model we like to call your online marketing engine.

Most blogs you read focus on the first two steps of the model above: the importance of creating content, strategies on how to promote content, and the like. Not that I want to understate the importance of these first two steps in a content marketing plan, but for this post, I'd like to focus more on the third step: converting your website visitors to leads. Besides, isn't that what we're all after?

Several content marketing techniques play an important role in increasing engagement and converting visitors to leads. And because so few professional services firms truly understand or use these techniques, it is a great way for your firm to master them and gain a competitive advantage.

Here is an overview of each content marketing conversion technique:

1) Usability Testing. This is simply the testing of user experience and interaction. So when looking at online content, make sure your website's blog or content is laid out in a format that makes sense and is easy for your audience to navigate through. The functionality of the piece of content needs to make sense as well. This means the registration and download process for content makes sense and is easy to operate.

2) A/B Testing. This technique tests the effectiveness of offers, ads, and landing pages to improve conversion percentages. You need to create two concepts, concept A and concept B, changing one element in each. Once the concepts are live, you can then collect data on the success of each. After analyzing the results, it will become clear which concept performs better and what you should replicate for future offers, ads, and landing pages.

3) Web Analytics. There are several tools that you can use to track online activity, but the most common is Google Analytics. Some of the most important items to track when it comes to online content include content downloads, conversion rates, page views, social referrals, and most viewed blog posts. This will help you see how your content is performing.

Continuously monitoring and tracking your online content performance will begin to uncover trends you wouldn't have noticed otherwise and could possibly reveal new strategies to take with your online content.

The results of our recent research on online marketing was clear and compelling. As your online marketing machine gets fired up and well oiled, it will start to have a dramatic effect on the growth and profitability of your firm. Don't let the number of online marketing tools own you. Instead, dominate the tools and techniques and make them work for you and your content marketing plan.