When it comes to marketing, content is king. Consequently, you’ll need a system that can bring tools for marketing, content management, and ecommerce all into one central location. Many marketers and developers owe their success to the capabilities of one system in particular: WordPress.
In this article, we’ll briefly discuss the concept of content marketing. Then we’ll take a look at a number of native WordPress features and plugins that can help you strengthen your overall content marketing strategy. There’s a lot to explore, so let’s dive right in!
What Content Marketing Adds to Your Digital Advertising Strategy
There’s no overstating the popularity of WordPress, the open-source Content Management System (CMS). In fact, 35 percent of active websites use it. That’s almost a 62 percent share of the CMS market, which implies that there’s something about this CMS that makes content creation and marketing easier for many people.
The basic goal of content marketing is to drive organic traffic to your website. Additionally, content marketing is often designed to increase the number of qualified leads you attract. This is done through the creation of engaging, honest, and authentic web content that appeals to a targeted audience.
Let’s take a look at a few examples from recognizable brands. Toyota Europe created a YouTube channel full of helpful content for Toyota owners as a part of its content marketing strategy:
This is a great example of how you can create helpful and shareable content for your potential customers. Not only do these videos provide educational material, they also build a connection to existing car owners, and show potential customers that the company is there to support them.
Another example of content marketing comes from the Washington Post. Its article featuring a list-style approach to planning a road trip has been wildly popular, and holds the Google answer box spot for “how to plan for a road trip.”
Focusing on securing top spots in search engine results is a content marketing strategy that has been proven successful. In a broader sense, content marketing can cost 62 percent less than traditional marketing, and has been shown to bring in three times as many leads.
How WordPress CMS Differs From Other Options (and Why it Matters)
WordPress CMS is a standout among other options. One of the main reasons is its open-source core. This makes WordPress highly customizable and flexible for users of all experience levels.
Thanks to this open-source approach, which means that anyone can access the source code for the system, all types of developers can create plugins and themes for WordPress. Plugins are code packages that can be installed on your website to enhance the native features of WordPress.
Custom post types are another handy WordPress feature for marketers. They enable you to create custom layouts for specific kinds of content. For example, you could create an event post type with a unique template that makes event pages different from your standard blog posts.
When you use this feature, you’re also opening ways to use Application Program Interfaces (APIs) to share your website’s content back and forth between other third-party applications. For example, you could easily integrate your website’s content with an event manager platform or social media sites.
What’s more, when you use WordPress to develop a content marketing strategy, you’re also working within a framework that’s primed for executing effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Highly optimized and rich content can be a key factor in your success.
4 Ways WordPress CMS Can Strengthen Your Content Marketing Strategy
For the reasons listed above and more, WordPress can take your content marketing to the next level. The best part is that you don’t have to rely on the base software and its features—you can customize it to meet your exact needs. Let’s look at four ways you might do that.
1. Organize Your Content Plan With Scheduling Plugins
One of the best practices to follow when implementing a content plan is to create and stick to a schedule. You don’t want to suddenly run out of content once you establish a loyal audience.
There are a couple of plugins you can install for free from the WordPress Plugin Directory that might be helpful. The Editorial Calendar plugin is an excellent example:
This is a free tool that can help you manage all of your website’s editorial needs. You can drag and drop posts to set their publishing dates, and see what content is coming up that needs attention.
There are other options as well, such as Publish Press and WP Scheduled Posts. You’ll want to review their features in order to determine which solution meets your needs. It’s worth keeping in mind that if you have a whole team creating content, you’ll also want to look for a plugin that has the ability to adjust its functionality based on user roles.
2. Create Engaging Content Your Customers Will Want
What makes someone like a piece of content can be highly subjective. However, there’s research out there that has pinpointed what types of content tend to be more successful.
For example, quizzes rack up more social shares than just about anything else on the web. You can test out some quiz content with your potential customers or readers using a WordPress plugin like Quiz Cat:
This is an easy way to create fun and engaging content for your website. Another quiz-style plugin you might want to check out is OpinionStage.
Additionally, knowing all of the SEO tricks and implementing them appropriately can have a big impact on the success of your content. To help with that, Yoast SEO is a free plugin that comes packed with essential SEO solutions:
Yoast offers tools to help you maximize keywords, create Google-friendly meta data, and improve the readability of your content.
3. Make It Easy for Users to Share Content on Social Media
When you look at any social sharing statistics, you’ll see that internet users have an almost constant need to communicate. During the average minute in 2019, users sent over 41.6 million mobile messages and 2.1 million ‘snaps.’ Getting a toehold in those sharing streams can be a key part of your overall content strategy.
One of the most versatile tools for this purpose is Jetpack:
Jetpack does a little of everything, from site security and speed optimization to SEO and social media promotion. It’s a great choice if you want to keep the number of plugins you use to a minimum.
Alternatively, AddToAny Share Buttons is a simple way to provide site visitors with over 100 different options for sharing your content on their social channels. Both plugins can help you increase the chance that your content will take off.
4. Use Data to Continuously Monitor and Adjust Your Content Strategy
It’s important to make informed content decisions. This typically requires monitoring your content’s performance continuously, and making adjustments that have a positive impact on its metrics. This approach can help you craft a content strategy that will lead to business growth.
It’s not surprising that Google Analytics is the most highly-recommended tool to use for this kind of data gathering. Google’s free tools really do provide an astounding amount of information. With that in mind, you’ll want to check out the MonsterInsights Google Analytics Dashboard plugin for WordPress:
Of course, there are many plugin options when it comes to integrating Google Analytics with your WordPress site. When evaluating them, be sure to check for key indicators of quality, such as the frequency of software updates, support options, and user ratings.
Conclusion
It’s clear that content marketing has become a popular and fruitful digital marketing technique. Fortunately, getting started with a content campaign is quite approachable. This is especially true if you’re already a WordPress CMS user. By leveraging the most popular CMS on the market, you’ll have a rich toolkit of content marketing resources at your fingertips.
Do you have questions about any of the tips we mentioned? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!
Image by Alexander Gounder from Pixabay