How to Monitor Your Industry and Improve Your Content Marketing
Content marketing is the foundation of business success. It’s the only way to connect with potential leads, to provide value and information, and ultimately to convert prospects into paying customers.
Content drives traffic, increases awareness, strengthens your brand, builds trust, and makes sales. But creating content in the dark, without any information, can be a long and tedious process. Leverage the information and tools available to you. Monitor your industry and improve your content marketing.
Here’s a few tips and tactics to help you get started.
- Google Alerts (google.com/alerts) – Simple Google alerts for keywords, competitor’s names, and industry influencers can help you stay on top of what is happening in your industry. You can leverage this information and create content on trending topics, capitalize on popular keywords, and build relationships with industry influencers. Leveraging Google alerts helps you stay fresh.
- Buzzsumo (www.buzzsumo.com) – Buzzsumo is an online application that identifies the top performers in any industry and for any topic. You can use it to monitor your own content as well as the content of your competition and other industry leaders and influencers. Use it for content research and to find key topics to write on. You can filter by date and look at what’s happening today or last month. You can also filter by the type of content, including images or videos.
- TalkWalker (Talkwalker.com) – If you have already tried Google Alerts but are looking for another FREE alternative, TalkWalker is another useful and powerful tool to help you monitor your campaign’s reach. We have recommended this platform to many clients looking for additional information delivered directly in their inbox. Try TalkWalker Alerts today. The platform also provides social media analytics and social listening tool, which we will review in a future blog post.
- Analytics – There are dozens of different analytics programs, including Google Analytics (analytics.google.com), that you can install onto your website. They tell you a variety of information, including the most popular keywords that drive traffic to your website, how long people stay on your site, and what path they take when they’re on your website or blog. This information can help you not only plan your content, and keep people on your website longer, but also to create a navigation path that results in more sales and conversions.
- Press Release Distribution – Any time you write a press release, leverage a press release distribution service that provides analytics. You can discover who is linking to your press release, what media channels are sharing it, and who is engaging with your release online. This is valuable information because it can help you create better and more effective press releases. It also gives you insight about what the media, and your audience, are looking for.
- Social Media Analytics – If you are active on social media and it plays a key role in your content marketing, then take the time to invest in social media analytics information and tools. Like basic website analytics, there are dozens of top tools. Keyhole (www.keyhole.co) is one such tool. Social media analytics can help you track the likes and shares your posts receive, monitor the replies and comments you receive, and track the clicks your links and content earn.
The bottom line is that for just about every type of content you publish, there should be a system of analytics to track your results. From email to press releases, make sure you know how your content is performing. Pay attention to what’s trending in your industry and what topics are popular and effective. Strengthen your content marketing with metrics and analytics.
What do you think about these tools? Feel free to post your comments and share with the community.
Call us today to speak to one of our PR specialists: 1-800-713-7278
