Every once and a while, you’ll have a truly great story to tell, or subject to talk about, and you’ll write a great piece of content based on it.
And then, this content sits on your blog, and does pretty much nothing.
All the effort that you put into the content that you thought was fantastic appears at first to have gone to waste. So what can you do about it?
Do your research!
First of all, check that you didn’t miss the mark and do your research. Are people talking about this subject? Set up Google Alerts to monitor the topics and keywords included in your post. If you are getting alerts through, check out what the competition are saying on the subject. Take a look at Google Trends.
Check the social metrics around similar pieces of content. And check the social media channels of the publisher to see how they promoted it.
Also, take advantage of conversational search and autocomplete. If your content poses or answers a question, use Google’s autocomplete to see if perhaps your content could be better optimised to match these search queries.
Also, check out places like LinkedIn Groups and forums within your niche to see if anyone is already discussing the topic.
If you haven’t done so already, share the content via social media and use a tool like hashtagify.me to identify audiences that may find your content relevant.
If your content references a source or features a service, product or piece of research from someone else, hit them up via social media to let them know about it. Often, flattery goes a long way!
If after doing all of this you find that no one is interested in the topic, don’t despair! Perhaps it’s because nobody knows about it yet. Which means it’s time to…
Plant the seeds
Identify the key topics and most interesting points from the content and get ready to pitch a reworked version of it to third-party publications and sites.
If the topic is fairly generic, if possible try to conduct more research to tailor it to a specific industry or audience. For example, a piece of content that you wrote about ‘research conducted into whether or not cats can cry’ could be repurposed and pitched to:
- Pet information sites (give it a more medical angle – could the ‘crying’ be mistaken for some gross eye disease?)
- Cat enthusiast sites (because these people probably think cats have feelings beyond ‘I want food’)
- Fun sites (source some images and GIFS of cats looking bummed out for ultimate lolz)
These three new pieces of content alone appeal to three completely different audiences – those looking for information, the stereotypical crazy cat ladies, and those looking for content they’ll want to share with their friends.
And of course, you can still add a link back to the blog post that you wrote in the repurposed content to get some sweet referral traffic.
You might also want to consider using a tool like JournoRequests to set up notifications for the main topics in your post so that if someone is looking for a story based on whether or not cats can cry – you can hit them up with the information straight away, and leave them to do the hard work of rewriting and publishing the content.
Keep it frigidity-fresh
If new information comes to light, use this as an opportunity to use that content again!
Even if the new information is conflicting, you can usually put a spin on it to make it work in your favour.
For example, if someone published a new piece of research that shows that ‘cats do in fact have human emotions and cry real salty tears when they are down in the dumps’, by all means refer people to the conflicting evidence that you published. Don’t be afraid to have an opinion on a subject that you are knowledgeable about or even admit that you may have got it wrong (after all, even Einstein got some things wrong). Sometimes, this starts great discussions, and in turn, a buzz around your content.
Don’t be disheartened
Sometimes, even despite your best efforts, a particular piece of content won’t get as much love as you’d have liked. The most important thing you can do in this instance is learn from it.
Take a look at Google Analytics to find out what content worked well for you previously and see how it compares to the content that you were attempting to push.
- Did the more successful piece of content get published around an event or news story that increased search interest?
- Did this piece of content get any traffic from any good referrers?
- If the more successful piece of content was featured by any referrers, is the source good enough to forge a relationship with them so that you can get in touch next time you have some content to promote?
- Did this content drive traffic soon after being published with it later dropping off, or does it continue to drive traffic?
Then, look at the content itself:
- Did the more successful content feature images, a download, or other media that may have made it more appealing/shareable?
- Was the content informative and helpful for users, and easy to digest?
- Did this content speak to your target audience?
- How did users interact with the content? Were there comments or questions?
- Was the content well optimised for search engines?
For help on developing a successful content strategy, get in touch with Browser Media today!
