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Marketing strategies for building a ranking article in 2019

by | Jan 15, 2019 | Analysis, Public Relations

Building content with all the ingredients to rank highly isn’t a simple process—but with a solid understanding of marketing strategies, content writers won’t have to go it alone.

All too often, well-written content is unable to rank strongly on Google. Chances are, that content wasn’t promoted through the right channels, didn’t include effective keywords, or simply doesn’t keep the reader’s attention.

There is no cure-all approach to marketing your content effectively, but it takes a strategic approach to push good content into high-ranking territory. These five marketing strategies will set content writers on course to boost rankings and improve online presence.

1. Zero in on your audience

There’s a reason this is marketing strategy number one. If you don’t have your audience targeted, then the tone of your entire article will be out of sync.

If you’re writing about brand new video game headsets, then you’re going to need to know what a predominantly younger, tech-savvy male audience will want to read. Your writing has to reflect your audience, and if it doesn’t then it will be hard to gain trust.

This point is especially important for B2B content. No business professional wants to have their time wasted. Unlike B2C communications, there is an assumption that you will get right down to the point in a professional way. Once you’ve determined your target audience, keep a mental image of that person in mind—it will help you maintain a consistent tone.

Marketing strategies for building a ranking article in 2019

You must be sure to match your writing style and level of expertise with your audience. If that means you need to do more research to be more knowledgeable, then do it!

2. Know the importance of link building

Link building is crucial to marketing your content. According to Backlinko, the absolute most important factor to ranking your article is whether or not other sites are linking back to it, and 2019 is no different—it’s been the name of the game for twenty years.

It’s important to understand just how linking will benefit your work. In order to build a comprehensive article, you will need to include links to reputable sites.

If you are writing about the medical benefits of cocoa butter, for example, a WebMD article about cocoa butter would be a perfect fit for a link. Good link placement shows that you are referencing authority when necessary and that you care about getting the facts straight.

The links that you include in your content will make it more reputable, and therefore signal your work as an authority. But, if you’re lazy with your linking strategies, it will be much harder to establish your work as credible and climb up the rankings.

3. Comprehensive keyword research

Just like determining your target audience, choosing your primary and secondary keywords is absolutely crucial to the formation of the rest of your article.

When you think you’ve found a term that works for you, you’ll have to analyze that keyword. The most important factors are as follows:

  • Keyword Difficulty (KD): This is a number between 0-100 which denotes how difficult it will be to rank your content for a given keyword. The higher the number, the harder it will be to rank.
  • Search Volume: This statistic will show you how many times a keyword is searched per month. If your keyword has a high volume and low difficulty, then you’re in a good position to climb up the rankings.

Reference this screenshot from SEMRush to see what search volume and keyword difficulty look like:

Marketing strategies for building a ranking article in 2019

Utilizing multiple SEO tools will help bring you all the necessary information about a keyword. SEMRush, Moz, and LSIGraph are all great resources and they will help you gather more data on keyword performance.

4. The Skyscraper Technique

The good thing about competing with other articles for search engine ranking positions is that you know just what the competition looks like. The Skyscraper Technique is built around that idea. What does this mean in practice?

Marketing strategies for building a ranking article in 2019

It’s called the Skyscraper Technique because you’re building content upon other content that has already proven to rank. If you’re creating an article about the best sleeping habits, you should already have researched the main points that every other writer has touched on. Your goal is to:

  • Gather all of the content that is proven to rank (sleep habits that you’ve gathered)
  • Personalize it (start your article with those building blocks)
  • Add your own personal touch (include your own unique research about sleep to stand 
above the competition)

By the time your article is ready for publishing, it should be the most informative one out there. And as was mentioned before, Google prioritizes informative articles. The Skyscraper Technique and diligent keyword research are among the most important marketing SEO strategies that will provide the foundation for high ranking content.

5. Pitch writing is just as important as content writing

You’ve written your article, chosen the right keywords, and built your links—now it’s time for some good old fashioned content marketing. Whether you market through an email blast with a program like Pitchbox or through direct communications with editors or content managers, you’ll need to pitch your work well.

Stick to the basics. Describe yourself and your aims in the simplest terms:

  • Who you are
  • What expertise you have
  • What content you have to offer
  • Include a link to an example of your work

No editor or content manager will be able to tell how good your writing is just by reading your pitch (but a great pitch is a good indicator). Just like with a well-written article, an editor will engage more with a well-written pitch. Reference a pitching guide to see if your pitch could use some work.

Not only does the pitch need to be solid, but it needs to go through the right channels. When you are using a tool to send out pitch campaigns, you need to be sure that you are reaching out to the right relevant publishers and blogs. A good media database can help you accomplish this.

Combining all of these strategies

Maximizing the potential reach of your content in 2019 means that you’ll have to go far beyond just a good pitch. Keyword research, target audience research, link building and a solid understanding of proven content-building techniques are all necessary marketing strategies that will help your content to stand above the competition.

Don’t get too bogged down trying to stuff in as much information as possible, and don’t try to get off easy by blowing your work up with too many images and graphics.

Remember, Google ranks high-quality work that blends the accessible and the informative—make 2019 the year that you hit the perfect balance and start climbing up the results page rankings.

John Aaron
John Aaron is a freelance journalist and content creator. His blogging expertise is mainly focused on SEO and content marketing, but he is always looking to immerse himself in new topics and areas of interest. John is based out of Southern California, where he lives with his girlfriend and spends his free time playing music.

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