How Many Articles Should You Publish to Increase Traffic and Leads?

“How do they do it?” my clients ask, as they look at the number of blog articles by their industry’s top producers. “How many articles should I publish to increase my traffic and leads?”

Often, it feels as if we can never quite write enough content to keep up with the “big guns” in our industry. Then, we read that we need to write 2-4 articles per week?

And then we sink a little lower in our chair. How in the world can we do that?

We want to focus our content on our customers’ needs. We need to create top-quality articles that position us as thought leaders in our industry.

Yet we need to do so effectively, without taking too much time from our work. And, we need to optimize our reach so we increase traffic, leads, and sales.

I’m here to tell you can. You can do all three. You can do them effectively, without juggling your time with your other work. Starting out on a shoestring content marketing budget. My company did just that. You can, too.

Quick Takeaways:

• Use a content marketing agency to build to the foundation.
• Leverage your internal areas of expertise.
• Repurpose previous content such as executive presentations or webinars.
• Get your employees in on the act.

Use A Content Marketing Agency To Build The Foundation

Outsource your content for baseline SEO and organic search rankings. Find an agency that understands the pressure to deliver results. But one that also knows how to use keyword research and competitive analysis to find the content gaps to fill.

Using an agency will make sure that you’re not juggling your schedule or keeping the content candle burning at both ends. Learn how to create the right number of articles to build your business while keeping quality at the forefront.

Look for Areas of Expertise to Target in Your Articles

You wouldn’t be in business if you weren’t an expert in your field. Start with your expertise and knowledge. Jot down article ideas that use that expertise to solve your customers’ problems.

It’s not wasted time. Consider it research that will keep you abreast of the latest developments in your field. That alone is worth the time you spend in research, writing, and publishing your articles.

In fact, do a little digging. I’ll bet that you can uncover niches within your industry in which you have more expertise than your peers. (Or let us do it for you!)

I’ll bet you good money you use that knowledge to solve your existing customers’ problems. So, publish articles that show how your readers can use those insights to solve their problems.

You’ll find that they yield a wealth of traffic and leads.

News about industry developments that might affect your customers is also a rich source of content. So are perspectives on current events that affect your customers’ lives and businesses.

Repurpose Older Articles and Ideas to Create Fresh Perspectives

If you’re just getting your company blog off the ground, keep this tip in mind once you have a few months’ articles under your belt. Find executive presentations and turn them into articles. Re-purpose webinars or white papers.

If you’ve already published articles on your blog, find a content analytics platform that can show you which posts have had the greatest success. Or use tools like Buzzsumo to find articles or research that has engaged for others and write better versions of them

Leverage High-Performing Content in a Different Form

Turn high-performing articles into videos, infographics into full-blown articles, or write new posts that look at the same topic from a new perspective. Always keep your customers’ needs at the forefront of your publication.

Not only does repurposing content save time, but it also can reach new audiences who didn’t read the earlier article. Furthermore, it can help reinforce concepts in readers’ and listeners’ minds.

Update Low-Performing Articles

As for those articles that don’t quite hit the reader engagement mark, dig a little deeper into the numbers.

• Were they early attempts that were a little more self-promotional than they were helpful?
• Did you happen to publish them at a time when your target customers weren’t online?
• Did you use language that turned off your target demographics?
• Did you use wording that didn’t reflect the search terms that people would likely use to search for the topics you covered?
• Did you publish it in a form that made it difficult to read?
• Is the information you covered outdated?

The good news? For the most part, it’s a quick fix.

You don’t need to discard these articles and start again from scratch. They’re already indexed and ranking in searches. You just need to get them ranking higher.

• Change self-promotional language into helpful advice: Instead of telling readers how great your widgets are, tell them the story about how a company doubled its productivity by using your widget. Find ways to show how your products and services solve problems when you revise these older articles.
• Use social media analytics to see where your customers are online: Repost links to these articles where your target customers hang out on social media. If you want to boost your posts to reach your target audience, filter who sees your posts. Use your target audience’s demographics, location, and interests as your filters.
• Revise your articles using words that resonate with your target audience: Even if you sell high-tech IT services, don’t use the same language your house techies use. Put technical jargon into words your customers understand. Consider creating buyer personas. Using them can help you write in a way that will reach “Ellie Electrician’s” or “Peter Plumber’s” hearts.
• Revamp your articles to contain words your customers use to search for your products: Use Google’s Keyword Planner to find the sorts of words people use. Just enter those words into the search box. A list of words will pop up. Revise your earlier articles to include these words in your articles. Use one of them in the title and first paragraph. Then use related words throughout. Don’t overdo it, though. Search engines penalize articles with too many keywords in them.
• Reformat your articles to make them easier to read: Break up text with subheadings and bullet points. Use images – or even related videos – to add visual appeal. Better visuals don’t just attract more attention. Statistics show that people engage with articles 180 percent more when visuals appear with the text.
• Update outdated information in your articles: If something has changed since you wrote an article, update it. Make sure that you include a note that you have updated it.

Finally, Get Your Employees in on the Act

Don’t do all the heavy lifting yourself. Employee activation can help. When you involve employees in writing articles, magic can happen. Magic that can help your messages get five times the reach of articles you write on your own.

If you don’t have the time, it might pay for you to work with a blog writing service. Working with professional writers can free your time for your own work.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with the right number of articles, check out our Content Builder Service. You’ll get consistent quality – and consistent articles.

Set up a quick chat, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get more traffic and leads for your business. Get started today!

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