Image by: David Boyle
By Gordon J. Pruitt

You have an exciting new website that is graphically appealing, but it needs great content to drive readership, develop brand loyalty and turn that browsing action into higher sales. Your competitors have great content, so to be a successful player in the online world you must have great content too.

Creating original blog entries, stories and reports on your site can be cheaper than Google Adwords when it comes to driving new visitors to your site. Yes, you may have to pay someone to write that content. Or, get typing yourself. But it has to be written and typed at a semi-professional level (no typos, glaring errors or factual inaccuracies) or readers will turn away quickly.

Then, of course, once you have this awesome content, you must properly and aggressively market that content through the variety of tools and tricks available to you. But where do you start? By reading these five tips below, for one.

You need a strong content marketing strategy. Here are five ways to get you on the right track:

1 – Search Engine Optimization

To many of you, this may be a no-brainer, but if you are not using every last available tool at your disposal, you may actually be wasting your time. And who wants that? Not you. Diligently working your SEO goes hand in hand with having great content to grab and engage readers, which then turns them into customers. Cha ching!
2 – Tell A Story

When you or your ghost writer is crafting that masterpiece, make sure that he or she is telling a compelling story, not just listing facts and figures or typing a bunch of meaningless drivel. Make whatever topic that is being discussed sound exciting and fun, not dark and riddled with negativity – you will get better results.

3 – Look At The Data

Your content is working, driving traffic to your site. But you really need to get under the hood to see what is working and what isn’t. Crunch those numbers. The results may just surprise you. The only way to truly stay on top of your game is to get those hands dirty. Be a data nerd.

4 – Know Your Dealer

Is that site you are linking to reputable? It should be. The higher up the Internet food chain, the better. If you have a choice between linking to CNN.com or GrandmaKnittingASweater.com for that little factoid or reference, go with CNN. Please. Not only will Google think more highly of your site and your content, your reader will perceive the value and content of your site at a much higher level.

5 – Use A Service To Boost Your Brand

Don’t be shy about asking for help, content marketers. Services such as Outbrain.com and nRelate.com are ready-made for getting your content onto premium publisher sites and driving traffic by networking with other sites such as yours. Turn hundreds of readers into thousands.