Content marketing is a numbers game. Even if you get everything right – it still might not work.
Just as you can’t skimp on creativity and storytelling from your content marketing, neither can you ignore the best on-site SEO practices. Only a perfect synergy between SEO and Content will deliver excellent growth of organic traffic and leads.
Do you really believe that simplistic advice like “create something unique or check the article with Grammarly” can help to improve your content marketing? 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing. If you think that basic strategies like this will get you results, then I can guarantee that you’ll never be a winner in the content marketing game.
In this article, I’ll share 5 frameworks for content that are focused on leads generation, as well as the most common mistakes in content marketing.
3 types of content to get growth
Before jumping into the actual to-do list, let’s identify the various goals of the content in your blog.
When you start your SAAS company blog, chances are that your overall aim is to communicate to the entire world what an amazing product you have. As you begin to create more and more content, you’ll discover that it can be mapped into the following categories:
Brand Content
For example, product benefits, brand authority/expertise content. The goal of this type of content is to show how your content can solve specific problems, help run business, and build your brand confidence.
Traffic-Growth-Based Content
Content based on your target persona search intent and aligned with your marketing funnel. This is the key area where you can beat bigger competitors in your niche. Let’s check the two examples below:
In the first case, young businesses got around 4.5K branded traffic per month. The leading brand in marketing is getting 38.6K. To create a well-known brand takes time.
But when you understand your buyer persona and what search intent they have, you can build a very focused content strategy, and with the help of Non-Branded traffic, you can generate leads and sales.
In the example, the smaller company is generating close to 4x more Non-Branded Traffic. What are the reasons for you to write your content in a smarter way?
Just imagine how many resources you’re wasting if you don’t have a content plan based on keyword analysis.
Linkable content
Organic traffic growth is not possible without link building.
There are numerous types of content: blog posts, articles, listicles, free tools, case studies, and more.
But not all types of content are link-worthy.
Our content team did an experiment in 2019 with content updates and we found a pattern on how to make content link-worthy.
We spent 4 hours of content updating and the content generated more than 100 organic backlinks in one month for us. We spent $0 on content promotion.
This is what I call linkable content.
Do you want to learn the frameworks on how to create linkable content? Subscribe to my newsletter.
5 content marketing frameworks for SAAS
Remember, the whole point of generating traffic and leads is to nurture and convert them into customers.
There are 5 types of blog content in the marketing bottom-funnel. There are no secrets here, nor any barely understandable, never tested, and useless fancy ideas.
Comparison posts
This framework objectively compares your product to your main competitors.
I see many fake comparisons where companies are lying about their competitors’ disadvantages.
Your customers aren’t stupid, one day they’ll find the truth and it will affect your brand.
The best product or service lists
This framework helps to discover the best products in the category being searched for. Don’t be afraid to mention your competitors in the list! Users will find your competitors, despite all your efforts to hide them.
Alternatives to Bigger Brands
People are searching for Slack, Mailchimp, Zoom, Hubspot alternatives and of course they need alternatives in your niche.
A good example of alternatives
Articles about pricing
The main keyword-generating traffic for most websites is the product brand name.
But also, I can bet that there is no product in the world without the search phrase BRAND NAME + price.
You can steal your competitors’ traffic by creating content where you compare pricing.
Product Use Cases
While the most difficult and time-consuming, this framework helps searchers to figure out how your product can help them solve a problem or boost their business.
Your support and sales team should be the main resources to find ideas about which pain points exist, and the potential customers out there.
3 Content marketing mistakes
Companies spend 46% of their budget on content creation. The competition is harsh.
You can find articles with 24 big content marketing mistakes, but I have never been a fan of articles with 99 tips because most of them are too general.
If you focus and try to avoid these 3 main mistakes, I can guarantee that you’ll get better organic traffic results.
Creating content without keyword analysis
I found this idea in a discussion:
What is the point of creating something and spending so much time producing a solid piece of content, if you haven’t even taken into account whether or not people are actually looking for that type of content?
I love it.
If you just started a blog or your traffic is low, you cannot spend all resources on content which is focused on showing your leadership.
Keyword analysis and mapping with a marketing funnel is the key to bringing results in a short time.
You don’t have experience in the topic
Content can look good on the surface, but after reading another “5000 words Ultimate Guide” you can often feel that you just spent 20 minutes for nothing. Let’s be honest, this is the majority of blog content on the internet these days.
Quite often, the writer just doesn’t have enough real experience to write compelling posts. There are two solutions here:
Eugene Schwartz said, “You don’t have to have great ideas if you can hear great ideas”. The formula of this solution is simple: Copywriting is 80% research, 5% writing, 15% rewriting. You need to consume a lot of content about the topic before writing.
Ask niche experts to help to build content plans and outsource the writing for freelancers. For example, we need to create an article about “The biggest landing pages mistakes for SAAS.”
.
536,000 results in Google. It will be a challenge to stand out in search results.
But if you ask the help of experts who work every day with landing pages, you’ll get plenty of authentic advice that can make your content insightful and outstanding.
Not focusing on existing content improvement
The primary goal of content marketing is the growth of RELEVANT organic traffic and then converting it. According to Semrush research, SEO is the most effective tactic implemented in 2019.
Guess what tactic is in second position?
51% of companies say updating old content has proven the second most efficient tactic implemented.
Content update is a must tactic for all websites.
There is a 2 step process for content updates:
Content pruning
Content pruning is the process of analyzing the content on your website by specific criteria and removing or updating those pages that create little value to your audience and your business goals. You want to get rid of older, outdated, and no longer relevant content.
Read my guide how to do content pruning.
Existing blog content improvements based on data
After content pruning, you’ll have a list of blog content that needs to be improved. Content optimization is not only about creativity, it is about impressions, CTR and keyword optimization.
Read my actionable guide on existing content optimization.
How to create an SAAS content marketing strategy?
If you thought that you could simply create 100 articles and something magic would happen to your lead-generation numbers and sales, then you’re likely to waste months and thousands of dollars for nothing.
While you’re working on SAAS content marketing strategy, be aware of these steps:
Evaluating your existing content impact for registrations and lead generations.
Tracking the landing pages of conversions in Google Analytics will help to gain a better understanding of exactly what kind of content is converting your visitors. You cannot write without measuring first.
Identifying content Gaps with your direct competitors.
How do you overtake traffic from your competitors without knowing which pieces of content are bringing good results for them?
Preparing content for ToFu, MoFu, Bofu.
In this article, we discussed BoFu content frameworks, but for the whole marketing funnel you also need Guides, Success stories, specific problems solutions articles etc.
Align Content and SEO activities.
The content team is creating amazing content aligned with the brand voice and implementing the best content optimization tactics, but the SEO team is driving traffic for this article. Wrong.
The content team is working on content, but none of the content is focused on search intent. Wrong.
Only a close partnership between Content and SEO teams can bring good results. Content marketing is challenging. All small details matter.
After reviewing existing content and competitors, finally, you’ll have the scope of:
- How many pieces of new content need to be created.
- How many articles should be updated.
- How many backlinks need to be acquired.
Having in place all the activities and numbers of what you need to achieve, you can then map out a plan with your available resources, prioritize accordingly, and search for a way to scale.