How to get more traffic from Content Marketing in 2021

Insights from Backlinko's definitive guide of content marketing on how to create epic content, content repurposing 2.0, and LinkedIn driving organic traffic

Try “Be the Source” content.

Definitely not an easy task but if content marketing is your only focus area in 2021 then you don’t have a choice. The insight once again comes from the house of Backlinko.

Here is the definitive guide to Content Marketing in 2021. 

Backlinko says: “ ‘Be The Source’ posts are research-backed pieces of content that contain new, interesting data. So if you want to get more links, traffic, and shares from your content marketing, then you might want to give ‘Be The Source’ content a try this year.”

And here are my learnings and thoughts on how to ace your content marketing game in 2021.

Creating “Be the Source” and Emerging content

How do you do it?

According to the guide choosing the right topic is crucial. IMO it ties back to your business objective. For example, if you are into a transportation business you wouldn’t talk about organic or healthy eating but you can always talk about how your business is supporting green living or the environment. 

So one way is building on a proven topic.

Directly related to the market or the problem you are solving for your consumer. Even if it is not glamorous still your consumers will come to you if you address their issues. This is the sticky road where most give up and fall into the trap of “Trending Topics.” 

The second way is hopping into a new emerging topic.

I don’t see this as a problem as long the ‘Why’ is addressed.

How do you find emerging content?

Google Trends is your answer to compare keywords. While Google provides how trends are emerging and for that matter there are quite a few tools including Twitter Trends. 

But I have a problem.

Right now Kapil Dev and Railway Exams are trending on Google. So if you are Nonprofit taking care of stray animals would you create content around the same?

The answer is NO.

This year I have wishful thinking that Nonprofits should think beyond “Topical Content”. Focus on fundraising activities every quarter, do the basic engagement campaigns, and rest focus on building relationships with donors and keeping oiling the entire digital framework.

I don’t have the same wish for for-profit organizations. They have money to waste and they are completely rotten in the campaign and views cycle.

Hire domain experts

From 2010-17 largely the content marketing business was wrapped under SEO. Today the world of SEO has evolved because Google wants the Internet to be better and safe. Just like Facebook wants social media to be meaningful. And both these tech giants once supported keywords stuffing and click bait articles. How do you think the likes of Buzzfeed and ScoopWhoop started off?

I have already shared how to keep Google Search happy in 2021.

Google says it loud and clear that it will value content more from reliable sources. E-A-T or Expertise Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness are the three pillars that Google wants its search to be based upon. The 175-page guide talks about E-A-T on page 20.

So if you want to scale the game of content marketing then you need to hire domain experts. It will cost you. They are not your generic content writers or bloggers who can write on how Bollywood is enjoying time in the Maldives to the new mutant.

Also long-form content or well-researched content is the current flavour. According to earlier research: “Content, longer than 3000 words gets an average of 77.2% more referring domain links than content shorter than 1000 words. Additionally, long-form content generates significantly more social shares than short content.”

A domain expert can only create consistent valuable content. Or else you will have writers who will copy stuff from the internet and create content only to get penalised by Google. And once you are penalised by Google, even Sundar Pichai can’t save you.

Whether you go the freelance way or hire an expert also depends on your budgets and vision of the company. But in any case, avoid working with a media agency. They will screw your content business and also don’t work with an SEO agency that also calls itself a content marketing agency. 

Content Repurposing 2.0

Content repurposing isn’t a new term. Over the years I have seen prominent blogging and SEO experts writing the same content with different titles and without dates.

But content repurposing has evolved since Google has evolved.

From scanning for keywords in the title and the first two paragraphs, Google started scanning entire webpages and now it is ranking even passages in a webpage. “Passages allow Google to rank specific, relevant passages from a specific page. Not just the page itself.”

In other words, other than taking the relevance of the entire page Google will take into account the relevancy of a specific section of that page.

Google elaborates: By better understanding the relevancy of specific passages, not just the overall page, we can find that needle-in-a-haystack information you’re looking for. This technology will improve 7% search queries across all languages as we roll it out globally.

With new passage understanding capabilities, Google can understand that the specific passage (R) is a lot more relevant to a specific query than a broader page on that topic (L).

Backlinko says: “Content standards are completely different than even 2-3 years ago. Back then, you could recycle the content from a single blog post into several different formats. And it would work.

Today, you need to take the ideas, concepts, and examples from your original content… and adapt it PERFECTLY for the new format.”

It is a long time debate about uploading the same content on all mediums just for the sake of it. While I understand that today there is hardly any difference between social networks but if you are uploading small clips of your YouTube video on TikTok it won’t work. Because you are competing with people who are sitting and creating content only for TikTok.

Ace your content marketing game by providing value for each medium. The Copy-paste era is past.

Backlinko says: “You don’t need to reuse an entire piece of content for this approach to work. In fact, you can take one of your best sections from an existing piece of content… and reuse that somewhere else.”

Any which way you will have to provide value otherwise people will ignore it. 

There is one more way that is my way. Sticking to the platforms that you are comfortable with and also because I am a bit lazy. 

For the past 3 years, I have been thinking of starting a podcast. I have finally given it up because the “WHY” was never strong and I believe in doing a quality job. Quality job needs strong budgets and I can’t afford it.

On the Internet, people will hardly appreciate your good work but will be waiting to point out if you have messed up something.

Subsequently starting a blog on substack or podcast on Spotify or a video channel on YouTube is a matter of 5 minutes. But do you have the energy to keep producing consistent quality stuff, with a single focus even when you are not getting results? Most content ideas die in the first two months and rest in the next few years. There are very few who stick around for more than a decade and still close down.

So I have decided to do blogging, use email to reach out, and integrate LinkedIn as a social network. Because right now it gives me a decent organic reach. Also, this is a very slow process but I am in no hurry and wait till my Organic Reach from Google explodes.

Organic search is how blogs grow. “Almost 60% of all traffic to the blogs in our dataset came from organic search. Direct and referral duke it out for a distant second place, with social and email bringing up the rear,” says Animalz - 2020 Content Marketing Benchmarking Report.

Even Backlinko talks about the insane organic reach LinkedIn provides right now.

But there’s a catch says Backlinko: For your content to get lots of reach, it needs to be SUPER engaging. So if you just share your post with a link, it’s probably going to get buried by LinkedIn’s algorithm.

Brian Dean shares a 4-step formula for writing LinkedIn posts that get reach and send people to your latest post. I am not a big fan of this because this doesn’t work always. But you can try and see if it explodes for you.

Whatever you do think and plan. Don’t run around like a headless chicken.

In 2020 with extended lockdown Indian’s have conceived a record number of babies and watched content. Leaving the debate of babies aside, in 2021 almost every CMO will be excited about “Content Marketing” and integrating to OTT platforms. The madness has already begun.

I have said this before and I will repeat it once again:

Don’t have patience, don’t get into the game of content marketing.