You Can’t Survive With A Website Alone

Note: Listen to this post instead using the audio player below, and consider subscribing on your favorite podcast player!

The world has changed a lot in the last 10 years.

Technology has evolved, and so has the way that we spend our time. For the majority of people today, the way we spend our day-to-day lives (at least, outside of work) is quite a bit different than they were in the very recent past.

As our daily habits and actions change, so has the way we purchase products and services.

Companies who have been in business for decades or longer are falling left and right, primarily for one core reason:

They fail to adapt with the changing world.

10 years ago, it was possible to make a killing online with only a simple WordPress blog. If your content was good enough, people would take the time to stay updated and read each and every post you published, almost religiously.

If your goal is to achieve massive levels of success online, unfortunately this is no longer possible for most people.

If you want to really form a connection with people, you have to go beyond your own site – publishing content for many platforms, rather than just one.

Let’s look over this a little bit more deeply, and discuss some strategies you can utilize to build a larger, more engaged audience far more easily creating a strategy that will still be relevant throughout the 2020’s.

The Internet Is Cluttered Today

Content is no longer about quantity vs. quality.

Quite frankly, you have to have both, or you’re no longer going to be relevant in today’s day and age.

It goes without saying, but the internet is busier and far more cluttered than it ever has been – and the internet’s growth is only accelerating.

Consumers have so many options for just about every little thing that they could possibly want. You can no longer just put something out there, and expect people to stumble onto it just because it’s there. There is just far too much content on the internet today for that to work for the overwhelming majority of niches.

This also means that the content you publish actually has to be good, or you’ll quickly be pushed out of the spotlight to make room for somebody else – as there are more and more people competing for that same consumer attention.

Treat each piece of content that you publish as if it were a product. Conduct research to figure out what problems people actually are trying to solve. Analyze competing pieces and see which points resonate. Use your unique expertise and experience to build sections that differentiate your piece. Pour quality into it, knowing that if the article ultimately sucks, it will get buried and forgotten about.

Then, once you know you have something good, market the hell out of it to give it the attention it deserves.

[easy-tweet tweet=”Treat each piece of content that you publish as if it were a product.” user=”JamesMOnline” hashtags=”ContentMarketing”]

Prioritize Retention, But Understand This Has Changed

In the past, retaining a reader meant that your content was either so good, or connected with them so well, they would come back (on their own) to read the new posts that you’ve published on your site.

They would learn your schedule and actively seek it out when they knew that it was published.

Some of them would even set up all of their favorite blogs in an RSS reader to be absolutely sure they wouldn’t miss anything.

That doesn’t really happen anymore. In fact, most people have no idea what an RSS reader even is.

This doesn’t mean that people don’t want to read every post that you put out, nor does it mean you can’t retain readers and build a blog that will steadily grow over the long-term.

Rather, this ties in with the earlier point about the internet being cluttered. While we still only have the same number of hours in a day, we now have so much more to keep track of and remember.

Many entrepreneurs produce fantastic content, but fail to remain top-of-mind even if that content really resonated with a particular reader. Yes, even if your content is truly amazing, that doesn’t mean it will be remembered by the reader for very long.

This is why it’s important to push for further connection with your audience. Funnel people in your articles towards following you on social networks, or even better – onto an email mailing list.

If you make a memorable impression on somebody and they end up connecting with you further, you’ve been given a huge opportunity. Hopefully, they will remember the positive experience they had that caused them to connect with you in the first place, and that connection will only blossom as you continue to put new, valuable content in front of their eyes.

Micro-Content, High-Volume Vs. Macro-Content, Low-Volume

One of the most effective ways to build a long-term impression in people’s minds is to show up frequently, when people aren’t expecting it.

Chances are, the majority of people and brands that you feel you truly know or understand haven’t gotten in front of you only once. They’ve put themselves in front of you over, and over, and over again, creating these tiny little impressions that ultimately added up to something so much larger.

While certain large experiences will certainly contribute to an overall positive impression of you and your brand, the tiny, largely insignificant moments matter just as well.

This is why social media marketing is so powerful. Social media gives you the opportunity to get in front of people on a daily basis, reminding them of who you are, what you do, and why they should care. Always remember that it may take multiple pieces of content to find one that really sticks with someone.

Small, regular content is vital to remaining top-of-mind, and in many cases is just as important as the large content you’d publish on something like your website or YouTube channel.

Some examples of small impactful content may include…

• Social media posts
• Instagram stories
• Email blasts (non-promotional)
• Memes
• Checklists
• Infographics
• Short videos that are valuable as a standalone piece (even if they are made to funnel people towards a full video)

The key with micro-content is volume. Two posts a week – while certainly better than nothing, is not really enough in today’s busy and cluttered world.

Seek omnipresence as your goal. Wherever people turn, people should see you. Become such as significant player in your space, people could not forget about you if they tried.

This is not only reserved for major brands like Walmart, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, etc. Omnipresence is attainable within all niche markets.

Repurposing Helps, But It Is Not The Ultimate Solution

One of the greatest ways to create a large volume of micro-content if you don’t have a dedicated strategy in place already, is to repurpose your larger content into smaller pieces.

For example, for most of my articles…

• The post is read aloud and made into a video.
• The audio is stripped from the video and made into a podcast.
• The main points are assembled into a SlideShare.
• Some important points are made into my ‘Tip Of The Day’ posts, which end up on Instagram.
• The research I’ve utilized becomes the basis for Quora answers.

Almost all of these are designed in a way to bring people back to my site or connect with me further in some way. By utilizing this repurposing strategy, I am able to reach far more people with each piece of content that I publish, and I’m able to funnel people on these platforms to engage further and consume some of my larger content.

For more about my repurposing strategy, be sure to sign up to my free traffic building email course by clicking here. Once you’ve signed up, you’ll gain access to my vault of resources and bonuses, which has a full content repurposing strategy deck located inside!

Unfortunately however, repurposing is only one piece of the puzzle. You’ll want to take the time to develop a dedicated strategy for all of the different platforms you’ll want to utilize.

Conclusion

By restricting yourself to publishing only on your own website, you’re doing yourself a massive disservice.

While your content may get a large number of views, it is becoming harder and harder to actually build a meaningful connection without also building a presence elsewhere.

Going beyond your own website is not only a great way to bring entirely new people into your business ecosystem, it is also vital for remaining top-of-mind and encouraging people to come back and consume more of your website’s content too.

I hope that this article has given you some ideas, and I’d love to hear how you plan to build your overall content strategy in the coming months.

To your success,

James McAllister

Summary:

Review the main points of this article in the SlideShare below. Feel free to embed this on your site, use it in your organization, and share it with others! All I ask is that you give credit! (Download links are available from SlideShare’s website, which you can access by clicking the LinkedIn icon)