What kind of NFL coach wouldn’t use his best player in a crucial situation? Okay, this has actually happened in recent memory, so let me rephrase the question: Can you imagine the outcry from fans if a coach doesn’t use his best player when the game is on the line? The coach, rightfully, would have a lot of explaining to do, so, can you explain to me why you aren’t making better use of the killer content on your site?
If you think you’re already squeezing every penny of value out of your most popular content, then maybe this article isn’t for you. However, do me a solid and at least scan your way through this article to be sure you’re doing all you can with your best content. Do that and we’ll both sleep better at night.
#1. Identifying your most valuable content
The first step in this process is to dig up the truth about which content of yours is the most valuable. You need to have some kind of analytics installed so you can make this judgment. Google Analytics is great, of course, but you can also use apps like the WordPress Jet Pack plugin.
There are several ways to “grade” valuable content for our purpose today:
- Page views. The number of time the content is seen.
- Page view time. How long a visitor spends on the page.
- The number of links that point to your content from other websites.
- Social shares. How many times your content has been shared on the social media.
Once you have a good list of your most valuable content, then you can start going through the following steps.
#2. Match content to your business plan
Look at the content that is drawing the most people to your website. Does the topic that the content is built around strike at the heart of your business plan, or is it a little off center? In other words, is this the most relevant content to the persona you originally envisioned as your most promising prospect?
If there seems to be some disconnect between the core of your most popular content and the core of your business plan, something needs to change. This could mean that you need to pivot your business a little. The other side of that coin is that this information will help you tailor content to better fit your core business.
By the way, this happens. A friend who handles someone’s website and creates content discovered one day that a silly “throw away” piece of content he created was getting an inordinate number of page views. He did a follow-up article that better matched the keywords on the topic and it quickly became the most popular article on the entire website. Unfortunately, the topic was only vaguely related to the true purpose of the website. (By the way, he had inadvertently discovered a keyword phrase for which there was virtually no competition.)
The lesson is to carefully examine your most popular content and make certain that it is complementing your website in the right way.
#3. Study popular content keywords
Closely related to the previous point is cataloging and understanding the search phrases that bring visitors to your most popular content. With this information in hand, you can plan additional posts that are related to the original killer content.
I need to issue a warning here. You can’t go back to the same keywords that made your original post so popular – doing that will eventually dilute the search engine power of the original post. But you can use those keywords as a starting point to find other words and phrases that are related to the topic. Develop content from these new keywords.
#4. Link from your popular content
Internal linking is a traditional search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. However, when we’re writing blogs, we always link to previously published articles. Lacking a time machine, we can’t very well link to articles that we’ll write someday down the road. Therefore, if there are internal links in your killer content, it probably links back to older content.
Take the opportunity of this content audit to rethink the links in your best content. Find opportunities to link to newer content that you would like to promote.
#5. Use popular content for sales or signups
If you have generic opt-in boxes or standard offers on your pages, switch this up on the pages of your most popular content. Pull together offers that would specifically appeal to the people who are finding your most popular content.
If you’ve followed my advice, you know what kind of search terms people are using to discover this content, so you have a very good picture of what they are interested in. Maybe you need to write a white paper that especially appeals to them to get them to opt-in to your email list. Or maybe you can create an in-depth e-book and sell it to them!
And since I just mentioned it, use the intelligence you’ve gathered through researching your popular content and create a book from it. It should be easy to market to your fans, followers, customers, and prospects.
#6. Get additional backlinks
Draft an email that outlines the topics covered in your most popular content and explain how it has really proven to be valuable to your website visitors. Send the email to other websites and blogs in your niche or a closely related niche, and suggest that they link to it, or perhaps run it as a guest post with a backlink to your site. Backlinks continue to be a leading factor in
#7. Freshen up the content
We use the word “evergreen” to describe content that stands the test of time. However, even evergreen content can use an occasional freshening up. While it might not become totally outdated, it can become a little stale and be improved with newer examples, better graphics, etc. And, if your most popular content isn’t evergreen, edit and add to is so that it is.
Don’t rest on the laurels of your most popular content. Give it the TLC it deserves so it will continue to engage, inform, and entertain visitors to your website. If you fail to do this, eventually its popularity will start to fall off.
I hope you find a good number of posts on your website that continue to draw in new visitors and introduce people to your brand. Remember that these are a precious commodity and if they are leveraged properly, they will greatly enhance your future marketing while requiring very little additional effort on your part.
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