{"id":21287,"date":"2016-11-22T14:22:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-22T20:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/?p=21287"},"modified":"2016-11-22T14:22:53","modified_gmt":"2016-11-22T20:22:53","slug":"creating-content-that-converts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>In this guest blog, Katherine Boyarsky, Acquisition Marketing Manager at HubSpot, discusses her insights on creating killer content. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>Content is the cornerstone of any successful marketing and promotion program. It\u2019s the fundamental way to educate your audience on your product or service, and great content helps your audience find you on the web. In inbound marketing, it\u2019s actually the main pillar of our conversion funnel.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-21302\" src=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts.png\" alt=\"creating-content-that-converts\" width=\"4254\" height=\"1982\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts.png 4254w, https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts-300x140.png 300w, https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts-768x358.png 768w, https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts-1024x477.png 1024w, https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts-303x141.png 303w, https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/creating-content-that-converts-1217x567.png 1217w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 4254px) 100vw, 4254px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>HubSpot\u2019s blog generates 2.5 million unique visits per month. Creating noteworthy content can be daunting. <a href=\"http:\/\/contentmarketinginstitute.com\/2013\/10\/2014-b2b-content-marketing-research\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ninety-four percent of B2B marketers say they use content<\/a> in their marketing but only 42 percent say they are effective at it.<\/p>\n<p>One way to start leveraging content in your marketing strategy is with blogging. From there, work your way to writing more robust offers for your audience. Before you get started, however, you need to consider your audience. Who are you writing for? Here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<h3>Determine Your Buyer Personas<\/h3>\n<p>What do you know about the last person who purchased your product or service? What is their job role? Where are they? What keeps them up at night? Determining who you\u2019re writing for will help you create a smart strategy that converts. Try these <a href=\"http:\/\/offers.hubspot.com\/free-template-creating-buyer-personas\" target=\"_blank\">buyer persona templates<\/a> to get started. You can drill deeper if you:<\/p>\n<p>a. Interview your sales team<\/p>\n<p>b. Use demographic data from your current customer database<\/p>\n<p>c. Leverage form fields on your website to learn more<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>Choose What Types of Content You Should Use<\/h3>\n<p>Try using a survey or pulling your own data to determine where your audience is. They might be interested in podcasts, ebooks, or short form blog content. They might crave stories on Medium or on social media, or prefer videos on Facebook. By determining where they already are, you can tailor your content type, length, and tone to the people you\u2019re trying to reach.<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>Gather Existing Content<\/h3>\n<p>If you still need an idea for what topic your content will cover, there are a number of resources already available to you, many of which are in your own organization.<\/p>\n<p>a. To give you a kick start on creating content, try using <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hubspot.com\/blog-topic-generator\" target=\"_blank\">HubSpot\u2019s Blog Topic Generator<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>b. Look through your company\u2019s Google docs, Slack messages, internal Wiki, emails, and chats with sales reps, or look at what people are asking on Quora about your industry.<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>Create Your Content<\/h3>\n<p>Creating the actual content can be the hardest part, but you can use templates and tools like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.beacon.by\/\" target=\"_blank\">Beacon<\/a> to help you. Put together a content calendar to keep yourself on a schedule.<\/p>\n<p>a. Use a guide like <a href=\"http:\/\/offers.hubspot.com\/marketers-guide-to-writing-well\" target=\"_blank\">The Marketer\u2019s Guide to Writing Well<\/a> to learn tips and tricks for effective writing.<\/p>\n<p>b. Repurpose existing content. Turn a podcast into an ebook, a blog post into a video, or a webinar into a guide. More bites at the apple leads to more opportunities to convert.<\/li>\n<li>\n<h3>Promote! Promote! Promote!<\/h3>\n<p>This is the most important step of your content strategy (well, after the content is created, that is). If nobody can find your content, did you really even write it? There are several ways to promote your content, including:<\/p>\n<p>a. On social. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are the biggies, but if you have an infographic, pin it to Pinterest, or post slices of it to Instagram. Engage your audience on the networks they already use.<\/p>\n<p>b. Leverage compelling ads that entice people to click through and download your content.<\/p>\n<p>c. Consider using a content syndication service that puts your content in front of a wider audience.<\/p>\n<p>d. Add calls-to-action (CTAs) on relevant site pages &#8211; we recommend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hubspot.com\/products\/marketing\/free?utm_campaign=Comarketing&amp;utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=WP-Engine&amp;utm_content=5-Tips-for-Creating-Content-that-Converts\" target=\"_blank\">HubSpot Marketing Free<\/a> as a good pop-up tool.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Creating a content strategy is the start of your marketing and sales funnel. Whether you have a one-person team or an entire marketing organization, the principles remain the same. Content is king. Great content brings valued visitors who ultimately turn into qualified leads for your business.<\/p>\n<p>Once you\u2019ve nailed a content strategy, the next step is conversion rate optimization, or CRO. CRO is taking the content and pages you already have and making them work for you by optimizing them for more conversions. You can learn more about this next step <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.hubspot.com\/marketing\/what-is-conversion-rate-optimization-faqs\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>About the Author:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Katherine is an acquisition marketing manager at HubSpot who currently works on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hubspot.com\/products\/marketing\/free?utm_campaign=Comarketing&amp;utm_source=Blog&amp;utm_medium=WP-Engine&amp;utm_content=5-Tips-for-Creating-Content-that-Converts\" target=\"_blank\">HubSpot Marketing Free<\/a> team. She has a background in demand generation, email marketing, PR, and journalism, and has helped grow HubSpot&#8217;s prospect generation funnel and expand its reach to brand new channels.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this guest blog, Katherine Boyarsky, Acquisition Marketing Manager at HubSpot, discusses her insights on creating killer content. Content is the cornerstone of any successful marketing and promotion program. It\u2019s the fundamental way to educate your audience on your product or service, and great content helps your audience find you on the web. In inbound<span class=\"tile__ellipses\">&hellip;<\/span><span class=\"tile__ellipses--animated\"><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":157,"featured_media":21324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[855,856,854,853,412],"class_list":["post-21287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing","tag-content-conversion","tag-content-marketing","tag-creating-content","tag-hubspot","tag-marketing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While creating content that&#039;s noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While creating content that&#039;s noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"WP Engine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpengine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-11-22T20:22:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-11-22T20:22:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-that-converts-facebook.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Katherine Boyarsky\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-that-converts-twitter.png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@wpengine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@wpengine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Katherine Boyarsky\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/\",\"name\":\"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-11-22T20:22:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-11-22T20:22:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/a49dcb743cf3554bcb9cd6674ba48df8\"},\"description\":\"While creating content that's noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/\",\"name\":\"WP Engine\",\"description\":\"Managed Hosting for WordPress\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/a49dcb743cf3554bcb9cd6674ba48df8\",\"name\":\"Katherine Boyarsky\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50730f6a99cbf933ce12d443171a7a5e95dc77a34000fb97f1f228f6521beee3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50730f6a99cbf933ce12d443171a7a5e95dc77a34000fb97f1f228f6521beee3?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Katherine Boyarsky\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog","description":"While creating content that's noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"follow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog","og_description":"While creating content that's noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.","og_url":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/","og_site_name":"WP Engine","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpengine","article_published_time":"2016-11-22T20:22:02+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-11-22T20:22:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-that-converts-facebook.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Katherine Boyarsky","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_image":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/content-that-converts-twitter.png","twitter_creator":"@wpengine","twitter_site":"@wpengine","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Katherine Boyarsky","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/","url":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/","name":"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts | WP Engine Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-11-22T20:22:02+00:00","dateModified":"2016-11-22T20:22:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/a49dcb743cf3554bcb9cd6674ba48df8"},"description":"While creating content that's noteworthy can be daunting, here are five easy steps any business can use to build out a content strategy.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/creating-content-that-converts\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"5 Tips For Creating Content That Converts"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#website","url":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/","name":"WP Engine","description":"Managed Hosting for WordPress","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/a49dcb743cf3554bcb9cd6674ba48df8","name":"Katherine Boyarsky","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50730f6a99cbf933ce12d443171a7a5e95dc77a34000fb97f1f228f6521beee3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/50730f6a99cbf933ce12d443171a7a5e95dc77a34000fb97f1f228f6521beee3?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Katherine Boyarsky"}}]}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpengine.com\/resources\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}