Your content creation strategy is on-point. You’re churning out posts like a fine oiled machine and have ideas for new content are coming out of your ears. Yet you're still sitting at your computer waiting for the traffic to spike on your beautifully crafted blog post, or, in fact, for it to get any sort of traction at all.
If your content is hitting your persona profile right between the eyes as well as being shared in all of the right places, then you will rightly be scratching your head in confusion. "Why aren’t a frustrated mob of customers baying for more of my content and, more importantly, my products?"
The Content Audit
Getting consistent traction across content has been a problem even for the best in the business. At one point, Hubspot were producing over 200 posts every month, yet they still weren’t hitting their marketing goals.
Their solution lay in a content audit.
6,000 posts were trawled through and what they found was astounding, 46% of their monthly blog leads came from just 30 posts.
Despite being out of date or rarely shared, these posts were at the heart of Hubspot’s conversion rate. Pulling in leads over a long-term basis, rather than attracting a short-lived spike.
Your first step should be to rifle through your existing content and find the posts which are still generating a steady stream of traffic and conversions, despite having been forgotten by your blogging team.
We've got a relic from 2012 about IFTTT that still generates a good amount of organic traffic every month, so you might be surprised as to what you can unearth.
Compound Interest
Moz have also realised that posts which compound over time are a lot more effective than a one hit wonder. They found that by producing ‘evergreen’ content they were able to give customers what they wanted but, by refreshing and updating blogs on a regular basis they also kept their engagement levels high.
This saw the conversion rate go from this:
To this:
Hubspot had a different strategy. Rather than creating new content that was focused on producing long term conversion, they decided to optimise their 30 successful posts and re-share them. They saw their monthly leads double.
Nobody can miss out on that kind of conversion, so how did they do it?
First, they separated posts into those that were attracting traffic and those that were converting leads.
If a post was already converting, the blog team focused on SEO optimisation to ensure that it would get found. They refreshed the content, updated keywords and refreshed on-page links to encourage Google to push it up the rankings.
If a post was attracting high traffic, the focus was on getting visitors to convert. This meant updating CTAs and using keywords in the content that were used by customers who were searching for it. They then encouraged people to sign up for the blog or head to a landing page.
For both sets of posts, they used the optimisation and conversion methods that they knew had worked to attract customers in the past. Hubspot found that updating CTAs was key to converting on all of their posts. However, you might find that something different works better for your customers.
The Devil is in the Detail
When you're doing a content audit don't just focus on the numbers. Analyse your blogs structurally and stylistically to figure out what has worked well in the past and use it to update your successful historical posts.
However you update your posts, make sure that you share them when you're finished. Share them in the right places and in a relevant context. Explain why it was initially written or feature it in a ‘roundup’ of old posts. Make sure that the content isn’t just floating, but has a relevant context.
These techniques should be applied to regularly refresh posts that are converting well or attracting high traffic. Don’t just make this a one time thing. Go back to posts that are doing well and give them a polish.
This will mean that you can keep some of your great new ideas for content in reserve, as well as keep your blog up-to-date. This freshness will also ensure that you’re always ranking high on SEO.
Give your old posts a boost, keep your blog fresh and make your conversion rates take off like a rocket. Bring yourself back to the future. Now why don’t you make like a tree and get on with it?