Welcome to part three of our three-part series regarding content marketing! In this installment, we will discuss how to effectively promote your affiliate program by creating compelling content that draws in, and retains, targeted web traffic.

Use Relevant, Valuable Content

You’ll want to ensure that the content that you create is valuable. The better the quality of the content the more likely someone is to consider it worth paying for. High-quality content should strive to provide value to the reader. Poor content often does the complete opposite, it creates a barrier between the content publisher and the consumer.

Measure Performance With Google Analytics

To ensure that you’re driving the right audience to your site, you’ll want to measure the performance of your content through Google Analytics. The good news is that this can be easily done. Just ensure that you’re following the proper implementation procedures. Once you’ve created your content, you’ll want to ensure that you tag it with tracking codes, so that you can measure its performance and determine if it’s been successful in drawing in new customers to your site. Analytics can help you identify the content that’s been performing well and allow you to craft even more compelling content in the future.

Post Regularly, But Don’t Overdo It

The key to effective content marketing is to balance frequent, but infrequent posts with occasional larger projects. You don’t want to flood your audience with an endless stream of content, as this will turn off potential customers. However, you also don’t want to be silent for too long either. The key is to find that delicate balance, where your posts are neither too frequent, nor too infrequent, but always fresh and valuable.

Use Social Media To Gain More Leads

You can use social media to connect with existing customers, gain new customers, and promote your affiliate program. Just remember that much like with your content, quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to social media. A poorly done Instagram post can actually harm your SEO, despite the fact that it may have hundreds of thousands of views.

The key is to use high-quality Instagram posts that will continue to attract potential customers, while also enhancing your SEO. As with the other social channels, you’ll want to engage with your followers, as well as other people who have an interest in your product or service.

Use Analytics To Identify The Most Effective Social Media Channels

Once you have a decent amount of content published on various social media channels, you’ll be able to measure their performance. Just remember that while some social platforms are great for driving traffic to your site, others may not be performing as well as you’d hope, given their size. For instance, if you’ve tried to use Twitter to promote your affiliate program, but have had little to no success, it may be time to consider trying a different social platform.

Create Unique Headings For Each Post

As discussed in part one of our series, headings guide the reader’s eye and pull them into your content. When creating blog posts for SEO, you’ll want to ensure that the heading is both compelling and relevant to what’s being discussed in the blog post. For example, if you’re writing about running for a charitable cause, you might want to change the heading to something more along the lines of “How to Write an Effective Charity Proposal.” When writing blog posts for organic search, you want to ensure that your headline matches the promise of the content within.

Use Long-Form Content

If you’ve been reading our blog posts regularly, you know that we typically write long-form content, which usually spans several blog posts. This is because we found that it’s easier to write and research/compile valuable content when writing in long-form. When it comes to promoting your affiliate program, you’ll want to follow suit and provide value to your audience with lengthy blog posts, rather than short, snappy content.

To learn more, you can check out our guide to creating long-form content that will engage your audience and boost SEO.

Use Video To Its Full Advantage

Last but not least, we want to talk about the importance of video in content marketing. We’ve all heard of YouTube, but videos can be used for so much more than just showing off YouTube videos. For instance, blog posts with videos attract more attention than those that don’t. Plus, people typically watch videos longer than they read text-based content. So, if you’ve got something valuable to say, ensure that you include a video to make your point perfectly clear.

Now, you don’t need to create a professionally done video to make it work for you. Many affiliate programs will provide you with video tutorials, demonstrating how to use their software or products. However, don’t expect your video to do all of the work for you. You’ll still need to use the resources available to you, including equipment, to make a video that will engage your audience and get the job done.

Use These Guidelines To Craft Valuable, Effective Content

We hope that you found this information valuable. Like we mentioned above, the importance of high-quality content cannot be stressed enough when promoting an online business through content marketing. The better the content the more likely someone is to consider you a credible source and the more likely they are to become a customer. Also, you’ll want to make sure that they feel motivated to act on what they’ve learned, which is why measuring performance through Analytics is so critical. If you want to gain as much as possible from your content marketing efforts, you need to follow these guidelines carefully.