5 Ways to Amplify Your Content

culled from:inc.com
Content is king in today's online marketing world with new search engine algorithms that promote websites with well-written, quality content over others. However, with 91 percent of marketers investing in content marketing, you may be struggling with ways to help your content stand out from their competitors. These tips can help amplify your content and move your website higher in search engine rankings.

1. Tell a story.
One way to amplify your content is to tell a story that engages readers. Content is designed to start a conversation or develop a relationship with a current or potential customer. The ultimate goal is to turn a prospect into a customer or to encourage a current customer to purchase from you again. Although pay-per-click advertising, social media and other sources may bring a customer to your website, it is your content that will keep them there and encourage them to buy. Include anecdotes about how your company got its start throughout the content or add personal stories from staff members as a way to engage readers. Blog posts should be about more than just the products or services you sell. They should provide information about your industry, tips or how-tos and other valuable information that will set your company up as an expert on the topic. Think about the things you enjoy reading when you are searching on the internet and incorporate some of those in your content.

2. Include all content.
Everything you put on the internet under your company name is content. Therefore, it is important that anything your marketing department does online is amplified. Social media is an important part of your online content and every post, tweet or comment should be written with content promotion in mind. Be sure that anyone in your organization who is responsible for responding to or posting on social media understands that they must use proper grammar, spelling and punctuation. They must also keep the company brand in mind so that all online content is consistent throughout. The same is true of blog posts and other material written for online purposes. In addition, by requiring that all content be optimized, you are able to leverage online activities of employees, stakeholders and customers who will be likely to share your content with others, further expanding your customer base.

3. Headline testing
Headlines are the first impression of content. A headline is the first thing a potential customer will see when the search engine results are returned. If the headline doesn't grab the reader's attention, you will not see as many visitors to your site. There are programs available that allow you to test multiple headlines for the same story at the same time so that you can track which headlines draw the most attention. If you are unsure how to improve your headlines, consider asking questions to encourage audience interaction. Often, people enter questions into search engines to get answers, which is another reason that question headlines are often ranked higher than other types of headlines.

4. Use a content promotion tool.
Promoting content often requires a significant amount of time and energy, which many small businesses do not have. Using a content promotion tool not only helps amplify your content, but also promotes engagement with customers. By turning a brand's most engaging content into native advertisements throughout the internet, including social media, businesses find themselves ranked higher in search engine results than ever before. "Solutions like inPowered find the most trusted expert content about your product or brand and turn it into native ads which consumers actually engage with," says Peyman Nilforoush, CEO and co-founder of inPowered. "In fact, inPowered is so confident in its engagement model that it only charges brands when people spend a certain amount of time reading the content or share it socially. Giving consumers expert content in an ad, eliminates clickbait leading to positive (or improved) brand perception."

5. Review and adjust.
Although amplifying content is critical in today's technologically advanced world, it is also important to measure results and make adjustments as necessary based on those results. By analyzing what works and what does not, you can fine tune your content so that it is in line with what your customers actually want. You may learn that certain headline appeal to customers more than others or that videos on your website are getting more hits than your blogs. Content is an ever-changing factor in marketing, so what worked in one campaign may not be as successful in another. Success comes to those who recognize when things are working and when they are not.

Amplifying your content is important to help your online presence stand out from your competitors. These tips can help promote your content and drive customers to your site. If you need more information about promoting your content, visit inWord online or follow them on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Plus.