Building a WordPress website from scratch is easy.
Making sure your WordPress website cuts through the content noise and generates profitable leads, on the other hand, is a challenge.
By now, it’s common knowledge that the volume of blog posts published per day is unreal. Statistics from the website Hosting Facts reveal that brands worldwide upload over 3 million articles daily.
No — cutting through that much noise doesn’t require you to pump out more content. That would be like adding hay to an already massive haystack.
It would help if you had a smarter content marketing strategy that maximizes the benefits of every piece you publish.
If you’re wondering how to do this, you’ve come to the right place.
Here are five strategies to help your WordPress website stand out and attract high-quality leads.
1. Start with Website Performance
First and foremost, content marketing isn’t just about the actual content you create — it’s about the experience your website offers.
Statistics show that 40 percent of desktop users abandon websites that take more than three seconds to finish loading. This number climbs to 53 percent if we’re talking about mobile websites.
In other words, your website could lose around half of your prospective leads because you forgot to optimize it for performance. Not to mention that site speed is also a crucial SEO ranking factor, which could drastically affect your site’s traffic potential.
A tool like GTmetrix will help you determine if this is the case.
After thoroughly analyzing your website, GTmetrix will provide you with a list of reasons why your website runs slowly. More importantly, it lays out optimization recommendations that will address these issues.
WordPress users, of course, have no shortage of plugins that can help with these optimizations. Anything from image compression to browser caching can be implemented without writing a single line of code.
Some of the best performance optimization plugins every WordPress website should have are:
- ShortPixel
- W3 Total Cache
- WP Fastest Cache
- Fast Velocity Minify
2. Spy on Your Competitors
Regarding content marketing, there are several compelling reasons why you should spy on your top competitors.
For one, it lets you “borrow” content topic ideas that pique your target audience’s interest. Just see to it that your version outshines the content of your competitor, which can be done in a variety of ways, such as:
- Repurposing data-rich information into infographics
- Updating old statistics
- Adding real-world examples and screenshots
A platform like Ahrefs can also unveil your top competitor’s link sources, enabling you to adopt them into your outreach campaign and nullify their SEO advantage effectively.
Aside from the tactics outlined above, you can use plenty of other tools to perform competitive analysis on a more granular level.
LongTailPro, for example, can give you a peek at your competitor’s keyword strategy. This will let you utilize all their hours into keyword research to augment your SEO and content development efforts.
3. Outsource The Right Freelancer
Let’s face it — few WordPress users, even those who position themselves as bloggers, can consistently produce top-notch content.
Even if you can write high-quality content yourself, you’ll need extra hands to keep up with the biggest brands in your niche. This is especially true if you’re a solopreneur with a hands-on approach to your marketing, including tedious aspects such as social media, email marketing, and link building.
To make sure you hire a great freelance writer, below are a handful of ground rules you need to take to heart:
- If possible, find a native English speaker. The secret to writing English pieces that read naturally is to have an English internal voice.
- Consider their experience in your niche. The less time you spend explaining terms and concepts, your freelance content writer will be more productive.
- Always look for writing samples. If a writer claims to have ghostwritten and can’t provide you with articles under their authorship, consider having them write a sample article paid at a discounted rate.
60 percent of small businesses never recover and fail within six months after a breach.
The good news is that WordPress users have plenty of tools to protect their website and digital assets from many online threats.
Wordfence, for instance, is a popular plugin that can supply all the cybersecurity needs of new sites for free. This includes a vulnerability scanner, Web Application Firewall, and two-factor authentication.
You should also consider a managed SIEM or Security Information and Event Management platform that monitors your website around the clock for established businesses. This utilizes threat intelligence feeds and machine learning to identify vulnerabilities in your website’s infrastructure before they cause symptoms.
5. Incorporate Trust Signals
If you decide to invest in cybersecurity, you should know you don’t need to avert a cyber-attack to reap the rewards.
Trust badges from cybersecurity services, including SSL certification, help build buyer confidence and increase the conversion rate on your site — that, along with several other page elements, can earn your target audience’s trust.
Customer testimonials and reviews, for instance, are among the most effective elements a website can have to convert more users. According to statistics, 85 percent of customers trust online reviews as personal product recommendations.
With a CMS like WordPress, presenting reviews and testimonials on your website isn’t a technical challenge. Using a plugin like Strong Testimonials, you can seamlessly weave it into your page content in four ways via shortcode.
Conclusion
There you have it — five proven strategies that can supercharge your WordPress content marketing.
You may be excited to apply all these strategies ASAP, but you must take one step at a time. Fortune may favor the bold, but all good things come to those who wait.
Whatever you do, practice reviewing your progress and fine-tuning your strategy for maximum results. None of the methods above are meant to work overnight, so be patient and trust the process. Good luck!
