Improving inbound marketing strategy is a key concern for several brands and SaaS businesses — and for the right reasons. Inbound marketing isn’t a silver bullet. It requires continuous tweaks and data-driven revisions for improvement.
We all probably know it.
But few know how to improve inbound marketing strategy that goes beyond superficial tweaks and industry best practices.
We have handpicked the best inbound marketing tips to help you up your inbound marketing game.
How to Improve Inbound Marketing Strategy
Here are the top ways to improve inbound marketing strategy:
- Optimize and refresh content.
- Guest blog religiously.
- Repurpose content.
- Learn from competitors.
- Add PPC to the mix.
1. Content Refresh
Inbound marketing is driven by content, so this should be the first thing you need to improve.
Refreshing content helps you keep it relevant and current. If you have posts that were written years back and you haven’t tweaked them since then, it is time you should. Search engines might not be too interested in fresh content, but your audience is.
Outdated content (especially if it isn’t evergreen) is likely to reduce conversions and session duration and it will increase bounce rate. These are the signals that search engines use to determine the UX and usefulness of the content on your blog.
There are three ways to find and refresh content to improve UX and rankings:
- Identify content that’s already ranking and bringing organic traffic. Look for keywords a piece of content is ranking for and see if it addresses all those keywords and search intent. Add more value, depth, and new angles to ensure it is the best article on the subject
- Find content that is gradually losing traffic. Use your analytics tool and filter articles based on the traffic they receive. A slow decline in the traffic, target keywords, and ranking for any blog post means it needs an update.
- Look for content that is not bringing any organic traffic. These are the articles that need special attention because you have spent resources on them, but they are not ranking at all. According to an estimate, 90.63 percent of content gets no traffic from Google. That’s a lot. You need to see what is wrong with the content that’s sitting idle on your blog. Analyze search intent, compare it with competing articles, and see what’s missing. Refreshing dead content should be a must-have part of your inbound marketing strategy.
2. Guest Blog Religiously
A major reason why a good chunk of content on your blog doesn’t drive any traffic is that it lacks backlinks. If you come across something like this during the content refresh process, you need to focus on backlink acquisition instead of updating content:
If you fail to promote content, it is least likely to rank and perform well. The best way to promote your content is via guest blogging. I am talking about genuine guest posting on relevant sites.
Guest blogging, when done right, has the potential to take your inbound marketing strategy to the next level. Here is how:
- A guest post on a high-traffic blog will bring referral traffic for its life.
- You can acquire relevant, quality backlinks with guest posting.
- It lets you connect and engage with your target audience that hangs out on other sites and blogs.
- Publishing quality content in your niche on relevant sites improves your credibility and authority.
3. Repurpose Content
Your inbound marketing strategy is incomplete if you don’t have a content repurpose or content recycling strategy. It is a technique to recreate your existing content into new formats for a new audience.
For example, you can use statistics from different articles and create an infographic. Or you can convert a blog post into a video and publish it on YouTube.
Here are a few ideas on how content repurposing works:
The key benefit of repurposing content is that it allows you to reach a wider audience on different platforms. SlideShare, for example, receives more than 65 million visitors a month. The only way to connect with a buyer persona that visits SlideShare is by converting your content into slides and publishing it on SlideShare.
Similarly, there are people who prefer watching videos instead of reading text. Others prefer infographics. And so on.
Repurposing your existing content and republishing it on other platforms (and even on your website) expands your reach at a minimal cost.
You don’t have to reformat content blindly; rather, link it to your buyer personas. See what content formats, sites, and platforms your target audience prefers. Start from a manageable number of formats and see how it works for your brand.
4. Learn from Competitors
A simple rule to improve your inbound marketing strategy is to spy on your competitors. There is a lot you can learn from the competition, what they do, and what they aren’t doing.
A simple tool like Ahrefs or Semrush is all you need. Even if you don’t use these tools, there is a lot you can learn manually.
Here are a few ideas on what to look for and how to use your competition to improve your inbound marketing strategy:
- What type of content are they producing and in what formats? If they are producing a specific type of content too often, it indicates it works for them (and might work for you too)
- Where are they getting backlinks from? You can try a similar approach.
- Keep track of marketing campaigns and channels your competitors are using. Marketing channels they continue to use are the ones you need to investigate and give a try
- Are your competitors acquiring new niche businesses or partnering with specific types of businesses? Dig deep and see why they are doing this and what’s in it for you.
- Subscribe to their email list and analyze what type of emails they are sending.
The idea isn’t to follow your competitors blindly. You need to look for ideas and learn from their experiences. You don’t have to do what they are doing (as most marketers say), rather, get ideas to improve your inbound marketing strategy.
5. Add PPC to the Mix
Inbound marketing needs time to show results, and this can often be frustrating for new brands. This is a reason why we at First Page Strategy believe that inbound marketing should be fueled by PPC.
Online ads drive instant traffic and help your brand generate leads. Meantime, you can continue with your inbound marketing strategy. Use inbound as a long-term strategy for sustainable growth and PPC as a short-term strategy for lead generation.
This combination works best and is a key to growth marketing.
Inbound Marketing Strategy Should Be Data-Driven
None of these inbound marketing tips will work if you ignore data. Don’t think of replicating a technique as is; it might not work or backfire.
Let the data drive your inbound marketing strategy.
Analytics isn’t constant and keeps on changing every day. This means you need to constantly update and tweak your inbound strategy for improvement. If you are unsure where to begin, our experts will create an actionable plan to take your brand to the next level.
