I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there is nothing worse than a pretty website with no traffic. Okay, that is not entirely true. A flashy, expensive website with no traffic is probably worse – especially if you are the one who paid for it.
Of course, if you have the resources to support an expensive pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, you can start driving traffic to your site in no time. (In fact, it is not a bad idea to take this approach in the short term, because it does take time to rank well organically).
That said, here are three simple ways you can start using content to drive highly-targeted traffic to your site:
1.) Add fresh, relevant keyword-rich content to your site. Often. Long gone are the days when a static website of 5 or so pages would do the trick. Set a specific goal of how many pages or blog posts you wish to create per week and block out time on your weekly calendar to do it (or hire a talented writer to do it for you). 
I promise it won’t get done if you don’t make a commitment to do it. As always, don’t write a word until you’ve done your keyword research. No sense ranking #1 for a term or phrase no one cares about!
2.) Write informative,unique and keyword-rich articles related to your industry. Then, submit them to the top article directories, such as www.ezinearticles.com and www.associatedcontent.com. I keep a spread sheet of about 30 different article directories so that I have ready access to my log-in information and to keep track of what articles I’ve submitted where. I generally target directories with a Page Rank (PR) of 5 or higher… but in some cases will submit to lower ranking sites if they have a solid reputation and a good platform for SEO purposes. Be sure you write a killer resource box to accompany each article you submit, however. No point in doing all this work if no one is able (or willing) to click through back to your site.
3.) Send out an eNewsletter on a regular basis. Email marketing can be highly effective, so start building your list as soon as you can. A couple things to keep in mind when putting together an eNewsletter: 1.) make sure you get permission from recipients before you send it (otherwise you’re sending spam) and 2.) make sure the content is valuable and relevant to the reader. Think about what they might want to buy vs. what you have to sell. For a modest fee (usually starting around $10 – $15 a month), you can use a service like iContact or Constant Contact to help streamline this process.
There are a lot of other ways to leverage fresh content to drive targeted traffic to you site, including online press releases and information hubs such as Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com. However, the three listed here form the backbone of a solid Content Marketing campaign. I’ll cover each in more detail in the coming days…
