It all starts with K
Your content funnels start with your knowledge of your audience’s needs. They’re not there to screw around. When somebody looks up “How to immigrate to Canada” on a search engine, they’re looking for a page that will give them legal information on how they can leave their country so they can become citizens of Canada. They’re not there to research dog food. They’re not there to vacation in Hong Kong.
They’re looking for a specific type of information because they have specific needs. A well constructed K page gets to the heart of the matter.
Cut straight to the point
A well constructed K page in a content sales funnel addresses specific questions. For example, if somebody wants to immigrate to Canada, the first thing that they want to ask is, “Am I qualified? Do I have the right education for it? Do I have the right background and experience?”
Your pages on your content funnels should be set up based on these questions. There are great resources online you can use to find these questions. The most common, of course, is Google AdWords keyword planner tool. You can also use a tool called asktheaudience.com.
Whatever the case may be, think of organizing your k pages around questions because people work with their problems in the form of questions.
By organizing your content around questions, you make them easier to promote. Please understand that the human mind tends to navigate and process information in two forms: questions and stories.
It’s much easier to produce content based on questions.
They’re short; they’re choppy, and they’re easy to process.
Why should you do things this way? If you paid attention to the way you yourself process information from the Internet on your mobile device, you would understand this clearly. When was the last time you opened up your Twitter app on your mobile device and just read everything very carefully? Probably never.
Instead, most people would scan. They would basically just keep scrolling down their Facebook timeline and then if they see a keyword or an image, then they’d stop. That’s how people process information and, if you ask me, that’s the only way people can process information because there’s just so much information on the Internet.
In fact, according to some estimates, upwards of two million new pieces of information are created every single day. That’s a mind-blowing account. So, people have developed coping mechanisms and one of them is just scanning.
By organizing your content in the form of questions or around questions, you make it easy for people to read since they’re easy to read and they’re easier to promote. How?
People are already asking questions related to your stuff on Twitter, Quora and forums and a variety of social media platforms.
Your job is to find those places and slip your content into existing discussions. In other words, if you are in a forum, it’s probably not good for you to create a specific discussion about what you’re promoting.
Believe me, people are not going to care. However, people will care when somebody already asked a question and then other people are giving their answers and then you come in and come up with a much better answer and then supply a stripped-down version of your content and then you end with your link as some sort of source.
That’s how people will take you seriously. Of course, pay attention to what I said earlier. If you’re going to all these places, make sure you build credibility and authority first. Don’t just get in, spam and leave. You’re going to get banned if you do that.
Organize your question-based pages around themes on your content funnels
Just as questions can fall under a certain category, you can create articles around questions and then organize these articles around a category. This is not just a housekeeping tip. You’re doing this so you can maximize the value of each page.
Interlink your K pages in your content funnels for maximum effect
You can’t just interlink saying that there’s another page somewhere in your website. You have to organize these links based on questions or concerns and tie them around certain themes that you know your audience members would be interested in.
Make Each Pages Count on your Content Funnels
Don’t just write content just because you have nothing else better to do. Every single word, every single paragraph, every single page must have a purpose. That purpose should be obvious to you by now. Your purpose is to push people down the conversion funnel.
Whether you are using content funnels or an actual conversion funnel, your job with every new piece of content is to push them down to the next step and the best way to do this is to amplify their desire or respect for your authority. Basically, you get them excited about the next step.
To put this in practical terms, please understand that when people are looking for a basic question, they usually have another question at the back of their mind. For example, somebody goes to your pizza website because you have a page on how to bake a Napoli pizza. So, your first page lays out information regarding what a Napoli pizza is and a basic recipe. Pretty straightforward
However, you call people to action with key questions like how to get the right heat temperatures for your Napoli pizza, how to make sure you don’t scorch the bottom of your pizza. In other words, you start with general information that clues people in. That’s what they’re looking for.
Nonetheless, once they get that, they are going to be impressed because now you’re drilling down. They know that once they start making their own Napoli pizza, there will be those issues that would come up.
Let me tell you when I got a pizza recipe on the Internet and I did it, it wasn’t like the Pinterest pictures that I saw online. Not even close. Why? Because I didn’t drill down and up. I didn’t know about scorching the flour. I didn’t know about manipulating the dough so there’s no gooey, uncooked portion in the middle, that kind of thing.
That’s what people are going to be looking for because now you’ve given them basic information and then you’re cluing them in by saying, “Well, there are other stuff that you need to know and if you don’t do these, you’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for.
So, people who are truly interested in the topic will start seeing those and, basically, you are calling them to action to click deeper and deeper into the bowels of your website.
Compare this to basically just random interlinking where you go from one page to just another regular page, which may not be all that related, you’re not going to be building authority. People are just going to bounce out of that page because that’s not the information they’re looking for.
You have to start with a general question
And then create subsidiary pages that are based on closely related questions on your content funnels and this maintains the interest of the person and then actually amplifies their desire for a specific product or solution later on. That’s how you build trust and credibility at the same time.
When they click on these links, they find themselves deeper and deeper into your website and they give themselves more opportunities to really absorb the knowledge that you are giving them. The whole point here is to demonstrate to them that you are sufficiently knowledgeable about your niche.
If you’re able to do this, then you start building trust. They then are more likely to like your take on their problem.
Establish credibility and authority by using multimedia
As the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. This means if you really want to maximize the amount of authority and credibility you’re building in the minds of your target audience members, you need to use the power of multimedia.
I am, of course, talking about videos, pictures, diagrams, infographics, you name it! This not only makes your content easier to read, but it also makes sure that people aren’t bored by your content. Please understand that most people now view online content through mobile devices.
They don’t have all the time in the world to keep scrolling as you crank out massive blocks of text. You might want to break those pieces of text up. You may want to shorten those pieces of text and break up the boredom by using a picture, a diagram or a video.
If you do this, you are more likely to keep them on the same page and you also increase the likelihood that they will click on a link to get deeper and deeper into your website.
A Quick Word About Third-Party Multimedia Content
Please don’t interpret what I just said in the section above into some sort of mad dash to appropriate other people’s intellectual property. You can’t just take a video off YouTube and embed it in your content simply because it’s related to your content’s topic. That might land you in hot water.
You have to do it the right way. Whether you’re using infographics from Pinterest, videos from YouTube, explanatory photos from Pinterest or Instagram, you have to respect the rights of the owners or creators of this content.
How do you do that? Very simple. Give them attribution and link to them.
I know you’re probably paranoid about your website becoming some sort of “traffic leak.” I understand where you’re coming from. You worked hard to create all this content and you obviously worked hard to drive traffic to your site. It would be a shame to see much of that traffic go to these third-party links and never to come back to your website again. Believe me, I get that. However, here are some ways you can make these concerns go away.
Make Attribution Links Open in a New Tab
If you’re worried about losing traffic because of your attribution links, make those links open a new tab. This way, when a visitor to your website clicks on that link, a new tab is created. Your tab is still open. You haven’t lost that person. They can look at that content, check out the website that created the infographic that they’re interested in, and then once they’re done, they can close that and go back to your site. Pretty straightforward.
Use Materials from Non-Competitors on your Content Funnels
This is the most important piece of advice I can give you regarding third-party multimedia content. Remember you’re using this multimedia content to make your content more interesting. You’re using it to add life and context to your content.
However, if you don’t get the content from the right people, you will end up promoting your competitors. Who wants to do that? These people are basically pushing the same products and services as you. You just made their lives easier. I’m sure that that’s not your goal, right?
The best way to do this is to look at the different infographics, videos, and explanatory photos and other multimedia elements that are closely related to your content and then look at their sources. Are they directly competing with you or are they kind of a general knowledge site that is basically just monetized by AdSense or they are a non-profit.
If they’re the latter, they’re probably not competitors. They’re not pushing a particular product. They’re not doing a hard-sell. So, use their content and attribute to them.
If you play this right, you will create a win-win situation. They get traffic and awareness and you get context and excitement for your content. Everybody can win but you need to play the game the right way.
The whole point of the K level of your content sales funnel is dwell time
What is dwell time? Dwell time is the term Google uses to describe the time people spend going from page to page on your website. Studies show that the longer the dwell time, the higher the chance the person will either come back, sign up for a mailing list or even buy a product.
In other words, the longer you keep somebody on your website reading articles and other content, the higher the chance you can convert that person into dollar bills. That’s the bottom line.
Remember, dwell time also helps your SEO. If you want to get more highly targeted traffic from search engines, maximize dwell time to your website. The higher your dwell time, the higher your rank on Google.
