Your content marketing strategy is crucial to your online income.

Did you know that information (or content) is more important than ever before?

This is because potential customers seek more information before they make their purchasing decisions.

Take a look at this stat from the Content Marketing Institute or CMI for short.

Companies are now realizing the importance of quality content. This is good news for content creators!

What is their primary goal when creating more content?

Answer: Increase their website traffic.

CMI found that 62% of the participants agreed with their goal to increase website traffic.

Why is a content strategy important for good traffic

Quality content attracts quality visitors! Quality traffic consists of website visitors and readers who are interested in what you have to say and are willing and able to pay for it.

How can we ensure that we are writing high-quality content? What’s more, can we make sure that we are writing content that is attractive to our ideal visitors (those who buy)?

It is all about testing!

Your readers will share, respond, and take action when you test your content. You will learn what type of content to write and share the content that generates the most results.

Let’s now talk about how to test your content marketing strategy…

Prepare Before You Test

You should hopefully have a good understanding of your target audience. It is possible to understand their problems and how you can help them.

You probably have a current content marketing strategy based on information about your target market.

How can you make sure they are focusing on the things that interest them most?

These four elements can be tested.

Four Elements to Check in Your Content Marketing Strategy

Your business will likely be successful if you have done thorough research on your target market. Perhaps you are getting shares, retweets, and visitors.

That’s great!

Of course, there’s almost always room for improvement-especially when it comes to your content marketing strategy. You can improve your content and your results. This is where testing comes in.

1. Headlines

Test your headlines, including those in your blog posts.

You probably know headlines are important. They can draw attention to your business and attract the right customers. They can also be silent as your customers pass them by, without even noticing. Some headlines can even repel your ideal clients.

How can you tell what works?

Test. You need to test not only your product landing pages, sales pages, or product pages but also your blog posts.

Why?

You want to make the most of your content marketing strategy if you depend on it to bring in business.

Consider it this way: A headline that attracts four times more traffic is worth taking the extra time to create and test.

You bet!

Modern technology, such as WordPress and social media, eliminates most excuses for not testing. It’s easy to test your headlines and set them up.

Buffer, for example, tests headlines by choosing 2-3 variants for each blog post. Each one is then used in a tweet, and the results are then…

The winning headline and the last headline of a blog post will get the most results.

You can see that their headlines look very similar.

You don’t have to come up with something original. Just write a new headline. You can even flip some words or pull out a thesaurus.

The TweakYourBiz.com Title generator is a great resource to get you thinking. Enter a topic to get hundreds of ideas.

Once you have created a few headlines, start your test and wait to see the results.

You can also do this via social media such as Buffer. WordPress users will find it even easier to test their headlines. Some plugins allow you to A/B test headlines on blogs. Title Experiments are only one option.

2. Images

Images are an important part of any content marketing strategy. Images are “worth a thousand words” in the end.

Make the most of images and make sure they appeal to your ideal customers.

Here are some ideas to test your images:

• Try a different image. Try a completely different image, for example, if the current image shows a person typing on a computer, but without the person.

• Instead of using an image, use a graphic.

• Try a similar image. Test an image that is similar to yours, such as one with a beach-going man.

You can see that there are many options for testing your images.

You could also test the placement of images in your blog posts. Some people believe that aligning images to the left of the content makes them more prominent. This attracts more attention.

Others believe the images should be aligned so that the reader can quickly get to the content without being distracted by them.

3. Opt-in Form

For several reasons, your opt-in form (also called a “signup page”) is an important component of your content marketing strategy.

• Your opt-in form’s offer can give your visitors a quick overview of your overall focus and draw them in, or scare them away.

• You can also build a list to help you distribute new posts and blogs. This will increase the reach of your content.

• A survey sent to your email list can help you make an informed decision about what product to test.

You can also test your opt-in forms to increase your leads. Double win

However, this social proof may not always be effective.

Consider these things before you run this test.

• Which type of social proof are you able to provide?

• Does it prove that the reader should take the desired action?

• What kind of social proof would your ideal customer respond to?

4. Get involved

When it comes to sales copy, we often hear about a call-to-action. However, every piece of content should include a call to action. This includes blog posts. Let’s say that your content marketing strategy aims to inspire action in your readers.

A call to action, in case it’s not obvious, is a phrase that encourages readers to take the next step.

Are you asking your reader to leave a comment, visit another site, or share what they have just read, or do you want them to do something else?

This element can be tested on your website to determine if it has a call-to-action that is most relevant to your business goals.

If your goal is to make your content viral, why not end your posts with “contact …”?

If your goal is to get them to contact you, why would you ask your readers to share your content?

Remember that your call to action could be a button, a link, or a line of text. You could repeat your core offer, or prompt you to read a related article. Different calls to action can be used across your website and in social media posts.

If your reader just finished an article on the importance of oil changes, you could call them to action by saying, “Go Here to Download Your Oil Change Coupon.”

These are the four elements you need to test in your content marketing strategy.