Multimedia Content Resources For Your Blog

I recently talked about the different types of YouTube videos that you can create and why they can be great for your site.  True, videos are great for driving traffic, but they aren’t the only type of content that you can create.  The more types of quality content that you can add to your site, not only make it more interesting for your visitors, but multimedia content has many on-page SEO benefits as well.

Create Huge Multimedia Resources

When talking about blogs, people immediately think of written articles.  Writing is definitely a big part of it, but there are many other things that you can create.  Even better though is by adding multiple types of content together and posting them as one big resource.

Written articles are quite boring to look at.  A huge mass of text can be quite daunting for some, which can put people off from reading it.  Any other types of content that you can add to your posts will encourage people to keep reading and stay on your site for longer.  A better way of looking at it though is that you are creating a much bigger resource for people to enjoy/learn from.  You are essentially making it easier for people to keep coming back to your site and share your resource.

Think about it, if you were visiting a site would you prefer to share lots of little bits of content on the same subject or one huge resource?  I know what I would do!

On-Page SEO Benefits

The Added benefit of multimedia content resources is that it makes it easier for search engines to find you.

On-Page SEO is just a term for information that search engines use to identify what your content is about.  The more (legitimate) information you can give, the easier it is for them to share it with people.

An article with images, videos, audio, etc. could also be found via Google images, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. if you add a link back to your blog (post), you can get natural traffic that way.  What search engines are looking for though is it’s;

• Title,
• Alt tags,
• Keywords,
• …and other defining information.

That is what helps them identify what your content is about.

As multimedia resources contain many different types of content on the same/similar subject, search engines will be able to gain a clearer understanding of what your content is about.  The easier they can do this, the more people they can send to your site as it will rank higher in the SERPs.

So, now that we know about the benefits of multimedia content, let’s take a look at some.

Images

Let’s start with the obvious one – images!

Images are used so frequently that we can sometimes forget about them as readers.  If though you were to remove them all, you would definitely notice!  Images are much more than simple window dressing; they can help illustrate a point, convey your ideas more clearly, be funny, entertaining, helpful, etc.  That is why you should always strive to include images where you can in your posts.

Tutorial posts are a good example to use.  Readers would find it pretty hard to follow what you were saying without some sort of visual aid to guide them.

Images also have 2 useful properties.  They can;

1. Be found on Google Images (and other image search engines),
2. Be shared on social media (Pinterest, Instagram, G+, Facebook, etc.).

This is great as both of these allow people to find your post via the images you use.  The more ways there are for people to find your site, the more traffic you will get.

Infographics

For anyone who doesn’t know, an infographic (short for “information graphic”) is a way of displaying information in a unique and visually appealing way.  This information can be anything really, though the best are usually created using statistics or data (info that is usually quite dull on its own).

The best thing about infographics is that they are simply images.  You can include so much quality information in one that it becomes very useful to people.  These can then be easily shared on social media or uploaded and used on other websites.

Pinterest is a great place to both find and share your infographics with people.  In fact, why not check out my infographic board and take a look at some examples yourself.

Slideshows

What is better than a single image?  Multiple images of course!

Slideshows are a great way to group together images in one nice, tidy place for people to flick through.  If all your images are related (perhaps part of a tutorial) then you can package them up as topical slideshows.

There are plenty of sites online that will allow you to make a slideshow, as well as enabling you to share it online and embed it into your website.   Sites like SlideShare and SlideShow are some of the more well known, but there are many more.

Videos

Videos are a great way to really engage with your audience.  More often than not, when given the choice between reading something and watching something, people will choose the later.  It is a lot easier to connect with and understand what the creator was explaining when you can actually see/hear them.   Tutorials are much easier to understand when you can see exactly what you need to do, instead of reading a description.

Sites like YouTube, Vimeo and others are great places to upload your videos to.  They have the potential to send you a LOT of traffic to your site (when you add a link back) as they are extremely popular.

The added benefit of YouTube of course is that it is owned by Google, which means that they give “preference” to YouTube videos, helping them to rank higher in the SERPs.

I won’t go on for too long about videos as, like I say, you can check out my previous post where I suggest a few different video ideas that you can use.

Audio

I’m sure many of you will have thought about the previous examples that I have mentioned, but ‘audio’ is often overlooked.  I think this is wrong as audio can be an excellent content type to use.

Other than the fact that it can allow visually impaired people to get on your site, it is a great way to really engage with your audience (or should that be listeners).  If you make your audio files downloadable, people can listen to it on their iPod or smart phone.  They can listen to it on the commute to work, in the car, at the gym, on a plane, whilst working on something else (doing that right now).

If you upload your audio files to iTunes or SoundCloud, a whole host of new people will be able to discover you.  That is great as it can help send you more traffic.

Even embedding them into your posts can help engage people.  One example could be an interview that you recorded with someone, or reading out a post that you have recorded.  Let people choose how they want to engage with your content and they will appreciate it.

eBooks/PDF Downloads

Beginners Guide To Blogging… by Brands Vietnam

People like freebies, so if you can offer them something of value, then they will love you forever.

eBooks are a good example of this as you could allow people to download something (let’s say a free guide on how to do something, or a downloadable version of the post they are reading), to read at a later date.  What’s better is that people can share and email these with their friends, which helps to spread the word about your site.  Just remember to brand it properly and include links pointing back to your site.

It doesn’t have to be eBooks though…

• Reports,
• Graphs/charts,
• Teaching aids,
• Worksheets,
• Questionnaires/surveys,
• Tutorials/guides,
• …and many more!

Upload them to sites like Scribd or Free-eBooks and (again) you can find a whole new audience.

Get Creating Your Multimedia Content Resources

Multimedia content, no matter what it is, is good for your site.  You don’t have to add all of the above to each post, but it doesn’t hurt to add one of two to each.  It can actually be quite good to go back over some old content and add something new to refresh it.  The great thing is, you don’t even have to create the content yourself.  Add videos from YouTube and slides from SlideShare and people will appreciate it.  You are sharing their content to give them more exposure and you in return get some nice free multimedia content for your site.

Publishing massive resources all the time isn’t doable in most cases, but publishing 1 or 2 a month is pretty easy to do.  Aim to make them into evergreen content and they could bring in traffic consistently over time.

What type of content do you use in your posts?  What content do you like on other sites?  Let us know your views below in the comment section!