A lead magnet is a piece of content aimed at motivating consumers to take an action. At the top of your conversion channels, lead magnets spur interest and tie a visitor to your brand but don’t necessarily drive a direct sale (e.g., provide contact information, sign up for a newsletter, join a free trial.)
Creating a solid lead magnet is hard work: You invest hours of brainstorming and research, creation, and design. The good news is you should be able to further your investment by converting them into attractive assets on third-party sites, which in turn could strengthen your presence on search engine result pages for relevant keywords and queries.
Here are three ways to turn your on-site lead magnets into digital assets for third-party sites.
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1. Turn a PDF into a flip-book
A downloadable e-book is a common and effective lead magnet. People love free e-books. If done well, these e-books will lead readers to see your brand as a valuable resource.
Putting together an e-book takes time and effort: It’s a good idea to think of more ways to take advantage of the asset. One way is to create a tablet-friendly flip-book. Software, such as Flipsnack, enables you to create stylish digital flip-books from your PDF documents. Easy to use, the software can help you create highly engaging and mobile friendly assets to embed on your site or another’s.
However, converting your entire e-book into a flip-book isn’t a good move. People will read the ungated flip-book and never opt in to receive the PDF. Here are a few smart approaches to use:
Use the e-book’s takeaways to create a short flip-book with images and quotes, and invite readers to sign up to download more.
Repurpose the introductory chapter of the book to create a mobile flip version, and offer it to bloggers.
Turn each case study or testimonial in your e-books into a flip version, and embed them on your product, service, or About pages.
Repurpose an e-book chapter into a mobile flip version and ask bloggers to use it, says @seosmarty. Click To Tweet
Some flip-book software, including Flipsnack, allows you to add clickable links, which can generate additional traffic from its readers. Or if you want to collect leads, upgrade to Flipsnack Publisher.
2. Transform infographics into clickable presentations
Infographics are great for attracting links (referral traffic). Specific types, such as flow charts, cheat sheets, etc., allow readers to download (converting traffic) to digest huge amounts of data or complex concepts. However, there’s one problem with infographics – most downloaded or hot-linked images don’t allow people to click to your site.
LinkedIn’s SlideShare platform can solve the problem. You can easily repackage your infographics as a presentation and upload to the platform for additional marketing and traffic-building. While SlideShare allows you to upload images and PDF pages, I recommend turning your assets into PowerPoint files before uploading. You can include clickable links in PowerPoint slides that are retained in SlideShare (with the exception of the first three slides).
Repackage infographics and upload to SlideShare for additional marketing and traffic-building, says @seosmarty. Click To Tweet
To effectively repackage your infographic into a SlideShare presentation:
Cut your infographic in a few meaningful parts and create a slide for each part.
Add three intro slides describing who it will be useful for and who created it.
Add clickable links from the fourth slide on.
TIP: Because not everyone uploads clickable slides, make it clear for users to know when and where to click. You can include an image such as this on the third slide:
Bonus tool: If you want to add clickability directly to your infographics, consider ThingLink. You can add clickable links and embed videos right inside your image file.
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3. Convert videos into audio podcasts
Finally, we come to the easiest tip on the list. If you have an active YouTube channel, don’t miss a chance to turn your videos into podcasts. You don’t even need tools to do it. As you upload and edit your videos using YouTube editor, download the audio files using a plug-in like this one for Firefox or this online converter for non-Firefox users. Keep in mind when you are editing the videos that the audio will be repackaged to stand on its own. Make sure it makes sense without the visual aids.
With your audio files, you now can upload them to Sound Cloud and iTunes to generate more traffic and audience loyalty. That’s something we did with our YouTube series, allowing us to claim more Google positions for our brand name:
Go strategic
If you give all three ideas a try, you’ll end up with at least four more pages that have the ability to rank for your brand name:
Flipsnack profile page
SlideShare profile page
Sound Cloud profile page
iTunes page
Your content also could be included in more ranking results for important keywords as your content is hosted on more third-party web pages (e.g., each individual SlideShare upload page). Each time you convert or upload your content, use file names, title tags, and description fields wisely. Look for alternative keywords and brand-related terms to name new assets created from existing assets.
When you convert or upload content, use file names, title tags, & description fields wisely. @seomarty #SEO Click To Tweet
Each time you upload a new digital asset target a slightly different set of keywords and make sure you create:
Keyword-targeting descriptive title
Detailed description (use available character limit)
Descriptive tags (when applicable)
For example, if I wanted to control more Google positions for alternative keywords for my brand name, I would:
Create an infographic explaining what makes us different
Turn that infographic into a SlideShare deck with links to our core features
Upload that infographic to ThingLink with links to our core features
Create a YouTube video explaining what makes us different
Turn the video into a podcast episode
That’s five pages on powerful domains to, ideally, rank in top five Google search-engine positions for my brand-name alternatives query.
Once you approach brand-asset creation strategically, you’ll soon see them in your brand-related search results more often. Dominating your brand-related search engine results is crucial for a powerful online brand.
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Please note: All tools included in our blog posts are suggested by authors, not the CMI editorial team. No one post can provide all relevant tools in the space. Feel free to include additional tools in the comments (from your company or ones that you have used).
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
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