What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a form of inbound marketing where the aim is to create and distribute relevant, valuable, engaging, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience. Content can be in many forms, including written articles, videos, social media posts, infographics, or podcasts. Interestingly enough, the content should be “expected, planned, and uninvited,” which means that it should not just live on your website but should also be shared across the web in the form of other media such as YouTube videos or social media posts. The idea is to provide consistent and valuable information to your existing audience, drive “traffic from search engines,” and attract new people to your audience.
How does this tie in with SEO?
In short, it does directly because content marketing aims to attract and retain a clearly defined audience by providing relevant and valuable information through various media. This can be achieved through using search engine optimization tactics such as keyword planning, on-page SEO and building backlinks.
Content marketing provides a number of benefits including:
– Attracting organic search traffic from Google, Yahoo and other search engines. – Building brand awareness and increasing website traffic.
– Increasing your email newsletter subscriber base as people come to you for information first before searching elsewhere on the web.
– Lowering the risk of creating a commercial relationship with your clients as you are simply providing them with valuable information.
– Highlighting the expertise of your business and improving trustworthiness.
How can I implement content marketing? It’s relatively simple to run a content marketing campaign using a number of different strategies:
– Regularly create quality written content such as blog posts.
– Combine written content with video and upload it to YouTube. The idea is to make your content as accessible as possible by using a variety of media that can be consumed on the go through mobile devices or whilst sitting at a computer.
– Improve your search engine optimization by making sure that your website is designed for optimal search engine performance.
– Publish your content on social media sites such as Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest to provide even more valuable information to your existing audience.
– Establish relationships with other people or businesses that are relevant to your industry by commenting on their blog posts or conducting interviews through Skype etc. By doing this you can get the word out about your business and drive more traffic back to your website.
– Host regular webinars or “online seminars” which provide valuable information to people interested in learning about a specific topic related to your industry. This creates an opportunity for other people to learn about you and should attract new customers who may be searching for expert opinions on the subject matter you are discussing.
How do I measure the success of a content marketing campaign? Content marketing offers a wealth of benefits to your business, including improved search engine rankings and increased brand awareness, however it is important to get the basics right first by focusing on creating valuable, consistent, and engaging content. In order to measure the effectiveness of your campaign, you should analyze data from your Google Analytics account such as time on site and bounce rate to determine if visitors are staying on your website for longer than a few seconds.
Conclusion
Content marketing may seem daunting to get started with it can be a highly effective strategy for businesses of any size if implemented correctly. By providing valuable information through various forms of media, your business will not only attract organic search traffic from search engines but also build brand awareness, improve customer satisfaction and lower the risk involved in potential commercial relationships.
