What is content marketing and why is it important to your online marketing strategy?
‘Content is king’, ‘content is key’, ‘content marketing is “CAP”’ as the Gen Z’ers say…. King, key and definitely not cap, content marketing is incredibly important to growing your business.
In every successful marketing strategy, content marketing is a huge component. Basically, content marketing helps you create and distribute content in a way that is sure to reach your target audience and make them pay attention. Content marketing is not just advertising; it’s an ongoing, evolving process that helps you build relationships with your customers and grow your business. It’s a bit more effort to create and distribute the right content but trust us, it’s worth it.
Content marketing can be used to achieve both short-term and long-term goals. Some companies might use content marketing as an advertising method, while others may be trying to increase their brand awareness or boost their credibility with potential customers.
As you might already know, content can be in the form of blogs, social media posts, videos, infographics, images, podcasts and many more. It’s important to invest in content because it will help you:
- Get more traffic to your website,
- Increase your search engine optimisation (SEO) rankings and
- Convert leads into customers.
Lesson 1 - How to catch the interest of your readers with fresh and fascinating headlines
You’re scrolling through Facebook or Twitter and you see endless amounts of BuzzFeed, LadBible, ABC, Tasty, or DailyMail articles… which links intrigue you enough to click? What made you click on those links? That’s right – it was the headline! A short, succinct sentence that seduced you to select it (don’t hate us, the opportunity was there).
(Fun fact, BuzzFeed apparently publishes 222 articles A DAY… and that was recorded in 2018 so it’s likely increased in four years!)
Headlines are the first thing your readers will see and they can make or break your content. It’s the first impression a reader will have of your content and it can persuade them to read more – or not. Here are our five quick tips on how you can catch the interest of your readers with those fresh and fascinating headlines:
1) Use numbers in headlines – Numbers are a great way to attract people’s attention because they are easy to process and provide a sense of urgency.
Example: Which article would you be more likely to read?
- 3 awesome tips you need to know for building your own dining table
- Information you need for building your own dining table
2) Be original with your headline wording – Write about something someone wants to read about.
3) Be concise and get straight to the point – Competition is tough and you need to make an impact in a short span of time.
4) Include something that grabs attention – Offer genuine value and insights to your readers.
5) Use your target keywords – Make it relevant to the search engines so when people are looking for information on your topic they’ll find your content when they search.
Just remember, the headline is arguably the most important part of your content! It’s what people see first, and it’s what they’re most likely to read.
Pin it for later reading! https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/1019080221903772536/
Lesson 2 - Optimising your content for search engines
Optimising your content for search engines is a MUST if you want to reach the right audience.
Content marketers need to be aware of the risks and rewards of their actions. They should be optimising their content for search engines which will increase the chances of showing up on Google, Bing, and other search engines. You can do this by implementing foundation SEO techniques such as meta descriptions, keywords, and alt tags.
Optimising your content for search engines means optimising for search engine algorithms and the user experience. The first step is to figure out what keywords and topics your audience cares about. Free tools like Google Adwords can give you great insights on what people are searching for.
Top tip: Not sure where else to get keywords? Check out Google’s ‘People Also Ask’ section for a relevant google search. All you need to do is search your question or target keyword, and click through the dropdown sections of questions suggested by Google. As you click on the questions, more will appear! Note down relevant questions and pull the keywords from that question to use as supplementary keywords in your writing, or even to get new content!
After that, you need to focus on your website’s content, headings, meta descriptions and meta titles. You should also think about the structure of your site as it relates to SEO: having a lot of pages with one or two sentences on each page will make it more difficult for search engines to find the information they’re looking for. Rather, have longer pages with valuable content that tells a story.
Meta descriptions are very important because they provide a short summary of what your page is about. Search engines pay close attention to them! Meta descriptions can even get you featured in Google’s top snippets section or People Also Ask section.
Lesson 3 - Developing educational content
In recent years, marketing has been transformed by the shift from a push to a pull model. In the past, companies took a one-way approach to reaching consumers with an advertisement, product launch or event announcement. Now, businesses are more interested in what consumers want and need and offer content accordingly.
Developing educational content is a really important part of content marketing. It can be used for building trust and credibility for your company, creating educational assets that show the world what you know and teaching customers how to use your product or service.
We recommend you base your content on what is interesting and valuable to your consumer, rather than focusing on pieces that spotlight your product or services. Remember that more than half your content should be what is entertaining or valuable to your audience and less than 20% can be self promotion. And don’t be afraid to write interesting pieces! Think about what ELSE your audience is interested in. For example, if you sell jewellery, why not partner with a local clothing boutique store and write an article about what type of jewellery to wear with different items of clothing!
That’s why it’s important to invest time and resources into creating educational content. It helps businesses reach a wider audience and address their needs at an individual level.
Educational content can take many different forms, and you might consider developing it in one or more of the following formats: tutorials, how-to guides, blog posts, webinars and infographics. Video has been hailed as one of the best types of content for a couple of years now. Be mindful that you want to keep your video content looking professional and representative of your brand.
Lesson 4 - Building your own brand and authority in the market
Your content marketing strategy should be as unique as you are. Be proud as a thought leader with your own voice and style. There is A LOT of content out there… so think about what makes you stand out. When people ask you how your business is different, what is your answer? Use that answer to convey your content in your strategy.
A good way to build your brand and authority is through strategic content marketing. This approach creates visibility and trust with prospects and customers by building relationships through high-quality, engaging, relevant, informative, and consistent content
The most successful content creators know that they need to take the time to create their own unique content marketing strategy. This isn’t a one-size-fits all approach, so it’s important not to copy what other brands are doing.
Rather than focus on keyword stuffing or producing articles just for the sake of publishing, consider focusing more on creating pieces of good quality content.
Authority is the projected image of a person, product, or entity that inspires respect. It is the social power or prestige that derives from one’s position, association with a respected person or institution, knowledge, skills and other attributes.
In the past, the authority of content writing has been determined by domain expertise, but now with SEO/Content marketing you can grow your authority through the quality of your content. You want to be generating more quality content on a given topic over time.
A successful SEO strategy starts with strong foundational pillars:
- Clarity of purpose,
- Customer research and understanding their needs,
- Target market research to define who are your customers are,
- Creating personas to understand your customer’s needs better.
The importance of content marketing in the modern world
Content marketing is the most important aspect of modern marketing. Content helps grow your audience, keeps them engaged and – fingers crossed – leads to increased sales.
Content marketing keeps your audience involved in the content you provide. Your target audience needs to be able to understand what you are trying to say with your content in order for it to be successful.It is a powerful way to connect with and motivate your customer base. It’s also a great way to increase brand authority and rank well in search engine optimization (SEO).
Some content marketing tools that may be helpful for SEO purposes include:
HubSpot
Allows you to create, manage, and track your content marketing campaigns from one place.
BuzzSumo
It’s a great tool for identifying influencers in any niche, as well as the most popular topics and content out there.
SEMrush
Helps you discover new keywords through competitor research and find the best keywords for your site.
Google Webmaster Tools
Gives you insights on where people land on your site and provides an opportunity to increase rankings with Google Search Console.
Content marketing is an integral part of your SEO strategies as it helps build your brand’s authority on search engine results pages. It has grown in popularity over the years because it’s proven that it leads directly to increased sales.
Feeling inspired to begin your content marketing journey but not sure where or how to start? You’re in luck! We are EmpowerUp Marketing, and we LOVE Content Marketing. We’ve managed in-depth content management strategies for large companies, creating and distributing content to more than a million readers. Now we want to bring those same strategic content marketing strategies to you, so you can flourish with a powerful lead generation tool. Wanting to ask some questions about what we offer? Pop your details into the form below!
