Are you participating in content marketing? You might be, without even knowing it. Social media influencer Chris Brogan defines content marketing as ‘the ability to produce useful and entertaining information that is worthwhile on its own, but that might also be useful towards a sale or subsequent action.’
Does your website remain static from month to month? Or are you regularly adding new and interesting content such as user reviews, informative blogs, how-tos and videos, etc.? If you are continually creating new content for your website, great job! But if not, listen up. Here are six clear benefits that you will see from content marketing.
1. You Will Rank For More Long-Tail Keywords And Keyphrases.
Ranking well in search engine results for a keyword such as ‘websites’ or ‘designers’ is extremely challenging and competitive. For this reason, many search marketers go after lower traffic, less competitive ‘key phrases’. That is what we SEO’ers call the long tail keywords. Searches such as ‘small business website developers’ or ‘full service user experience designers for (your industry here)’, though less frequent, are much easier to rank for in search results, but still deliver visitors who will be interested in your product.
In these examples, interested people would be those who are looking to create or update their company’s website, or business managers who are in need of a full online user experience for their customers. Blog posts are an excellent way to go after these longer key phrases, as they often lend themselves to good blog titles, and as a bonus, are super-shareable. The bottom line is: using niche-specific long tail keywords will get you more targeted results.
2. You’ll Establish Your Expertise In Your Industry.
In many cases, customers evaluating your product or service will ask themselves if you are truly knowledgeable in your field. There is a saying that goes, ‘be the industry leader’(even if you aren’t – yet). Simply saying that you are “an expert” won’t necessarily ease anyone’s concerns if they are looking to hire you or purchase you products and services.
When you produce articles and other content where you speak knowledgeably and confidently about relevant topics to your industry, how you solved related issues, or how you recognize updates and improvements from software providers are all great ways to demonstrate that you really know what you’re talking about. Providing how-to videos and downloadable information sheets will go a long way in establishing your knowledge and clout too because these provide a TON of value to your target audience.
3. You’ll Keep Your Site Looking Fresh – To Visitors And Search Engines.
Regularly updating your website with fresh content is a great way to show visitors that the information you provide is always relevant. This benefit extends to your SEO as well. Google and other search engines don’t want to return matches that are out of date or no longer applicable to the user’s search. For this reason, they attach value to sites that are being updated with regularity.
Look at platforms like the wildly successful Tik Tok, YouTube, Instagram, and others. How often do you find yourself scrolling through these hoping for extra content? The more new and relevant content that creators pump out, the bigger their channels grow. Your business should be using the same idea. People love fresh content! And by ‘people’ we mean humans and search engine robots alike.
4. You’ll Provide Value And Link Traffic.
Any online marketer worth his or her salt knows that incoming links are of great value, especially from highly credible sites. How do you generate incoming links? Well, the easiest way is to give people something worth linking to. You can beg and plead with website owners to put up a link to your site (please don’t), or you can offer interesting and engaging content that they’ll want to link to without you even asking. Which approach sounds more effective, hmm?
5. You’ll Bring Your Expertise To The Social Media Table.
You do it anyway, we know you’re scrolling through your Instagram and Twitter feeds to get the latest scoop. We see you in that Facebook group asking about your pets. We know you saw at least one cat picture today on your socials. Now – If you want your business to effortlessly participate in social media too, you’ll need to bring something valuable to the table. Promoting a static website on Facebook and Twitter will only get you so far. But if you are telling a story with interesting, engaging content that is relevant to your industry, you’ll steal the show and gain real traction in social media channels. Instead of being the audience, you will have become the star of the show. Your brand will become known and valuable, and people will begin to follow your posts, retweet your links, and share your content with their circles of influence.
6. You Won’t Have To Spend A Lot Of Money On Content Marketing.
This is the best part! Compared to other forms of marketing (email marketing, search advertising, etc.), content marketing is very affordable. Because content marketing is in essence inbound marketing, you won’t be paying the cost of going out to find your customers, because they will find you. The only cost you’ll need to pay is for the time and effort it requires to create quality content. The benefits are clear, and the savings are real.
So… Are You Benefitting From Content Marketing?
If you would like to learn more about how to get started, contact the CommonPlaces team today, and we will get you polished up and ready to shine with your newfound superstar content marketing strategy.
