If you’ve run a business at any point in the last ten years and
browsed around online a bit, then odds are you came across the mention
of “SEO.” SEO, or search engine optimization, is basically a strategy to
help attract more traffic to your website by increasing your website’s
ranking on search engines such as Google. It’s still a strategy used
today, although it has recently become overshadowed by strategies such
as content marketing and social media. Want to know why? SEO was a
strategy that was easy to take advantage of. Tricking Google into
ranking a poorly put together website high on their search results page
wasn’t exactly rocket science. However, new algorithms not only make
this very hard to do – but they’ll punish you for trying to take
advantage of old SEO loopholes, instead rewarding websites that put
effort into the
creation of content. This means that some creativity needs to go into your SEO.
While all this talk about algorithms may make it seem like you can
just automate everything, this is simply not true. The success of your
website depends more on what I like to call “
human being optimization”
more than it ever has. Optimizing your website for humans before you
optimize it for the search engines. Think of it as working
with
search engines instead of simply trying to trick them. You provide them
with good content and a great website so that their search results page
provides users with high quality search results, and they provide you
with more visitors to read your content. It’s a mutualistic
relationship.
Why Content Marketing Is Integral to Inbound Marketing
To answer this question, I should probably explain exactly what
inbound marketing is. So, a long, long time ago – before the existence
of the “Internet” – businesses relied on outbound marketing to attract
customers. Outbound marketing is a nice term for basically shoving
information into the faces of unsuspecting consumers. Examples would be
TV commercials, radio ads, print ads, flyers and – the absolute worst
offender of them all – phone calls. There was nothing quite like having
dinner interrupted by someone attempting to sell you insurance. When it
comes down to it, outbound marketing is the equivalent of being informed
about a product or service without having asked to be informed about
it.
This is where inbound marketing differs. Inbound marketing allows
the consumer to do the research by him or herself. The process goes like
this: you put your company out there and expose your brand and
offerings so that it’s easy for consumers to find you. Once they do find
you, you provide them with information about your company and your
products or services that they can educate themselves on their own time.
You supply them with the information they need to make an informed
purchasing decision on their own. You are not informing them about your
products or services, they are informing themselves. This has proven to
be an incredibly effective way to market to consumers since it takes
away the pressure levied against them to buy right away. Instead, you’re
nurturing them before, throughout and after the sales process, which
leads to more long-term customers – exactly what you want.
Now you’re probably wondering, “what does
content marketing
have to do with all of this?” Because your prospects are more informed,
it’s easier for your sales team to have a meaningful conversation with
them. You are basically setting up more than half of the sale. Your
content helps to attract readers, educate them, and exchange some
information or a special offer for their personal information (
such as name and email address).
This means that your sales team doesn’t have to waste resources on
pitching a product to someone who not only knows nothing about your
solution or product – but has no interest in it either. Instead, your
sales team will be dealing with educated prospects. All because of your
content! This also brings us back to “human being optimization”. The
quality of your content has everything to do with the person reading it.
Content is no longer just about the keywords you use being tracked by
search engine algorithms. What is more important is what you are writing
and whom you are writing for.
The Benefits of Content Marketing
So let’s break down how your content will actually get your leads
to the point where your sales team is ready to convert them into
customers. The following are some of the
benefits that your content will provide that will assist in obtaining high quality leads for your sales team:
- Increase Brand Awareness – Obviously you want as
many people to know about your company as possible. The more often you
release content on your website, the more exposure you’ll be providing
for your company. If someone reads a piece that they enjoy, they’ll
probably come back to read more, thereby becoming more familiar with
your brand. There’s also a chance that they will share that content with
friends and family. Their friends and family could turn around and
share the content with their social circles – and so on. Not to mention
that the more quality content you release, the higher your web ranking
will be, exposing you to more potential web traffic.
- Increase Brand Trust and Loyalty – There are
some businesses out there that release a tremendous amount of content in
an attempt to draw in more traffic. But if you are writing crappy
content, then who is going to read it? Readers will be able to tell if
your content is bad by the opening paragraph – and there’s no way they
are going to waste their time finishing it. And they’re definitely not
going to come back to your website. Your content has to be good. In
order to be good, it has to provide value to your readers. By giving
them something they want or need, you’ll help to build both trust and
loyalty over time.
- Establish Yourself as a Leading Authority –
Another reason that you should focus on the quality of your content is
the fact that you’ll eventually establish a reputation for knowing what
you’re talking about. Not only does this help build trust and loyalty in
your brand, it also helps foster a reputation as being an authority
within your industry. You know you’re putting out some good stuff if
other websites begin linking your content to their website. Those links
are going to help tell search engines like Google that your content is
good, which will boost your website in search results.
- Increase Social Engagement – By putting up a
blog on your website, you’ll allow readers to comment on your content.
Even if someone disagrees with your content, it’s a great way to get
people talking.
- Increase Lead Captures – Good content will
eventually convince readers to fill out your conversion forms, thereby
capturing them as leads. This isn’t happening if they don’t trust you or
your content is just bad. And obviously, the more leads you are
capturing, the more potential customers you’re getting.
Why Good Content Is Important
So I’ve kind of gone over this already in some respect. Bad content
is going to drive away potential customers since nobody wants to ready
crappy content. But what if you’re trying to take advantage of SEO by
just stuffing your content with keywords in order to draw more web
traffic? Well, that’s where Google’s (as well as other search engines)
updated algorithms come into play.
Google’s new algorithm, which is called
Hummingbird,
is focused on finding websites that provide good content and rewarding
them with higher search rankings. Why does Google care? It’s competing
with other search engines, which means that it wants to provide only the
highest quality websites on their search pages. If you search for
something like “
new movie reviews” and all the websites that are listed on its first page are terrible, there’s a chance you’ll try out another search engine.
So how does it decide what websites are worthy of a high search
engine ranking? Basically, it’s implemented a few different features to
spot good content and to filter out bad content. First of all is Google
Authorship, which allows content to be recognized by a single author.
This makes it easier for Hummingbird to sort through content that you’ve
written. Additionally, it judges the quality of content by measuring
social activity. Social media has become incredibly important in this
day and age. If a piece of your content is shared or liked on social
platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, then the algorithm will pick up
on that.
Single word SEO keywords are no longer as effective anymore either.
Instead, it picks up on phrases such as “how to.” Long-tail keywords,
which are phrases that contain more than just 3 or 4 words, are expected
to become much more valuable. An example of a long-tail keyword vs. a
regular keyword would be “
learn how to speak German like a pro” instead of “
learn German.”
The algorithm has become much smarter and will weed out keyword
stuffing for the sake of SEO, rewarding content that uses relevant
long-tail keywords instead.
The Elements of Good Content
Okay, so I’ve been driving home the point of how important “human
being optimization” is in terms of content. Now you’re probably
thinking, “give me some pointers already!” So here you go, a few tips
for creating high quality content:
- Create eye-catching titles – Guess what? The
very first thing a visitor is going to read is the title of the content.
If it’s boring, they’re not going to bother with it. If it was shared
on social media, nobody is going to click it. The title needs to not
only provide information about what the content is, but also why the
visitor should read it. Simplicity is key here too – a run-on sentence
as a title will not work. Readers will forget what the title is trying
to say by the time they finish reading it! Consider using numbers,
something along the lines of “5 Elements of Amazing Website Content”.
- Break up your text – What’s the first thing you
do when you stumble onto a website with a giant wall of text that you
have to scroll down? If you’re like me, you’ll click on that back button
like your life depends on it. Break up your text using headers, bullets
and numbers to prevent your readers’ eyes from bleeding.
- Use visuals – Visual content is considered the
most effective type of content – this includes photographs, videos,
graphs and charts to name a few examples. They just make it easier for
visitors to consume information instead of sitting there reading.
Remember, people who use the Internet have short attention spans. Wait a
second, where was I? Oh right…
- Create effective calls-to-action – At the end of
every piece of content you produce should be a call-to-action. A
call-to-action incites the reader to do what you want them to do,
whether it’s to schedule an appointment with your company or fill out a
form. The call-to-action should be no longer than a sentence and should
use effective language that incites action, such as “download now”, “visit us”, “contact us”, and more. Words such as “now” and “today” also help to create a sense of urgency that can drive them to action.
- Provide incentives – To encourage readers to
click your call-to-action, provide an incentive. For example, you can
provide them with a free downloadable eBook, whitepaper, or special
offer in return for filling out your form. If your content is good, then
they’ll be tempted to do what you want them to do in return for more
in-depth content – especially if it’s free!
The Biggest Misconception of Content Marketing
The benefits of content marketing are real – and they certainly
look good when you look at them all at once. But one of the biggest
misconceptions that businesses have is that they assume that all they
will have to do is implement a decent content making strategy into their
marketing campaign and sit back and watch while their web traffic
increases exponentially, leading to more leads being captured than they
know what to do with. What you have to keep in mind is that most content
won’t go viral. In fact, it’s going to take time for your content
strategy to show results.
Content marketing is a long-term strategy, which means you have to
be patient and diligent. Even if your content is of incredible quality,
it’s not going to suddenly jump from a dozen views to a thousand over
night. Even if you’re doing everything right in terms of marketing your
content over numerous channels, it won’t gain that type of readership.
It’s going to take time for people to click your links and check out
your content. And odds are they won’t fill out your form right away –
the most you should realistically hope for is that they will return to
read more content. Eventually, as trust and loyalty build, they’ll share
your content and possibly sign up for one of your offers. But this is
the foundation you want, and the success of your content marketing will
only build on this foundation over time.
Using Other Marketing Strategies to Compliment Your Content Marketing
Just because content marketing has taken over as the go-to online
marketing strategy does not mean that other strategies, such as SEO or
social media, should be abandoned. In fact, SEO and social media are
critical components to the success of your content marketing strategy.
By optimizing your content using carefully researched and relevant
keywords, you can further bolster your website’s web ranking. And
because your content needs exposure in order to be successful, social
media is a necessity. Not only can you post content or links to your
social media channels, you can also add social media buttons to the
content itself. This will help increase the chance of your content being
shared, thereby increasing its exposure.
So there you have it, content marketing has become a vital part of
any online marketing strategy. While SEO is still important, search
engines have made it clear that they are focusing on the quality of the
content provided. This means that optimizing your website for humans
before search engines has become more important than ever. If you’re
ignoring content marketing as part of your strategy online, its only a
matter of time until Google sends your website back to the stone ages or
keeps it there.
You can find origin of this stuff here - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141119214951-128175282-content-marketing-is-the-new-seo
