Have you heard the term “content marketing” tossed around lately, and you’re wondering what it’s all about? Interested in making this work for your business?
Content marketing is a simple concept – creating high-quality, relevant content for your site that will raise your rank in search engines, provide value for users and help with conversions. It’s also all the rage these days – it’s easily one of the top SEO strategies businesses are currently using to drive traffic. Once you’ve gotten people to your site via search, and they think of your brand as a reliable, expert source of information, you start to build a relationship.
Relationships create customers, true. But you need to make it easy for them to do business once they get to your site. Make sure your site design is professional and fits your brand. There’s an old saying in the design world: “Presentation is 9/10 of the law.” Your site should be clean, well-architected and easy to navigate, regardless of the user’s entry point. Make sure every page of your site provides a gateway to your desired transaction, whether it’s sales, e-mail signup or social engagement. The point is to provide easy access to dynamic, interesting content that is engaging.
Here are some tips for creating great content that will kick off the process:
1. Hire good writers.
The quality of your articles is critical – so endeavor to hire solid writers who can produce strong content. The better the quality, the more you seem like a reliable and trustworthy go-to source – and the more likely readers will be to come back and purchase from you. You can find affordable writers with all sorts of specializations – find a few you like working with, and develop an ongoing relationship. If you don’t know where to find writers, sites like Elance, oDesk and Zerys are all a great source.
2. Create original content.
Search engines can penalize you for creating “low-quality content” – that is to say, articles that were copied or contain redundant information “spun” from existing pieces. Run your writers’ work through a plagiarism checker, and make sure they’re not borrowing heavily from other sites. The more original your content, the more likely it is to rise to the top.
3. Don’t make it all about you.
In general, try to shoot for an “80/20” rule – 80% of your content should be general information, and no more than 20% should be specific to your business. This both creates a positive psychological experience for readers and pleases the search engines. Again – it’s all about creating a relationship, and you want readers to think of you as a reliable source of valuable information. So forget the hard sell – if you build the relationship, you’ll be top-of-mind when they have further needs.
4. Make sure your headlines match your content.
If readers see an article in their search and deem it interesting enough to click on – make sure you deliver the goods. If page content doesn’t deliver the information they were looking for, they’ll hit the “back” button and find another source – and you’ve just lost a potential customer.
5. Don’t keyword-stuff.
Google no longer rewards this practice – in fact, it’s another way to be penalized – and readers find it unappealing, to boot. There’s nothing more distracting than having the natural flow of an article interrupted by the repeated use of a bizarre keyword or phrase that doesn’t fit the context. So don’t even go there.