It’s no question that content marketing is becoming a more popular strategy for businesses. The big reason for this is it works.
What is Content Marketing?
Before we dive into the importance of content marketing, let’s look at the definition. Not to be boring and factual, but because it’s important.
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
This definition is important because content marketing is often misunderstood. Most people believe content marketing is creating content to attract website visitors and customers.
That’s part of it, but they are missing the big picture. Content marketing focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content.
Focus on QUALITY Not Quantity
You should know that quality and relevance are some of the most important SEO ranking factors. Looking at the definition of content marketing, you can see some overlap with SEO.
There is a clutter of content on the Internet, and this may dissuade you from content marketing. You may want to avoid “adding to the clutter” and focus your marketing efforts elsewhere. The fact is that there is a clutter of content because it works.
Most people believe content marketing is producing mass amounts of content. That is where all this clutter is coming from. Instead of turning away, you should use this as an opportunity to start your own blog. Stand out by creating great content.
Focus on the quality, focus on the relevance, and focus on the value. Don’t just create mass amounts of content — it needs to be GOOD content. If you do this, most of the SEO will fall into place. When you write an article, make it relevant and valuable to your readers. Then you are already hitting some of the most important SEO ranking factors.
SEO Needs Content Marketing
Another important ranking factor is backlinks — getting other websites to link to your site. Why would anyone point a link to your page if it wasn’t high-quality content? You can see exactly how SEO and content marketing go together.
The truth is SEO needs content marketing. Some of the most important ranking signals are quality and user experience. That won’t change anytime soon. Your Search Engine Optimization strategy needs content marketing to make that fall into place.
A Long-Term Strategy
It’s important to understand that this is a long term commitment. Whether you are implementing and SEO strategy on your own or working with an SEO company, it will take time. You are not going to make some tweaks to your website and see a drastic change in your website traffic.
The same goes for content marketing. When you produce high-quality content, the goal is to engage with your audience. To build trust in your brand. To become an “expert” in your industry.
SEO and content marketing complement each other in a big way. Starting a blog and creating a content schedule is a great first step when it comes to content marketing. Take this a step further by doing keyword research to find topics that interest your audience. There’s no sense it writing about a topic that nobody cares about, right? Unless you’re introducing a new concept, write content around topics people are searching for.
This is a 2 part series. Check out part 2: How To Apply Content Marketing to Your SEO Strategy.
