Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the big buzzwords of 2013.  Here’s why:

Google has been fighting for years to rid the web of spam and, in general, poor content.  The reason is that Google wants to ensure that when people conduct searches, they find more relevant information than they can find through searching in any other way.

One of the ways Google does this is to measure the “bounce rate” of a website, or how many of the people who go there from a specific Search Engine Results Page (SERP) stay there to browse, vs. going to some other result on the page.  The higher the percentage of people who stay, the lower the bounce rate.

Why is content marketing important?

If people stay on your website because you provide valuable information on a topic, your bounce rate goes down. One way to both (1) keep people on your site and (2) demonstrate your subject matter expertise is to provide content.  Content marketing works best for one reason: People who think you provide something of value are likely to share it, thus spreading your influence.  For this reason, you’ll want to focus on free content, with the intent of monetizing at a later point.

Whatever your subject area is, there are a thousand topics you could write about.  Producing content in the form of blog posts, ebooks, videos, podcasts and others is a way to establish your own expertise.

More on the forms of content marketing

Why video?  YouTube is often cited as the #2 most used search engine, however, it’s more interesting than that.  The truth is people do different kinds of searches on YouTube.  They search for content there — and if you’re smart, you’ll want people to find yours!

A thirty-page ebook that covers a topic in depth and which has links back to your website is a very common tactic.  What are the questions people in your field struggle with answering?  If you can answer any of them, those are GREAT ebook topics.  How do you know what people are asking?  Surf LinkedIn groups and Quora — questions that you see asked repeatedly in different flavors make great topics because you know there’s interest. Cross check the topic with Google Adwords if you want a little extra confirmation.

Quality Matters

One of the trend online marketing professionals are watching is the risk of reaching a glut of content in 2013.  For this reason, among many others, take the time to ensure your content is of high quality.  Not only does good content reflect well upon you, but it will also help encourage more people to share it.

Having people share your content for you is the best way to promote it.  Beyond that, there’s a whole other story about how to promote your content that we’ll touch on in a future post.

TL;DR: Get out there and start creating!

 

 

Image from Stock Xchng.