Boost Your Brand with Smart Content Marketing and Strategy
Content marketing and strategy can feel like a mysterious puzzle. Although you already know the importance of a well-defined content marketing strategy for any successful online business, you’re unsure about weaving everything together seamlessly. From understanding the ever-changing algorithms of search engines like Google, creating content ideas that resonate with your target audience, to effectively tracking your results and demonstrating a return on investment, it can sometimes feel like you are being pulled in every direction. This is where a well-defined content marketing strategy will not just help you achieve your goals but also understand which content types need more focus to truly see substantial results.
Table of Contents:
- What Exactly is Content Marketing?
- Why a Defined Strategy is Crucial for Content Marketing Success
- Building Your Own Content Marketing Strategy
- Conclusion
What Exactly is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the process of planning, creating, and distributing valuable content. This content needs to be relevant to your target audience to attract them to your business. However, this valuable content serves another very important purpose that a lot of companies overlook.
The more original research, quality content, and helpful content you have publicly available that establishes you or your business as a trusted source of information within your specific industry will also establish your brand (or personal brand if applicable) as a trusted source to Google. This means Google will be much more likely to show your website or blog higher up in the Search Engine Results Page (or SERP for short) so people that are searching Google for that information are more likely to discover your business. This is crucially important because Ahrefs revealed that 96.55% of content gets no organic search traffic from Google.
Not only that, but according to research from Animalz, a shocking 85.19% of all blog traffic originates from organic searches. While some businesses prioritize attracting new customers with content, others focus on building long-lasting relationships. Some see content marketing as a way to educate and build trust, while others simply use it to entertain.
But regardless of how you choose to incorporate content into your overall business strategy, one thing remains true. In a world dominated by fleeting ads and overwhelming noise, content marketing provides a content format for brands to connect with their audiences.
It provides a more sustainable path for brands to truly connect with their audiences in meaningful ways while providing enormous amounts of valuable information publicly for Search Engines to crawl.
Why a Defined Strategy is Crucial for Content Marketing Success
In the past, I worked with a client in a highly-competitive industry who had invested in creating blog posts, eBooks, and social media updates. Although their content was well-written and informative, they still weren’t seeing any growth, let alone leads, customers, or sales. We did a thorough deep-dive to determine where their process had broken down, and this is what we discovered.
We decided to analyze their Google Analytics data. Google Analytics is the most popular web analytics tool to easily see the number of website visitors as well as what they do on your website or blog, where they came from (such as Google or Social Media, for example), and lots more data that is valuable to grow a business. You’ll want to make sure you install Google Analytics onto your site as early on as possible in the development cycle because it is best to gather this information from day 1. And, you can use a free plugin, such as MonsterInsights if you have a WordPress website.
Through installing MonsterInsights on their WordPress website, it helped identify a content calendar for what pages or blog posts people visit on their website (we discovered they were overlooking focusing on their highest-performing content and instead linking to what we discovered later were their worst-performing pages), how long people spend on their website (we learned visitors were quickly leaving their website because they had poorly formatted paragraphs on their blog), where visitors come from, and even demographics about them such as their age, interests, and even if they own a mobile or desktop device.
This information was startling and helped solidify that, just like any complex project, approaching content marketing without a clear content strategy plan can often result in your content never seeing the light of day within search engines. However, having a defined content strategy and planning helps streamline every step in your content creation process, leading to greater visibility for your content, improved engagement with readers, and a higher likelihood that the content you are producing has a greater opportunity to generate leads and, more importantly, a growing customer base for years to come.
Building Your Own Content Marketing Strategy
While there are many effective ways to create a winning content marketing strategy, a good place to start is by analyzing other successful content marketing strategies already working within your niche. However, it’s just as critical that you have the right mindset and use a toolset you’re familiar with, making it easier to adjust on-the-fly, especially if something isn’t working or pivoting entirely as you discover new insights into your target market.
Understanding Your “Why?” for Your Content Marketing Strategy
Taking the time to reflect on your “why” will keep your marketing efforts aligned with your goals when creating your content. Here’s an example:
| Goal | Why? |
|---|---|
| Generate Leads | Because I need a steady stream of new leads to hit my sales quotas. |
| Drive Website Traffic | Because more traffic to my site provides the best opportunity to grow an audience that will like and trust what I have to say. |
| Grow Brand Awareness | Because I’m creating a software company to compete against bigger players, and I need my company name to stand out among my competitors. |
| Increase Customer Engagement | Because I want to turn more of my customers into brand advocates that will recommend my products and services to friends and family. |
Think through any common challenges faced by others in your industry or if you think your own perspective on the problem would help the reader relate to you in a genuine way. These types of emotional connections you create with people, or in this case, readers of your content will establish your know-how, build credibility within your space, and over time establish yourself (or your company) as an authoritative source not just to Google, but more importantly – with your audience.
Content Marketing is a Journey
Remember that content marketing is an ongoing journey and not a one-time endeavor. Embrace experimentation, analyze what works for others, consistently measure your content marketing efforts, and don’t be afraid to make changes when necessary as Google regularly adjusts their algorithms. It’s just a matter of staying up-to-date.