Online marketing is never static. What’s hot and what’s not is constantly changing, keeping marketers on their toes.
One thing that is certain is that content marketing is central to SEO (search engine optimisation) and always will be.
That’s all well and good, but how do you know what types of content are marketable?
In simple terms – pretty much everything.
You’re looking at blogs, articles, infographics, video, podcasts etc.
The important part is that your content must:
- Provide relevant information to your audience
- Anticipate their questions and provide them with the answers they need
- Give them clear advice as to what action they need to take
Finding the value in your content
OK, so you know the types of content you need (it’s a great idea to offer a mixture of formats to your readership because different people will want to get their information in different ways), how do you make sure it’s relevant?
For starters, make sure you only produce content about stuff you know.
That means keeping it within the remit of your business.
For example, as a copywriter it would be pretty pointless if I were to fill my blog with articles about fitness, healthy eating and beauty. People come to my website for help with their communications, not about the latest diet fad.
Think about what your business does.
Then create a list about the topics that relate to it.
Think about how each topic affects your customers, what they need to know about them, what will help them in their every day lives to solve the issues they are facing.
It’s also important for you to do a lot of reading so you know what other people in your industry are talking about. Perhaps you could write articles commenting on someone else’s thoughts, expanding them to give your own unique insight.
How does that help your SEO?
Your content will be driven by keywords.
That doesn’t mean it will be stuffed with them, rather that each post or video will revolve around a topic that (because it’s relevant to your business) will be a valuable keyword.
This content will then be picked up in the search results giving your business more visibility. Assuming your writing is of high quality, it will then be shared and commented on, extending its reach. Some people may link to it from other sites, boosting your internal links – again, helping your SEO.
So you see, everything comes down to high quality, relevant and useful information.
Your business simply can’t perform online without it.