Is content king? You may have heard this phrase countless times since Bill Gates popularised it in 1996.
After almost two decades, it still rings true – especially in the digital world of Internet Marketers, SEOs, Bloggers, Tweeters… and the likes, inbound marketing is king.
In simple terms - any image, sound, video, text, document, application and message used for consumption or to engage users via the Internet is termed as Content or inbound marketing.
Your Facebook status, which you changed this morning, the LinkedIn profile picture you recently updated, the weekly newsletter you just emailed to your clients, the promotional video of your new product you uploaded to YouTube, the pictures on Instagram you shared, or the podcasts or webinars your team hosted. These are some of the examples, which constitutes as ‘content’ – not to mention this blog post you are reading right now!
How Element 7 Digital can create alluring content for your business.
However, it goes without saying that, Content is King if it's useful, relevant and purposeful.
Looking at it through the Content Marketing lens, a ‘Killer’ content as Joe Pulizzi from CMI rightly puts it - is the one that seeks a behaviour change, modification or maintenance of a behaviour, from its consumers.
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Why Content Rules the Digital World
1. Acts as a ‘catalyst’ for SEO
An authentic, high-quality content published for a blog-post on an organisation’s official site, could significantly impact on SEO and search engine rankings. Regular posts of fresh content with naturally placed keywords, aids in ranking the site organically for relevant keywords and search terms. Also, consistency in coming up with high-quality content breeds ‘Authority’ in the market or in the operating niche. When you are writing content think about what your customer/s are asking and need.
2. The Google Algorithms – Favour quality content
With an average of 500 algorithm updates per year, Google created a huge stir with its Panda Update (2011) and Google Penguin (2012). The Panda was solely put out to target and boycott those spammy, human-unfriendly websites providing poor user experience. The Penguin, introduced a year later, was more aggressive – as it targeted specific ‘black hat’ practices such as; cloaking, content duplication and keyword stuffing. Thus, let’s be crystal clear on this –Google favours high-quality sites providing genuine and fresh content and its goal is to provide results that best suits the users - giving them more value on every search query. Keep in mind that Google will be updating their algorithm early next year, so this will change again.
All About The Google RankBrain algorithm
3. Good content bonds with consumers
Be it your blog, homepage tagline or tweets – great content immediately resonates with the users and engages them with your thoughts, products or brands. Good content will literally urge the users to stop in their ‘virtual scanning train’ and consume the content. They pause to carefully understand the message, comment, share and maybe discover the need to associate with the product or service.
4. Great for generating new leads and sales
Consumers, if impressed by the content, are willing to leave their contact details and begin, to learn more or further engage with the brand/product and begin the buyer's journey. This creates brand awareness and authority, leading to more new consumers being exposed to the brand, which in turn propels conversion rates. Let’s not forget that good content is generally less ‘pushy’ and without advertorial essence. It genuinely gives the consumers the freedom to interact with the brand, without hindering the communication process with up-front sales messages.
How you can benefit from a digital strategy?"
5. Fosters Brand image and recognition
Well-placed content, not just on the website, can push across to other social media platforms. This in turn, encourages more engagement and makes it easy for sharing brand messages. Content in the form of e-books, white papers, podcasts and webinars are increasingly becoming more effective in nurturing the brand identity and generating sales. These new trends in content marketing are also adding more value to the users at large, all the while allowing businesses to stand out in their niches and allowing thought leaders to establish their prominence and authority.
There's no doubt that in moving forward, high-quality content will play even greater and more diverse roles in our lives, as technology continues to increasingly changing the way we consume information.
It's crucial for all content creators and marketers to not just focus on the quality and freshness of the content, but to also look into the context of the content execution. Using the correct medium/devices is essential.
Homework for you;
- Create your content by having a think about what your last customer's enquiry was, and answer that question.
- Focus on one or two platforms - one should always be email so you're building your database, and the other social media.
- Post consistently - once a week, twice a week, etc.
- Link to 'Influencers' and your website or landing pages.
- Follow any leads, make connections.
What is inbound marketing, want to know more?
If you'd like to know more or would like to contribute to this article, I'd love to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249-5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au
Our Website is element7digital.com.au
