‘Content is King’ – You may have heard this phrase a countless number of times since Bill Gates popularised it in 1996.
After almost two decades later, it still rings true – especially in the digital world of Internet marketers, SEOs, Bloggers, tweeters… and the likes.
In simple terms - any image, sound, video, texts, documents, applications and messages used for consumption or to engage users via the Internet is termed asContent.
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 that you uploaded in YouTube; The pictures on Instagram you shared, the podcasts or webinars your team hosted... all of these (and a lot more) constitutes as ‘content’ – not to mention this blog post that I’m writing.
How Element 7 Digital can create alluring content for your business.
However, it goes without saying that, Content is king if it is useful, relevant and purposeful.
From 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.
Why Content Rules the Digital World.
1. Acts as a ‘catalyst’ for SEO
An authentic, high-quality content published for blog-post on an organisation’s official site, could significantly impact on SEO and search engine rankings. Regularly put up fresh content with naturally placed keywords, aids in ranking the site organically for relevant keywords and search terms. Also, consistency in coming up with such high-quality content breeds ‘Authority’ in the market or in the operating niche.
2. The Google algorithms – Favour quality content.
With an average of 500 algorithm updates in a 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, 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.
3. Good content bonds with consumers
Be it your blog, your homepage tagline or your tweets – a great content immediately resonates with the users and engages them with your thoughts, products or brands. A 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, and share and maybe discover the need to associate with the product or services in the offer.
4. Great for generating new leads and sales.
The customers, if impressed by the content, are willing to leave their contact details (email id), to learn more or further engage with the brand/product. 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.
5. Fosters Brand image and recognition.
A well-placed content; not just on the website, but pushed across other social media platforms; encourages more engagement and makes easy for sharing brand messages. Contents in the form of e-books, white papers, podcasts and webinars are increasingly being more effective in nurturing the brand identity and generating sales. These new trends in content marketing is but a drive to give more value to the users at large; all the while allowing businesses to stand out in their niches and thought leaders to establish their prominence and authority.
There is no doubt that looking into the future, high-quality content will play even greater and diverse roles in our lives as technology is increasingly changing the way we consume information and content.
It is crucial for all content creators and marketers to not just focus on the quality and freshness of the content; but also to look into the context the content is based on, and medium/devices the content is portrayed through.
If you would like to know more or would like to contribute to this article I want to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249-5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au...
Website is element7digital.com.au
