What does your website content say about your company? If the question “what content?” came to mind, there’s a good chance your customers are thinking the same thing. With today’s savvy search engines and even savvier customer base, it is no longer enough for consumers to just know your name. To stand out in the market, you need to be engaging to customers on a level that is well beyond simply offering your services.
Enter content marketing. Content marketing allows you to position yourself as a leader in your industry for a fraction of the cost of big advertising spots and to connect with your customers in a way other campaigns can’t match. The right content also ensures a higher search engine ranking so you can direct traffic away from your competitors. In 2015, the question isn’t whether content marketing should be a part of your strategy—instead, it comes down to how fast you can implement the right approach.
Stand Up and Lead
When customers are vetting companies, they’re looking for something more than a price tag. They want to do business with people who know their industry and who are experts in the field. Content marketing establishes you as that leader. By publishing engaging, well-written content on your site that explores the issues in your industry and answers questions that customers are likely to have, you can build trust with consumers that can’t be replicated through other marketing approaches.
Rise in Ranking
Since 2011, Google has systematically been culling low-quality search results from their rankings. Although the initial purpose of the changes was to eliminate sites that had achieved high rankings through stuffing unreadable content with keywords, the increasingly sensitive algorithms actually reward sites that regularly publish clean, high-quality content with higher search engine rankings. Better search engine results mean more traffic to your site, and ultimately, more customers. If web traffic is an important avenue for your business, you can’t succeed without content marketing.
Prepare for the Future of Marketing
Content marketing isn’t going anywhere. For any company that uses the internet to interact with consumers, the importance of content marketing is only going to increase. Google plans to introduce even more features that reward good web content with traffic using programs like Google Authorship. Google Authorship assigns ranks to writers of web content based on everything from the quality of their sites to their level of social media engagement. By focusing on high-quality content marketing now, you will be positioned to stay at the head of the pack regardless of search algorithm tweaks.