There is a saying you’ve probably heard time and time again: Content is king. Do you believe it? In the digital age, content truly is the most important aspect of your online efforts. More specifically, content is a vital component of your SEO. However, content means nothing if your target audiences aren’t seeing it and this is where content marketing comes into play. We are going to introduce the concept of content marketing, how it affects your SEO, and the different types of content you can use online.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the concept of creating and sharing information about your company, your products/services and other things you have to offer. QuickSprout has summarized content marketing in 4 points:
- a strategy of producing and publishing information that builds trust and authority among your ideal customers
- a way to build relationships and community, so people feel loyal to you and your brand
- a strategy for becoming recognized as a thought leader in your industry&rdquo
- a way to drive sales without traditional ‘hard sell’ tactics
Types of Content
Content can exist in many different forms, not just paragraphs of text. The top types of content which we will talk about today include:
- Site Content
- Blogs
- Social Media
- Press Releases
- Infographics
- E-Newsletters
- Videos, Podcasts, Webcasts and Photos
Site Content
Site Content is the content living on your website, usually introducing your customers to your company and providing descriptions of your products and services.
When writing your site content, remember that your website is your digital storefront. This means that whenever your online customers come to your site, they should be enticed to take an action through a conversion path. This action could be purchasing online, calling your store, or even just looking up your address. Your content needs to promote these conversion paths. Your site content also plays a big role in your SEO efforts so be sure to include your targeted keywords. Also, make your content easy to scan. Allow your visitors to consume your content quickly with bite-sized pieces of information but also give them the option to dig deeper if they would like.
- Content Marketing for Your Website
- Directories: Submit your site to relevant directories in order to push your site content in front of fresh eyes.
- Marketing Materials: Include your website URL on all of your digital and physical marketing materials.
Blogs
Another important type of content is your blog. When writing your blogs, make sure they are easy to scan by incorporating numbered lists and bullet points. Always spend time on a catchy title and incorporate your keywords to help with SEO. Your blog has a little more leniency when it comes to voice and personality. Use your original voice to engage more readers so that they don’t feel like they’re reading a corporate blog. Finally, always include backlinks to your website. This means hyperlinking your keywords to other pages on your site and past blogs in order to move traffic throughout your site.
- Content Marketing for Your Blog
Social Media
Social media is one of the newer, yet very important, types of content out there. Remember that each platform is different and that your social media posts should be written as such. Incorporate your keywords in your social media posts and work to engage with others by asking questions and starting conversations.
- Social Media: Whenever you write an original blog, share it on all of your sites.
- Newsletters: Use your e-newsletters to market your original content.
Social Media Marketing
Press Releases are often overlooked as a form of content marketing and an aspect of SEO. When writing your press releases, make sure to incorporate attention-grabbing headlines, like you would for a blog. Insert links back to your homepage and create a news section for your website.
Infographics
Infographicsare graphics that share information in a visual way. This can be through bar graphs, pie charts, word clouds and much more. If you’re not a designer, you can still create infographics on free sites like Canva and Infogr.am.
E-Newsletters
E-newsletters offer a way to share your original content with people who are truly interested in reading it. You may have fans or customers that are interested in your content but aren’t constantly checking your website for updates. E-newsletters make sure that these loyal fans are notified of new blogs and news stories. Create a mobile-friendly, custom template for your emails and include original content whenever relevant and possible. Always incorporate those “calls-to-action” driving people back to your website.
Videos, Podcasts, Webcasts and Photos
Video and audio content is still content and very important for SEO. Be sure to include the necessary SEO Meta tags and alt tags so that search engines can understand what this content is about. Also, try writing blogs based on your videos or providing transcripts to add a little extra SEO juice to your site.
As you can see, all of these types of content marketing overlap in some way or another. They all work together in order to push your original content out into the digital world and in front of new prospects. If you need assistance with content marketing or SEO, contact Informatics.
- Twitter Chats and Hashtags: Include hashtags in your tweets that are relevant to your industry and your post. Research Twitter Chats to participate in. This is a great way to get your content in front of new people!
- Backlinks: Share your original content, such as your blog posts and news releases, and make sure to link back to your website, always focusing on driving traffic.
- Content Marketing for Press Releases
- Relevant News Organizations: Start out by sending your press release to both local and national news organizations.
- Press Release Distribution Services: Join several PR distribution services and make those a part of your content marketing routine. Check out this list of free PR distribution services.
- Content Marketing for Infographics
- Blogs: share your infographics in blog posts and make them embeddable for others to share.
- Infographic Directories: There are free directories out there for sharing infographics. Two to check out include Visual.ly and Daily Infographic.
- Email Marketing
- Social Media: Many email services allow you to post your e-newsletters directly to social media or provide a link to share. Do this to capture more email sign-ups.
- “Opt-in” box: Make sure your website has clear sign-up box for those interested in your newsletters.
- Content Marketing for Video/Audio Content
- Social Media: Make sure you are utilizing video social media sites, like YouTube and Vimeo.
- Video Library: Create a video library on your website to host all of your videos.
