What Is Content Marketing, and Why Is It Important?

Content marketing is a powerful way to build trust and authority with search engines, but if you have to build a whole body of work filled with relevant content, it can be hard to know where to start.

There are so many content marketing strategies out there; how do you know which one will work best for your business? It's not easy!

This article will define content marketing, explore its effectiveness, and benefit from utilizing content marketing across different industries. Along with providing some examples of how successful brands have used content marketing effectively through search engines like Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. We will also provide you with an overview of what you need to start your successful content strategy today!

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating and distributing your relevant and valuable content to a targeted audience to influence their behavior. Content marketing can be a powerful tool for any brand looking to strengthen its digital presence.

The search engine industry is a multi-billion dollar market. People spend over $73 billion on search engines alone every year.

With numbers like that being thrown around by the search giants themselves, it's easy to see why content marketing has become an effective way for brands to establish their presence online and gain more traffic through search engines.

What Content Marketing Is NOT

It's important to note that just putting out any old piece of information or writing about a particular topic isn't considered "content marketing." For example: posting links on social media sites like Facebook without providing detailed descriptions about what each link contains does not constitute actual content marketing – it's simply spam.

Content marketing is not simply about getting more traffic to your website; it aims to drive and encourage profitable customer action. It's not to be used as a singular digital marketing tactic but as a part of your entire digital marketing strategy.

Content marketing provides an excellent opportunity for businesses of all sizes looking to establish credibility and visibility in their industry, engage with an audience they may have never had access to before, as well as sharpen digital presence by improving search engine rankings.

How Different Industries Use Content Marketing

Content marketing is the perfect option for businesses searching for effective search engine optimization strategies to increase traffic through search engines like Google Adwords or Facebook Ads that are constantly changing algorithms. Some examples of successful content marketing campaigns across different industries include:

Travel Sites

On average, there are over 40 million monthly searches explicitly related to travel on platforms like Google & Bing. Therefore, it makes it easy for brands who offer services such as hotels, airlines, rental cars, etc., to market their business through blog posts about destinations where they operate. Furthermore, it can influence user behavior by convincing them to book flights/hotels/rental cars with their company.

E-Commerce

Any retail brand can use content marketing to build credibility with search engines and establish trust in customers by offering helpful advice related directly to the products they offer. Thus, increasing the search engine optimization value of the product keywords they are trying to rank for on Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. In addition, brands who sell through platforms like Amazon & eBay will benefit from creating content about how people can utilize their products effectively to increase traffic from search results and social media platforms where they already have an established digital presence.

Technology Brands

Technology brands can benefit from content marketing strategies by creating blog posts that offer tips & tricks and how-to videos to solve users' technology-related problems or helpful advice about their specific products. In addition, this content strategy allows brands to create a library of legitimate content on how their customers can utilize their products and services. Having tons of content ready for your users tells them that your product or service has lots of relevant and practical applications. With tech brands, demonstration through content can be very effective.

Law Firms

Content marketing is a highly effective way for any brand in a service-based industry such as law firms, accounting practices, etc., to establish its digital presence online. They can make use of search engines, social media platforms, and email newsletter services. In addition, content can include blog posts offering legal advice directly related to current events, influencing user behavior by convincing them of your expertise within your niche.

Financial Services

Content marketing is a valuable search engine optimization strategy for brands offering services such as financial advice, mortgages, etc., to create blog posts that offer tips & tricks on how individuals can manage their finances more effectively.

These types of content will allow the brand to establish a favorable reputation with customers by providing helpful information related directly to search keywords targeting on platforms like Google Adwords.

In addition, those who own/manage accounts or portfolios online have another opportunity of using social media platforms where they already have established presences to share visual stories about users' experiences which establishes trust within the industry.

What Do I Need to Start My Content Marketing Campaign?

Creating engaging content that search engines will include in their index is essential for any content marketing strategy. For example, without search engine optimization (SEO), there would be no point in publishing blog posts, as nobody could find your helpful advice if search engines like Google don't index it. Here are some things you need to keep in mind when creating SEO friendly content:

Keyword Research

Every piece of your content needs a purpose which starts with keyword research. For search engines to understand what your page/post is about, they first have to know what keywords relate directly to that topic to categorize them correctly within their search algorithms. Therefore, you should start by deciding on one or two primary keywords explicitly associated with each post you publish. And then perform search volume, search trend, and competition analysis for these keywords across different search engines.

Title Tags

The title tag is the most crucial part of your content since it gets displayed in search listings. Therefore, you should create a unique title that describes specifically to the audience what they will learn from reading this piece of content without keyword stuffing or spamming, which can harm SEO efforts.

What’s The Ideal Title Length for Content Marketing?

Keep titles between 55 – 65 characters long, so search engines have enough space to properly categorize them within their algorithms based on primary keywords you determined beforehand.

Meta Description

The meta description acts as an advertorial blurb underneath each page/post listing found within search engine results pages (SERPs). Its significant search engines crawl and index this content correctly, as it is usually the first impression you leave with potential customers.

What’s The Ideal Meta Description Length?

Your meta description should be between 150 – 160 characters long, so search engine results pages have enough space to display them correctly within their algorithms.

Create Content Structure

There are several different ways brands can structure blog posts depending on whether they want search engines to focus on one or multiple keywords primarily. For example, you can write a post specifically around two keywords while building up your primary keyword in every paragraph using variations such as "best SEO practices" rather than just writing out "SEO." This will help search engines understand what the topic of that page/post is about without including it in the title tag of the meta description.

Link Building

Link building is an optimization technique that increases organic search traffic by acquiring relevant, high-quality backlinks from websites and blogs where you have established presences. For example, you can find websites similar to yours that don't compete for keywords directly. You can then ask them if they would be interested in linking back to your content, which will help search engines determine what it's about.

Distribute Properly

Over 50 percent of all online experiences begin with a search engine query. Hence, you should distribute each piece of content properly across different platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, or Reddit.

Content Relevancy

Create content directly related to the services or products you offer. You will attract more visitors and search engine traffic if each piece of online information is formatted in a way that's easier for search engines to index. This depends on keywords used in the article, title tags, and your meta description.

Quality Over Quantity

Creating quality content consistently over time not only builds trust with your potential customers but increases page rank, which can boost organic search results by 30 percent (Searchmetrics).

For example, focus on long-form blog posts rather than short pieces of content that provide much value. This way, search engine spiders crawl your site content for extended periods, which helps them determine how relevant a page or post is with specific keywords.

Sharing

Place social media sharing buttons at the top & bottom of every blog post. This way, your visitors can easily share helpful or entertaining content via their social media accounts.

Optimizing Images

It would help if you remembered the most crucial aspect about optimizing images with SEO-friendly link backs, descriptions, and file names pertaining to search engines and consumers using devices like smartphones. Therefore, make sure all photos used within your blog posts include alt tags with tail keyword phrases explicitly related to search terms users might search.

Using Keywords in Images

It's essential to include keywords within the file name of each image you use in your content marketing strategy. Hence, search bots crawlers understand what online information is about even if they can't see alt tags or written descriptions on a page/post that includes images. In addition, the more high-quality content brands publish across multiple platforms, the easier it will become to organic search results, which helps gain new potential customers.

Content Marketing Strategy

Depending on what search terms your brand is targeting, you should have a content marketing strategy that separates posts into different categories, including how you will distribute them across search engines, social media networks, and websites/blogs where appropriate. Your strategy should also emphasize consistent content creation. It keeps search engine crawlers from getting confused about the primary subject matter of each piece of online information being created & shared by brands with their target audience over time.

How Is Content Marketing Effective?

With content marketing, you can build a positive brand reputation while simultaneously increasing your SEO rankings.

By generating new, relevant content consistently, not only are you creating brand awareness, but you're also creating more opportunities for organic traffic through search engines. With a correctly executed content marketing strategy, businesses of all sizes have grown exponentially online by harnessing the power of this effective marketing practice.

The benefits include:

• Increased traffic to your website.

• Gain trust and authority by establishing yourself as an expert in the field.

• High potential for high return on investment (ROI).

• Build stronger connections with your existing customers.

• Keep them updated on your brand's latest happenings.

• Increase traffic to your content by making it shareable.

• Create compelling copy that will convert your audiences into customers.

Content marketing effectively gets your message out to a specific audience while simultaneously increasing search engine rankings. The benefits of content marketing are many, including increased traffic and higher conversion rates.

Let our team know if you're looking for help developing or implementing your successful content marketing efforts! We have experts at ROI Online who can partner with you to create compelling copy that will convert audiences into customers by harnessing the power of this highly-effective digital marketing practice. Schedule a consultation today!

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