Lots of online marketing fads some and go, but the one thing that remains the same is content marketing. It is an essential part of any online business for a number of reasons.
Here are 5 reasons why content marketing is an invaluable marketing tool for your business and can help you meet all of your professional and financial goals.
1. Content is the Why People Go Online
Many marketers make the mistake of thinking that people just go online in order to wander around and surf aimlessly. Silly. Everything starts with a word of some sort, whether it is Google or Yahoo! in the address bar to go to the search engine, or Amazon.com or another URL to go to a particular site.
Once they get to the search engine or site, they might start to click randomly on links they see. But in most cases, they will type a word into a search box to find information or products. What they type in are all words, and the results they get are pages that are felt to be most relevant according to the search algorithms or formulas being used.
Users go online to solve tasks, shop, find out more information, be entertained, and make connections with others. In all cases, they are consuming some form of content.
By creating great content for your site, you are giving your site pages a chance to be seen as relevant. You are also giving your visitors a chance to read or see great content, and hopefully be so interested in what you have to say, that they will come back for more.
2. Content Drives Your Search Engine Rankings
The major search engines will identify your website as one that’s likely to be a valuable resource for individuals who are searching for information on a particular topic if you create content that is full of keywords and keyphrases related to your niche. Writing quality articles that will be genuinely useful and valuable to potential customers, while keeping basic Search Engine Optimization, principles in mind, can boost your search engine ranking, and help more individuals find your business.
Search Engline Optimization, or SEO, is part art, part science. By optimizing each page of your site, you are trying to make it as easy as possible for the search engines to find all of your content, in the hopes that one or more of your pages will rank highly on the search engine results pages, or SERPs.
And remember, content is not just words on a page, but video, audio, images, presentations, and products. Keyword all your file names, names of your website pages, files, and folders, and your content will have the potential to be discovered not just on Google, but also via YouTube, Google images, and so on.
3. Content Helps You Build an Email Marketing List
One of the ways to keep site visitors coming back for more is to get them to sign up for an email newsletter. You can offer them more content in the newsletter, or use it to let them know when there is something new at your site that is worth reading.
Having a list of individuals who have opted in to receive emails from you can be your single most valuable business asset, because you will be able to send promotional emails as well as informational ones. In this way you can show your catalogue of products and services, and launch new ones as well to a receptive audience interested in your niche.
One of the most effective ways to build your mailing list is to offer valuable content to a visitor in exchange for them signing up for your list. The most common types of content giveaways include special reports and ebooks on a particular topic of interest. Your free giveaway can also be an ecourse, checklist, fact sheet, and so on.
Once they are registered with your email list, you can contact them any time you like with a great offer as a thank you for being on your list. They will get the best deals as insiders due to them being registered for your list. Craft great deals that are so good, they would be silly to refuse, and see what a difference this can make to your bottom line.
4. Content Allows You to Differentiate Yourself From the Competition
You are not likely to be the only business operating in your chosen niche, so the best way to differentiate yourself from the competition is to show your own unique expertise through the content you create. Establish your own style, tone and flair in your content, and make each article, video and so on be cons
Google is looking for quality information that adds to knowledge about a particular subject and is not just a me too kind of site with the similar data to dozens of other sites, or worse still, duplicate information exactly the same as one or more other sites. Plagiarism is theft, plain and simple, so produce your own content and you will soon start to stand out from the crowd in your niche.
Creating a steady stream of quality content will also give you credit for recency, especially if you have a WordPress blog and post regularly to it and use the Google XML site map plug in.
Not all businesses are willing to make content a priority in their marketing, but every new page or post you keyword and fill with valuable content related to your niche is another chance to win the SEO lottery and get to the top of the search engine pages.
5. Content Gives People a Reason to Come Back to Your Website
The single best type of customer you can is a repeat customer. The 80/20 rule in business says that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your customers. So many online marketers chase after new customers that they forget to cater to the existing customers on their list, such as their email marketing list.
Loyal repeat customers are the lifeblood of any business, and consistent content creation at your site can help establish a relationship with those individuals, and help you save on the new customer acquisition. These existing customers know exactly what they can expect from you and your company, so you just need to keep giving your them a reason to come back to your website.
Giving them new information, products and services that you have researched in order to be sure they are in demand is a win-win for everyone.
And it all starts with great content related to your niche or industry which is fresh and unique.
FURTHER READING
Quick Content Creation Using PLR
How to Make Money from Private Label Rights Products
Handy Content Creation Shortcuts
