Starting with the content strategy, it’s important to first define what your content needs and goals are. If you’re not sure what your content needs and goals are, we recommend conducting a thorough content audit. A content audit starts with a reader intent and performance analysis of your current website, blog, and social media content.
An essential starting point for any organization’s brand strategy is to clarify exactly what it stands for. The company’s key internal management team needs to nurture development of a brand based on internal values and culture. The second part of the brand equation is aligning internal values with those held by target customers. By aligning these viewpoints — the internal expressing the aspiration and the customers the reality of the brand — we can be assured of a consistency of expression that is the hallmark of all successful companies.
As businesses in all industries work to increase their online presence, one common question continues to be asked: “do I really need a blog for my business?” The answer is a resounding “YES!”
Recently we had a client ask us about the content syndication service Repost. They wanted more content for their blog as one of their writers was unable to keep pace with their goal of 3 new posts per week. Repost seemed like it might be a good solution for them, and so they asked us to look into further. Here’s what we found:
Often one of our first suggestions to a new client is, “you need more content.” They and we hear it all the time, “content is King”. The thinking being that the more relevant content you create the more likely it is that you’ll be found online for relevant searches (you’re “optimizing” your site for search). And for the most part, this is true, if you regularly and consistently are creating new and relevant content you are more likely to be found online for relevant searches than you would without that content. This is how a content marketing strategy starts to develop.
Recently I received an email from one of my favorite marketing websites offering a free download for an eBook that sounded really interesting to me. And it inspired me to write a blog post about how NOT to design lead capture forms for effective lead generation. The email I received looked like this:
You may have heard that content is king and that creating content on a regular basis and promoting that content via a content marketing strategy, is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your site. So we know content has value, but why is content creation and content marketing important? Content is extremely important to any website as the more content you create on your site the more opportunities you give customers using search engines to find you. This blog post describes two different types of content, blog posts and news articles, you can create on a regular basis to regularly keep traffic coming to your site.
We know that social signals like a recommendation or mention by someone a customer knows holds more weight than a Google search result. So, why is link building is important? Getting your business’s name out there among influencers (people who are able to influence purchase decisions of other people) not only will mean benefiting from word of mouth, but if you are able to get links from these influential bloggers, it will help with your inbound marketing and SEO as well.
One of the hardest parts of creating content, i.e. blog posts, eBooks, White Papers, etc. is coming up with a topic to write about – I know it’s the longest part of the process for me. Not only are you trying to come up with a topic that interests you (it has to interest you in some way or why would you write it?), but you also have to consider what your customers are looking for.
And so, the first question you want to ask yourself when creating content is: what purpose will this content that I’m creating, serve?
If you’re writing a blog post the odds are you are doing so because you want to drive traffic to your website, the more content you create the more likely it is that someone will be able to find you online.
People searching right now can be potential customers and this is why it’s very important for businesses to workon their websites to rank higher in the search engines – because if they don’t, the competition will.
Search traffic converts very well into leads and customers because ranking high in the search engines not only makes your site easier to find but it also gives you a vote of confidence by a third party – social proof.