What is content marketing about? You may have heard the term ‘content marketing’, you may have a vague idea what it’s about… but do you really understand how powerful this approach is for your business? 

 

Content marketing is the practice of writing and sharing content to generate more traffic to your website.

 

Specifically to get more people to your site who are interested in buying your products and services.

 

In my opinion, every business should be doing content marketing. It’s a way to tap into a global marketplace of potential customers (the internet).

 

If you’re an entrepreneur or small business and you’re not doing content marketing, then you are missing a trick and probably some significant sales – Start immediately! 

 

So, what is content marketing about? Let’s get into it…

What Is Content Marketing About – SEO Optimised

 

The main way to use content marketing to bring new clients and customers to your business is through writing content that is SEO optimised.

 

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimisation’ and refers to the activity of getting your content to show up in the search engine results. There are certain practices you can follow when creating content that will ensure it is optimised for SEO.

 

It’s not as complicated as you might think.

 

Start by thinking about what a potential customer might type into Google if they wanted to find a service or product like yours. This is called a ‘keyword‘ or ‘search term‘. For example, if someone wanted to find a business like mine they might type in ‘Copywriting services’.

 

Then you’ll need to ensure that that keyword or search terms is peppered throughout your content, especially in the title and subtitles. That is how blog articles (and all the other content on your website) can bring you new traffic from Google. For example you can see that I’ve used the search term ‘what is content marketing about’ in the title and sub-titles of this article, because that’s the term I’d like to rank for. 

 

 

However it’s not quite as simple as that!

 

What Is Content Marketing About – Keywords Drilldown

 

Some keywords are harder to rank for. (By ‘rank’ I mean show up on the first page of Google, or any other search engine for that matter).

 

Some keywords are super competitive. That just means that there are LOTS of other companies already using that keyword or search term, so you would have a hard time competing to get your business to show up in the search results ahead of theirs. 

 

Don’t despair though.

 

There is a handy little tool called Jaaxy, that can help you find keywords which are much easier to rank for!

 

Jaaxy is a keyword research tool. It lets you explore different keywords and tells you how easy or hard it would be to rank for that specific search term.

 

I like it because it uses a simple traffic light system (red, amber or green) to show how easy a keyword is to rank for. It shows you how much traffic you could expect if you were able to rank number 1 for that search term, and it also suggests alternative keywords.

 

I love Jaaxy (perhaps I am just a super geek) because it makes it super easy (and even fun) to do your SEO. 

 

Once you have chosen your keywords, it’s important to get them into the title, subtitles AND the main body of the text that you write. They should appear several times on the page – Some people suggest that they should make up about 2% of the total text on the page.

 

Another ‘trick’ is to use bold or italics for your keyword, like this ‘what is content marketing about‘. Or this ‘what is content marketing about‘! (Extra points for guessing what my search term for this article is! 😉 )

 

What Is Content Marketing About… Consider This: It’s About People Not Robots!

 

However remember – It’s important that your article is written for PEOPLE, not just for SEO. It needs to be content which your target audience will find useful. Otherwise they will simply click away once they arrive at your site (and that does NOT help you to rank in Google nor to provide value or make sales).

 

So always write for people first, and the Google robots (SEO) second. 

 

 

What Is Content Marketing About – Viral Content

 

The second way that content marketing can bring you new clients is when you create a piece of content that can ‘go viral’. This can be easier said than done, however it’s very possible. 

 

The content can be in the form of a video, an audio recording / podcast or a blog post. It can even be a social media post (more on content marketing and social media below).

 

The main thing is that the content you create needs to be super sharable. So either it’s very valuable, or it’s really entertaining or just extremely cool!

 

Ninja Tip: Next time you are surfing the web take note of some of the most shared content and it’s source. 

 

If people LOVE a piece of content you’ve created and share it, you increase the chances of new people discovering your website. If hundreds of people share it then you significantly increase the chances of new potential customers finding your business.

 

The key is in creating valuable / sharable content and then sharing it in the right places.

 

Another strategy here can be to submit blog posts to well known sites that have lots of readers, with a link back to your own site.

 

for example if you are in the relationship niche you could submit an article to the website ‘Your Tango‘. If you are in the health niche you’d do well to get an article featured on the website ‘Mind Body Green‘. Of course it will need to be high quality content to have a chance of being published. 

What is Content Marketing About – Social Media Marketing & Sharing

 

Once you have created your content you can use social media platforms to share it.

 

An example of this would be if you created a blog post then shared it on your Facebook fan page, tweeted it and posted a picture to Pinterest with a link back to the article.

 

You want to get people to click on the link and visit your website.

 

What Is Content Marketing About – A Summary

 

Using the strategies I’ve outlined above you can easily start to use content marketing to bring new traffic to your website, generate new leads and ultimately increase your sales!

 

One thing to be aware of is that content marketing, whilst vital for any serious online business, is a long term strategy.

 

Even if you’re able to create GREAT content, that is SEO optimised, valuable AND shareable, it doesn’t guarantee instant results. Plus Google change their algorithms all the time which adds to the challenge.

 

Even so, when a piece of content does get ranked, it can bring a steady inflow of great traffic to your website, making this strategy well worth implementing in my opinion. Just remember to provide plenty of value in the content you create and that’s half the battle right there. 

 

Also it helps to remember that it can take a while for Google and other search engines to rank your content, and a good search engine ranking will be built up over time by sending continuous traffic to that piece of content. 

 

I hope that I’ve answered the question ‘what is content marketing about’. If you have any questions leave them in the comments below. If you’d like more help with your content marketing, or you simply don’t have time to do it, contact me. I can help.

 

I hope this article on ‘what is content marketing about’ has been useful to you! If it has, do me a favour and please SHARE IT!

 

Julie. X

 

PS – In the next article I’ll share how to ‘capture’ the details of the people who visit your site, so that you can add them to your email list and begin building a relationship with them. This’ll dramatically increase the chances that they’ll become a customer.