If you’ve been paying attention to the state of online marketing, then chances are you’ve noticed that content marketing is taking the IM world by storm. The reason content is the new talk of the town can be directly attributed to Google’s search algorithm updates, as the Internet giant continues to try and improve user experience. Now, rather than using backlinks and other methods to determine a site’s rank, Google has turned its focus to content, trying it’s best to put pages with valuable and unique content at the top of its results while simultaneously banishing those engaging in blackhat tactics to the depths of the Google-sphere. With ever-increasing emphasis placed on content as a result of Google’s Penguin update, it’s absolutely necessary for digital marketers to start engaging in content marketing, so here is the first part of Money Maker Discussions tips for developing and maintaining a winning content marketing strategy. Check back next Monday for the rest of our expert tips!
- Quality Over Quantity—While creating and sharing content is an integral part of improving your search rankings, poor content can actually hurt your site. Make sure that your content is original, informative, and relevant to your audience. Google doesn’t like duplicate content, and tends to value longer form pieces over short posts—2,000 words or more ranks a lot higher that 2,000 or less.
- Content Marketing Is A Two-Step Process—Creating quality content is the first step towards positive results, but if you create great content and fail to promote it, why even create it at all? Once you have written an informative article, or produced a great video, make sure to share it with your social networks. Google loves content that is shared all over the web because to them, that appears as valuable content. So make sure you are promoting your content with your friends and followers.
- Content Isn’t Just Text—As mentioned above, Google recognizes videos, as well as photos, infographics, and more, as searchable types content. In fact, for many sites, infographics tend to drum up the highest number of clicks, likes, comments, and shares, which can really help boost your fan base and page rank in Google’s search results. So don’t just focus on text posts, rather, diversify your content portfolio and share as many different types of content as you can.
- Don’t Expect Short-Term, Direct ROI—Content marketing is somewhat unique in the fact that it’s a long-term strategy and won’t necessarily provide a direct ROI. However, content marketing is a one of a kind way to develop an engaged fan base for your brand that will keep coming back for more. A great example of this could be this blog—say you come to MMD one day for a specific post that one of your friends shared, and you like it so much that you continue coming back to get more of our tips, tricks, and insider knowledge. After a while, you may become interested in the forum and sign up for the VIP section, or begin using the Money Maker Traffic service. While you didn’t make an initial purchase from MMD, our great content eventually convinced you to utilize our other products and services. However, it’s worth noting that building this trust and engagement with followers takes time and you have to consistently create and share great content. Posting on your blog once a week won’t cut it.
- Great Titles Are A Necessity—You need to catch people’s attention in order to get them to stop and read your content—a great title is the way to do that. Often a title can make or break a post, so make sure to spend some time coming up with one that will pique the interest of your audience. A couple good practices for generating enticing headlines are: ask your readers a question, pitch something as a “can’t miss” post, or offer up a numbered tip list. If you still can’t come up with a great title, try using an online headline generator.
These are our first five tips for developing and maintaining a top-notch content marketing strategy. As always, leave your questions, comments, and feedback in the comment section below, and make sure to check back on Monday for Part II.