The Power of Content Marketing

A friend of mine who is a life coach in Northern California launched her business recently and listed it on Google Business, Yellowpages, and a few other online directories. Immediately, SEO hounds started cold-calling her, promising to rank her business on the first page of Google search results.

During a consultation, I advised her that rarely do these ranking promises work. These alleged SEO experts that make these promises optimize sites for obscure search words that people wouldn’t use to find a particular service or product.

We talked over several months, with me explaining—and repeating—the importance of content marketing, primarily via blogging. I urged my friend to start writing blog posts, even if they were only 300 to 500 words, about insights into what she did as a life coach. I suggested giving straightforward answers to questions that people who seek her kind of services ask. I also recommended conducting keyword research for her articles to find terms that people use most to find services like hers.

Eventually, she started blogging and sharing her content on her social media pages. Within a few months, her business website ranked No. 1 in Google’s organic search results for key terms related to her work.

Keep in mind, she lives in a small city, 64,000 population, so the competition isn’t as high as it would be in an area like Los Angeles. But the fact that she was able to rank No. 1 after only a few months in a city where there is a great deal of competition online was no small accomplishment. And it was content that got her there.

Content Is King

Quality content will rank your site in Google and other search engines. Well researched content will present you as an authority in your field or industry. The latter is not a new phenomenon. White papers, books, and other forms of in-depth content have always represented their authors as experts in the subject matter explored.

And blogging is not new either. But as Google continually puts the squeeze on spammy SEO efforts and to rank only sites that offer quality content, blogging as a marketing tool has become more critical than ever.

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Google has been saying it for years: quality content is one of the most important factors it looks for when crawling sites during searches.

And it’s not just Google that has a say on how content is relevant. According to the infographic below by QuickSprout, 61% of consumers surveyed say they have more confidence in a company that has a blog.

Longer is Better

One new thing regarding content marketing, specifically blogging, is the longer, the better. It used to be the norm to limit your blog posts to 500 words maximum, with the idea that people don’t have the time or attention span to devote to lengthier articles.

But now, according to data collected by QuickSprout, content that is longer than 1,500 words receives more Likes and Tweets. And the average page that ranks first on Google has between 2,000 and 2,500 words.

What does this mean to you, a business or brand owner? Well, like my life coach friend, it means start publishing—yesterday. Make content marketing a key part of your digital marketing strategy.

But remember, the best blogging contains original, quality content. Long gone are the days when you could pay ten bucks for an article from someone to regurgitate facts from the Web written in robotic sentences.

Your content has to be engaging, informational or educational, and well written. Facts, spelling, grammar, and punctuation all must be accurate and top-notch if you want your readers (potential customers) to believe in you.

If you have the time to do your keyword and content research, start with dedicating yourself to writing a blog at least once per month. As you get the hang of it, increase your blogging to two times per month, then weekly.

Depending on the competition in your area, weekly blogging can bring you results within several months.

If you do not have the time to do your content marketing, hire a professional writer. It will be well worth the effort to drive traffic and quality leads to your Website. Crackerjack Scribe offers affordable content writing packages for businesses. Learn more here.

In Summary

Content marketing is one of the most powerful tools available to businesses to create brand awareness, establish authority and trust, and to help people find your business online.