We are at another turning point for online marketing. In the past year Google has reaffirmed the old mantra “Content is King” by updated their algorithm to penalize sites that were using SEO trickery to gain higher placement in search results. Think Panda and Penguin Updates.
The advice coming out of the Googleplex has been “Produce great content to get better rankings.” With this new or renewed idea of producing content, there have been many cries that SEO is dead. If you’re familiar with us, you already know we don’t believe this. It is not dead, but evolving.
Out of all of this the term “Content Marketing” sprang up. What is Content Marketing? Is it some new-fangled way to advertise? It’s more like combination of old techniques all rolled into one plan. Let me break it down for you…
Content marketing is a technique that combines many different aspects of online marketing. This can include all or some of the following aspects:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Social Media Marketing
- Blogging
- Paid Search
- Website Analytics
- Lead Tracking
As you can guess because of the name, at the heart of it is your great content. This might include any number of the following things:
- Blog posts
- Whitepapers
- Case studies
- Videos
- Webinars
- Etc.
Unfortunately many people will stop there, but if you do you miss the underlying reason for creating content: To engage potential new customers as well as clients.
The great thing is there are plenty of tools to track the effectiveness of your campaigns. When visitors come to your site you can track what they do on the site and how engaged they are using tools such as the following:
- Website analytics
- Lead capturing
- Lead tracking tools
Put all these techniques and tools together and you have Content Marketing. It is non-interrupt and instead of preaching to customers, content marketing is giving your potential customers something that can make them smarter or can make their lives better.
Want to learn more about Content Marketing? Fill out the simple form below and we’ll set up a time to talk.
