Content marketing is an important part of any company’s internet based marketing strategy and creating high quality content is really the next step in the evolution of SEO. Gone are the strategies that used to focus on keyword density and meta keyword tags as a way to attract organic traffic to your website.

The renewed emphasis on content has been driven by changes Google and other search engine companies have made to their search algorithms. Updates to Googles Panda algorithm designed to weed out content farms and the Penguin algorithm designed to filter spam content led to the release of a more natural speech algorithm known as Hummingbird. Why is content marketing important to you and your business? Are traditional SEO strategies out-of-date? How much of your internet marketing efforts should be directed toward content marketing? We will discuss the difference between content marketing and traditional SEO efforts as well as the future of traditional SEO and the importance of content marketing.

Khaleesi

Like Khaleesi is impervious to fire; don’t be burned by poor content marketing tactics.

Content Marketing and Link Building 
Over the last 2 years there has been a renewed emphasis on creating quality content. In the old days SEO was all about link building and doing everything you could to increase the raw number of inbound links. Now you need to first think about your business, service or purpose and describe what you do so you can connect with your customers and get search engine traffic at the same time. As a byproduct of your content marketing campaign you may end up with links, but it shouldn’t be your sole focus.

To focus your content efforts, you need to scope out your audience (in many cases, your current and potential customers) and spend time talking about your core competency. For example a chiropractor could create an in depth FAQ on stretches and in-home procedures that can help with chronic pain. A roofer could create a 10 step video guide to repairing your own roof. Don’t worry about creating too much DIY content, your customers will see you as the authority and call you when they get 1/2 way through a project and lose the energy to finish!

What Not To Do
Several years ago, retailer JCPenney received a manual penalty from Google over a paid link campaign that resulted in the retailer dominating search results for nearly every type of clothing item they sold. For a period of time in 2010 (leading up to the valuable holiday shopping season) JC Penney was ranking near the top for keywords  like “dresses,” “area rugs,” and “bedding” (and many more). When Google looked into the matter and determined that the company used “black hat” methods to rank high in the organic search results, JCPenney received a penalty that significantly impacted their organic traffic (which in turn hurt their top line sales).

photo 6How Much Does it Cost?
Clearly you need to dedicate a portion of your online marketing budget to creating quality content. How much should you spend on content? Should you do it all yourself? If you have the time and the talent to write, then by all means the business owner should be the one to lead the content marketing efforts. Many businesses are swamped with their day to day activities and don’t have time to write blog posts, newsletter and create authoritative white papers to show they are the thought leaders in their vertical.

If you are concerned with the reputation, image and brand awareness of your company, content marketing provides you with a way to manage those things better. As Content Runner continues to  expand, we will  offer Users the ability to request many different forms of content marketing  products. If you would like more information about the marketing services we currently offer and projects we intend to offer in the future, please contact support@contentrunner.com.