Introducing Content Marketing

There are many different aspects of good internet marketing, which include SEO, press releases, social media marketing, influencer marketing and more.

Once upon a time, internet marketing could mean simply picking one of these facets– such as SEO– and then trying to spam it until a site got to the top of Google and started getting thousands of views.

Today though, this method just doesn’t work and in fact is much more likely to get you penalized by Google.

Today, the only way to succeed online is by delivering quality and the best way to do that is by updating your blog regularly. This is the central tenet of content marketing and as you will see, content marketing can provide the backbone of your entire digital marketing strategy …

What is Content Marketing?

Just what is content marketing? Well, essentially, content marketing means that you are going to promote your website via content and you’re going to use this to bring more people to your website and to get them to engage with your brand.

People are not going to visit your website or blog out of the goodness of their heart; they will go there because they are looking for something and that something will normally be content. People use the web to find information, for entertainment or for news– all of which means content.

Your core strategy then is going to be to publish content to a blog regularly and to use this as a way to gradually bring in more and more visitors. Eventually, this should allow you to establish trust and authority within your niche and to build a big following of regular readers who want to find your content.

Your content is also what you’re going to use to succeed in the various other types of internet marketing. Over the next few chapters, you’ll see how content is essential and for SEO as well as for social media.

That’s because the content is what people are searching for on Google and it is what you will mainly share on social media.

The aim is not to bring people to your site in the short term to make sales. Rather, your aim is to get people to subscribe to your site, to bookmark it and to read it regularly.

The way this works is simple: first, a visitor finds your site ones on Google or via a social media post. The article looks and sounds interesting, they read it and hopefully, they have a good experience. That’s not going to lead to a sale and it’s not going to lead to a subscriber.

Rather, they will just make a mental note that your site was reliable and interesting and so if they see a post from you again on their travels, they will be more likely to read it the next time. It’s important that your branding and web design game is strong as this will ensure that they recognize the fact that they’re returning to a website that they have already seen once before.

Eventually, you’ll get to the point where they have a question and they decide to turn to you for advice. They know you’re reliable, they know they enjoy the way you write and so it makes sense that they’ll seek you out when they want to know something.

At this point, you have their trust and it will be much easier for you to persuade them to make a purchase or to read your site regularly.

Eventually, they’ll become regular subscribers and they’ll start actively looking into whatever you’re posting next. This will then mean you have a captive audience and the next time you want to sell a product, you’ll be able to!

And no– this strategy is not just for online businesses or ebooks. This strategy can likewise work for a high street store or a hairdressing company– it’s all about getting more people to read your content regularly so that you have built that audience and that trust.

Of course, some internet marketing strategies might rely less on content marketing than others, but this is an activity that every business should be engaged in. And it all revolves around providing value for free.

How to Fill Your Site With Stunning Content that Will Attract Visitors and Build Trust

That may all sound great but the next question is how you are going to go about doing this. How do you go about adding content to your site that is so exciting that people will want to read your site on a daily basis? Especially if you aren’t a writer naturally?

The first thing is to understand the type of content that gets read and the type of content that gets shared.

And a clue here lies in a term that is generally looked down upon in the community: click bait.

Click bait is content that is designed to get people to click and that very often provides little-to-no value. You’ll likely have seen this type of content on Facebook: these are the posts with titles like ‘You’ll Never Believe What Happens Next!’ or ‘Top Ten X, Number 7 Will Shock You!’.

These titles get people to click by leveraging the power of curiosity. The titles are purposefully vague while also being emotionally charged (by telling you that you’ll be shocked or outraged in some way).

To look at, the articles appear to offer something completely new, unexpected and shocking.
When we click on the links, we very often are met with something rather disappointing and the reality fails to live up to the hype.

Now, I’m not about to tell you to write clickbait content. What I am going to do, is to tell you to write content that is similarly shocking and interesting.

What you absolutely must avoid are titles like:

“Ten Great Ab Exercises”

Or

” SEO for Beginners”

These titles are contrived: we’ve all heard similar things countless times before and they just fail to stand out or to look exciting.

Your aim is to write something as intriguing and as shocking as a clickbait title but then to actually deliver on the promise by making sure that the reality is every bit as impressive as what you were promising in the title.

Instead of ‘Ten Great Ab Exercises’, how about ‘What Happens if You Do 100 Sit Ups Every Night?’ or ‘Anatomy of Your Abs– The Ab Muscles You Didn’t Know You Had and How to Train Them’.

Instead of ‘SEO for Beginners’, how about ‘The Psychological Impact of Making $$$ Online’ or ‘How I Make $200 a Day From a Site I Built Last Year’.

These titles are inherently more interesting because they’re different, because they have a human element because they promise real value.

If you use those kinds of titles, you’ll get clicks– especially if you post them to the right forums. And if you deliver that value to your content, then people will eventually start seeking you out for more unique and exciting stories.

Oh, and ‘stories’ is a very key word here. People love stories. Giving any post a narrative structure (structuring it like a story) and talking about real people who have been affected by your advice is one of the best ways to ensure that people will want to read your content.

Some other tips:

• Space your content out well– avoid large chunks of text
• Use lots of highly descriptive headings that will inform your readers as to what each chapter is about
• Use a nice big font
• Decorate your content with attractive images
• Write in a manner that is concise, entertaining and easy to read
• Provide lots of links to other resources within your content

From there, it is simply a matter of posting consistently (at least once a week, ideally more) and keeping the quality high. The length of each post doesn’t matter as much but occasionally posting long-form posts (800 words plus) will stand you in good stead with Google and help you to provide even more content to your visitors.

What if You Can’t Write?

What if you don’t know how to write? What if English isn’t your first language? In that case, you need to consider hiring a writer. There are lots of writers online and they charge anywhere from $1 per 100 words to $10 per 100 words. You don’t need to spend that much, but it is highly recommended that you avoid the very cheapest writers (anything under $1.50 is risky) and that you pay for better quality content. This is an important investment as you won’t be able to build trust and find regular readers if your content is written in pidgin English.

One concern here is that you might not know how to check if the content is good, seeing as you won’t be able to read it in the native language.

The solution here is to find someone who can tell the difference and to get them to check it for you. I can’t stress enough how important this is!

I hope you can now understand what content marketing is all about and now I have a question for you: Are you already using content marketing? If so how good is it working out for you? Let me know by leaving a comment below!