The Importance of Content Marketing

For many outside the marketing industry, what content marketing entails is a source of mystery. 

Some believe that content marketing rests in social media sites like Facebook and Instagram, others believe the same about blogging and articles. The reality, however, is that content marketing is no longer such a simple matter. Instead, a good content strategy utilizes the many different styles and platforms the internet has to offer. 

In 2020, businesses cannot survive without an online presence. To learn more about the different types of content marketing and why they are important to your business, keep reading below. 

The 4 Main Styles of Content 

In content marketing, there are 4 main types of content most businesses can make use of: On-Page Content, Blogs, Social Media Posts, and Video. Here, we break down the main tenets of each type and the ways in which they are useful to growing your business. 

On-Page Content 

On-page content is one of the most important types of content a business produces. Page content is also one of the most gravely misunderstood. 

As the name suggests, page content is the writing clients interact with on your website such as landing pages, employee bios, product listings, services, and even location pages. While most businesses owners believe that these on-page items are considered “web design,” the genre actually falls to copywriting. 

There are a few reasons why this is the case. 

For one, a great web designer isn’t always a great writer. Many times an individual who knows how to make your site beautiful can’t always craft their sentences in the same manner. Content that is difficult to read ultimately drives traffic away from your website while even running the risk of making your company seem unprofessional. 

Similarly, web designers often don’t fully understand SEO, keywords, or topic research— all elements that optimize your website to reach the largest possible audience. 

Why Page Content is Important

Copywriting and page content is important because it serves as your company’s digital image.

When visitors come to your site, they interact with the content to get a better feeling of who you are, what your business stands for, and even the overall tone and personality you bring to the table.

The importance of copy goes beyond branding, however. As mentioned earlier, page content offers companies with the opportunity to boost their SEO in major ways. Not only is this done through keywords within the text itself, copy creates a space for internal links to lead users into other regions of your website. As users click on these links and explore your site further, it helps search engines understand your site was helpful, thus boosting your rank. 

Taken together, all these methods help your site get closer and closer to the front page of search results, earning you exposure and audience without the expense of repeatedly paying for ads and other one-time marketing campaigns.

Blogging

No article about content marketing would be complete without mentioning the blog. 

Different companies have different needs, but a regular blog is a must. These can include industry specific news, info-articles, explainers, and even reviews that are relevant to your audience. 

While the function of a blog has many similarities with on-page content, its effectiveness is broad and far-reaching. As such, an effective blog will help you stay in touch with your audience on a regular basis while answering some of their most important questions. 

To understand this process a little better, try to put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client. What questions do they have? What are their pain points? What are some of the reasons why they might hesitate to use your product or service?

In the process of asking these questions, you will discover different branches of your industry to write about. As you write about these topics, the keywords you select will help your article show up in search results, meaning that when someone in your audience types in a question to Google, your blog post may come up with their answer. 

Why Blogging is Important 

Blogging can serve a few functions that are more personal and time-sensitive than what on-page content has to offer potential clients. 

For one, the recurring and information-driven nature of a blog helps boost organic traffic to your site, a strategy integral to building and maintaining your audience. By helping bring in clients to your site, it allows more people to understand your services and how you can help them, once more without spending money on one-time ad campaigns. 

Blogs also allow for extensive backlinking (other sites linking back to your page) and internal linking (inks that lead to other areas of your own site). As the number of backlinks grows, search engines will recognize you as a popular, helpful, and credible source of information– one more helping you get closer to the front page of search results.  

Finally, your blog can offer industry news that is time sensitive and immediately relevant. This allows you to capitalize on trending topics without disrupting the more evergreen content found on your main site pages. 

Social Media

As time continued, social media grew from an early 2000s fad few companies took seriously to a staple of marketing tactics. Through social media, a company broadens their presence on the  internet, making it easier for potential customers to reach them, interact with them, and learn about their company. 

Unlike page content or blogs, social media content is often shorter and fast paced. Many companies opt to post on the latest news, share material that is relevant to their audience, and engage with clients in the comments section to build rapport. Social media is time-intensive and a daily effort, leading many companies to hire professionals to post and engage with clients several times a day.

Social media also offers paid advertising, making it easy to narrow down your audience and have them see a sponsored post for your business on their feed. When done correctly, these campaigns can offer valuable ways to reach interested clients.

Why Social Media Marketing is Important

Social media helps to personify your company, creating relationships between your brand and its followers. This sense of rapport not only builds brand awareness, but also a sense of trust between you and your clients. 

While the presence of social media doesn’t expressly help company SEO in the traditional ways seen through website content marketing, we now live in an age where a company without social media accounts feels unfinished, even shady, to a large majority of internet users. 

Video 

The final outlet on our list is video content marketing. While this option can be a little more intimidating for some business owners, the reward is often worthwhile. 

Internet users are often looking to receive information quickly and with little effort. Because of this, video formats are often exceedingly popular. Through video, a company can demonstrate how a product works, explain industry concepts, and even offer long-form conversations that resemble a podcast or interview. 

Once your video is made, its versatility really begins to shine. Not only can video be uploaded to platforms such as YouTube (affording yet another social media outlet to build presence), the videos themselves can be embedded into blogs, site pages, and social media posts.

Through video, the ways in which you can create content for your audience is truly endless. 

Why Video Marketing is Important 

Video has quickly become a favorite source of content consumption for individuals all around the world. With a format that is engaging, fast-paced, and easy to interact with, it’s little surprise that most individuals turn to videos to answer their questions and learn about a company. 

As such, showcasing your brand through video offers limitless possibilities to reach audiences that otherwise wouldn’t take the time to reach through your blog time on your site. Through video, you can have a brand voice, highlight events, talks, and even give concrete help to clients through explainer videos and recorded podcasts. 

All this helps audiences learn about your company, but more importantly, understand that you are passionate about what you do. Taking the time to offer useful, quality content is one of the best ways to help individuals see you as passionate industry experts, making them more likely to return in the future. 

Content Marketing

Content Marketing Experts 

In this day and age, having an effective content marketing strategy can help your business keep a competitive edge. Unfortunately, many business owners don’t have the time or understanding to regularly create the content that will garner top performance. 

At Platinum Passport Marketing, we take businesses to their peak performance by providing clean, optimized, and fully custom content at our digital marketing agency. With a team of experts dedicated to creating result-driven content, we take the strain out of boosting conversions and growing your audience. 

With the extra time on your hands, you can go back to doing what you do best: running your business.