Content Marketing is a key component of our business activity. We all hope to build our own niche market place and we know that a key strategy in achieving that is the quality of content we put on to our sites. There are so many buzz words like “content is king” and “write killer content” or “quality not quantity content”, etc.

What Content Marketing Is and Is Not

But what is content marketing? This is not to be confused with social media and SEO. The truth of the matter is that SEO and social media are content’s groupies – they just hang around because of the content. Groupies don’t exist without the pop star; SEO doesn’t work so well without content. Each link that each business marketer earns is connected to some content, while keyword searching is linked to…yep, you got it, content!

Note this quote I found by Ian Lurie, CEO, Portent, Inc. courtesy of moz.com. “Content isn’t stuff we write to rank higher or infographics or long-form articles. Content is anything that communicates a message to the audience.” Content on our websites is us talking to our customers, engaging with potential and past clients.

Have I defined content marketing yet? We know what it is not, so what is it? Content marketing is using content to reach a marketing goal of our business. It isn’t just one goal; there could be many. We may be using the content to get new customers, retain existing ones, achieving brand awareness or providing product updates.

What are the benefits of implementing the strategies that we will discuss in this tutorial? Here are a few:

• Site traffic – we all want greater traffic. More traffic opens more doors to people staying around and / or returning for further information and potential sales.
• Improved SEO – Better content can help improve editorial links, which is vital for Google to establish you as an authority in this niche. In a nutshell, no pop star, no groupies.
• Direct customer conversions – Effective product descriptions shows the unique nature of our website. As people network and talk about our site, visits are more likely to result in conversions.

Note of Caution:

As we have all been taught here at Wealthy Affiliate, an important quality in our online business is patience. Some have likened writing content that converts to what is called flywheel marketing. At first, getting a wheel going takes a fair bit of effort but once momentum has been achieved, it is much easier to keep it going or even increase the speed. Our marketing strategies need to be viewed in the same way. It will take time to get things going but once our content is growing, both in quality and quantity, the opportunities for more conversions also increase.

Have I got you convinced that a content marketing strategy is important? One good thing is that you are the boss, writer and marketer all rolled in to one. You only have to convince yourself that they are worth implementing. Big hurdle overcome.

So let’s head to section 2 – Content Strategies