What is Content Marketing and is it important?

What is Content Marketing?

The world of online marketing is full of buzzwords and unfamiliar terms. One that you’ll regularly hear bandied about is Content Marketing. This is a great strategy that uses valuable or useful content (like this wonderful article of ours, for example) to attract viewers to your website, giving you an great opportunity to convert them into viable customers.

Introducing Value

The key to content marketing is value. Well-written articles appeal to visitors. They value articles that inform, assist or just simply entertain. More than likely, in this wonderfully social world we inhabit, they are eager to then share their amazing finds with their own friends and followers. Those friends might, in turn, be moved to do the same within their circles.

The result? Your article and its connection to your business, gets spread far and wide.

Search engines such as Google and Bing adore good content. As they trawl the internet, the big search engines scour your articles, blog posts and information, which look specifically for regular postings of new articles. It’s not rocket science to realise that the more quality content you provide on a regular basis, the greater the probability that your site will feature well in search results.

Hard Work

The creation of decent content for your site is not an easy task – we’re well aware of that. It takes time, effort, a lot of thought, and a surprising amount of frustration to come up with something that conveys your message and is, as we pointed out above, considered valuable by your visitors. It doesn’t need to be the next Booker prize winner – just, for example, make an interesting and professional note that explains what your business is, or describe one aspect of it that might help potential customers better understand or relate to it.

And don’t imagine it’s a one-off effort either! To achieve impressive results, as with any walk of life, it must be consistent and continuous. Regular posts get better results than a scattering of occasional missives.

Copy ‘n’ Paste

The first and worst shortcut is the most common of all. Some website owners think they can simply copy items – text, photos or videos – from other websites and paste it into their own without a care in the world. With our own clients, iBrutes is almost militant when it comes to original content. You can convey a message similar to that of others in your profession, business or industry, but woe betide he (or she) that lifts the data from someone else’s site just to save time. It’s unprofessional and certainly does not show a business in a good light. Most importantly of all, it’s illegal.

Good original content increases visitor and customer awareness of your business. If you do it right, it makes you and your business look well in the eyes of the public, improving your brand image. Naturally, this is an attractive prospect for potential customers. Why not cherish the opportunity?

What Should You Create?

You don’t even have to limit yourself to plain text ramblings. Video presentations and short YouTube-style clips are immensely popular; infographics show interesting statistics and are amazing attention-getters; case studies can provide food for thought for both potential and existing clients; while White Papers get impressive results.

We have discovered that a good mix of photos, videos and professionally crafted content works incredibly well, looks professional and gets our sites noticed by the public.

iBrutes Media specialises in providing online presence support and management to small businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the country. For more details on our services, visit our website.