Written by Danica on 07.28.2015

Content marketing is the new SEO

Photo credits: hobvias sudoneighm

Search engine optimization has been around since the very early days of the commercial Internet, but over that time period SEO has gone through quite a few changes. While some people are still trying to use old methods to reach people organically in the search engines, the smart ones are moving beyond simple SEO and link building and concentrating on long term efforts – like content marketing – that are really going to provide results.

If you ask anyone who’s currently successful online (i.e. they’re making money), they’re going to tell you that content is king. This is true when it comes to marketing a product as well. The more time you spend on creating and using quality content, the bigger payoff you’re going to get in the end. This is why many believe that content marketing is the new SEO. If you don’t believe that’s true, keep reading.

What is Content Marketing

If you’ve not heard about content marketing, you need to do your homework. Basically, the term refers to the act of using content to market a message. For some this might mean creating a brand new website and populating it with useful and entertaining content while for others it may mean writing and submitting guest posts to other blogs.

One of the goals with some content marketing is getting links, but the smart marketers see beyond the immediate needs and think about the big picture. These are the people who are going to get the most of marketing with content both in the short term and in the long run.This is the one true way to beat both the Panda and Penguin update from Google.

Why Content Marketing is Crucial

Whether you’re going to be concentrating on Google+ marketing or using Facebook and Twitter to get your message out to the world, the key thing you need is content. You know you need quality, but let’s take a quick look at the specific types of content you want to create so that you can succeed.

• Useful – The most important thing you need to think about for creating content is whether or not your readers are going to find it useful. You have to consider that different people are going to have their own definition for useful, but if you know your target audience, you’re going to be able to create content that they’ll actually be able to use.
• Timely – This isn’t important all the time when you’re producing content, but being timely is a good idea if you want to train people to come to your website for the latest information available about a particular topic. By using Google Alerts, you can be sure to stay on top of all the latest news for whatever niche you’re working in. If you can be first with a piece of content, you’re going to get more traffic.
• Entertaining – Another thing you’ll want to make sure you do when you’re writing content is to make it entertaining. With so many different options available these days, people aren’t going to stick around if you’re boring and don’t keep them entertained. The more you know about your target audience, the easier it’s going to be to keep them entertained with high quality content.
• Stylish – Some would argue that this isn’t necessary, but if you can manage to convey a sense of style with your content, it’s going to be more easily remembered by people – not to mention have a higher chance of being shared and possibly going viral. You don’t want to go overboard with this, but if you know your audience, you’re going to be able to come up with a style that works for them. It will take time to come up with a style of your own, but it’s well worth the effort.

As you can see, many of the lessons of SEO apply to content marketing as well. Quality over quantity is going to win every day of the week. If you’re serious about increasing the traffic to your website, you need to realize that content marketing is the new SEO in many different ways. The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll be able to see more results. If you agree or disagree with anything written above, leave a comment below and let us know.

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