The Benefits of Content Marketing and How It Boosts Your SEO Too.

In this article, I want to talk you through the benefits of content marketing so you can take advantage of this super powerful tool you have at your fingertips that will help you connect better with your target audience, establish your credibility in your market, build trust and ultimately bring in more customers to your business.

From blog posts to case studies, videos to podcasts, creating content to market your business is one of the most powerful and effective ways you can grow your business. So let me take you through the benefits of content marketing and persuade you that you need to get writing—or videoing—or talking—your call to give your business a boost.

So, what exactly are the benefits of content marketing for your business?

Well, first of all, it helps boost your brand awareness by increasing your online visibility and getting you in front of a wider audience. 

It also allows you to engage with your audience in a more authentic way, which leads to loyalty and customer retention. 

And, of course, content marketing can also generate leads and improve your search engine rankings, attracting more organic traffic to your website.

So, today, I’ll take you on a tour of content marketing and show you how it can unlock lots of benefits for your business. 

Prefer to watch me talk you through it?  Click here to watch the video I made for you.

So, What is Content Marketing?

If you want a dictionary definition, content marketing is a” strategic approach to creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience.” 

What it really means is that you create content in the form of blogs, videos, podcasts and social media posts that share your thinking on issues that matter to the people you want to work with. You inform them about topics they are interested in, and in doing so, you establish yourself as an authority in your niche and someone they can trust, so when it comes to them making a purchase, your target audience is more likely to choose you over someone they have never heard of before.  

Content marketing builds the know like and trust factor that people looking for solutions to their problems need before they buy. 

Successful content marketing involves understanding your audience's pain points, interests, and preferences so you can create content that addresses their specific needs and interests, and you can get their attention and build a loyal following.

And Why Is Content Marketing Important?

The internet is awash with information, so creating good quality, engaging content as part of a content marketing strategy is key to standing out and gaining your target market’s attention.

Traditional push marketing techniques are becoming less effective as consumers are tired of promotional messages.

 But, if you can provide them with content that delivers real value to them, that gives the information that is relevant to them - the best paint for repairing a wardrobe, or how to prepare for a baby photoshoot, or what to do if your website isn’t showing up in the search results

Instead of interrupting your audience’s online experience with annoying ads, content marketing allows you to connect with your audience in a more organic and meaningful way.

So, by consistently delivering valuable content, you can establish yourself as a thought leader and build trust with your audience. 

This trust, in turn, leads to loyalty, customer retention, and, ultimately, more sales.

What Are The Benefits of Content Marketing

1. It Boosts Brand Awareness

One of the most powerful benefits of content marketing is its ability to boost brand awareness. By creating and sharing valuable content, you can increase your online visibility and reach a much wider audience. 

When people find your content helpful, informative, or entertaining, they are much more likely to engage with it and share it with others. 

This organic sharing helps to expand your brand's reach and expose your business to new potential customers. 

And when people share your content and link to it from their sites, you also get a nice SEO boost. If a reputable website links back to the content you’ve created, it tells the search engines that your content is worth reading. This can positively impact your SEO by improving your website's authority and credibility, ultimately leading to higher search rankings.

Content marketing also allows you to showcase your expertise and establish your brand as a trusted authority in your industry. 

When your audience thinks of you as a knowledgeable and credible source of information, they are much more likely to choose your business over your competitors.

2. It Helps You Genuinely Engage With Your Audience

Another benefit of content marketing is how it helps you build meaningful and authentic engagement with your audience. 

Traditional advertising often feels impersonal and one-way, with businesses simply pushing their messages to consumers. 

But, content marketing encourages more two-way communication and builds a sense of community.

Creating valuable content invites your audience to engage with it through comments, shares, and likes. 

This allows you to better understand your audience's needs and pain points. By actively listening and responding to their feedback, you can build stronger relationships with your audience and create a loyal following.

3. It Helps You Generate Leads 

Content marketing can also be a powerful lead-generation tool. 

Creating content that addresses your audience's problems or offers solutions can attract qualified leads to your website. Once they are there, they will be more likely to sign up for your freebie and become a lead.

If readers/viewers/listeners find your content valuable, they are much more likely to provide their contact information in exchange for extra resources or to subscribe to your newsletter.

4. It Improves Your Search Engine Rankings

Content marketing and SEO are very closely related. Search engines like Google prioritise websites that consistently provide quality content. By regularly publishing high-quality content, you can improve your website's visibility in search engine results, attracting more organic traffic.

Content with optimised meta tags, titles, and descriptions will also give your SEO a good boost. Optimising these with relevant keywords can improve click-through rates (CTR) in search results. Higher CTRs send positive signals to search engines, potentially leading to better rankings. So, content marketing plays a crucial role in enhancing your SEO performance.

Good content also encourages your audience to spend more time reading/watching or listening to what you’ve created, which tells the search engines they are having a positive user experience. Low bounce rates, high dwell time, and increased social shares tell the search engines that your content is valuable and relevant, which can all improve your SEO performance.

5. You’ll Establish Your Authority and Credibility

Creating valuable content lets you be seen as a trusted authority in your industry. When you consistently deliver useful and informative content, your audience will come to rely on your expertise and your guidance. 

This authority you’ve built helps build trust and credibility, as well as gives you an edge over your competitors whom they don’t have a relationship with.

By showing your knowledge and expertise through content, you can differentiate yourself from others in your industry and position yourself as a leader, and, at the end of the day, the person they want to work with.

Not Convinced Yet? Here Are Some Startling Content Marketing Statistics.

If you still need a bit of convincing, let's take a look at some pretty impressive content marketing stats:

1.  According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing generates three times as many leads as traditional outbound marketing but costs 62% less.
2.   HubSpot says that companies that blog receive 97% more links to their website, which contributes to better search engine rankings.
3.   A study by the Aberdeen Group found that companies with effective content marketing strategies experienced 7.8 times more website traffic than those without a content marketing strategy. 

The impact content marketing can have on your business's success is incredible so it really is worth investing your time and resources into developing a solid content marketing strategy.

So, How Do You Create Quality Content?

One of the most important things you can do if you want your content marketing strategy to work is to make sure you are creating QUALITY content. 

This means producing valuable and relevant information that resonates with your target audience, content that engages and inspires your potential customers, and making them more likely to take action and become customers.

And with your SEO hat on, creating quality content that adheres to Google’s EEAT principles is much more likely to show up in the search results and get found by all those potential customers. 

You need to make sure you understand your target audience and have done your keyword research to ensure you’re creating content they actually want to see.  

And you’ve also got to make sure you’re using the format that most appeals to your people. Are they readers, video watchers or podcast listeners?

Sometimes, it’s a good idea to repurpose your content across all three - word, video and audio to cover all bases.

By diversifying your content formats, you can reach a wider audience and keep them coming back for more.

Make Sure You’ve Optimised Your Content for The Search Engines

Creating quality content is just the first step. To really see the benefits of content marketing, you need to make sure that your content will get seen by your target audience, and this is where SEO comes in again.

You need to optimise your content for search engines so it gets picked up by them and put in front of the people who matter. This, in turn, will drive more traffic to your website, improving your SEO even more.

Here are some things to think about when optimising your content for search engines.

Keyword Research

Firstly, keyword research is crucial. By finding relevant keywords and weaning them naturally into your content, you show search engines what your content is about and improve its chances of ranking well in search results. 

Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions and Links

Other things to consider are meta tags, headings, and internal and external linking. Meta tags, such as title tags and meta descriptions, provide a super short summary of your content and can improve click-through rates from search engine results. 

Headings help structure your content and make it more readable for readers and search engines. Of course, internal and external linking can help build your authority and show the relevance of your content.

And Don’t Forget To Promote Your Content

But there’s more!  Now you’ve got your search engine-optimised content written and published; you need to shout about it!

To get your content marketing strategy working for you and your SEO boosted at the same time, you need to promote your content.

You need to tell people about your new blog or your video or podcast on all your social channels and engage in conversations about what you’ve created for them.

You can also promote your content with email marketing.  You can let your email list subscribers know that you have a new piece of content that would be of interest to them, link to it in your email and drive traffic back to your website.

You can also tell others that you’ve written a great new post, or you have a brilliant new video up on YouTube and ask them to share it with their people. This gives you a credibility boost and a wider audience reach.  You’ll need to make sure their audience is aligned with your message, and you’ll need to be happy to return the favour, but it’s a great way to get your word out there.

Convinced About the Benefits of Content Marketing Now?

Content marketing is the perfect cornerstone of your business marketing strategy.

The benefits of content marketing are clear, and if you’re in the digital space, even more than ever.

By creating quality content, optimising it for search engines, and promoting and distributing it, you’ll see all sorts of benefits, from increased brand awareness and audience engagement to lead generation and improved search engine rankings; content marketing definitely has the power to get your business seen. 

By understanding your target audience, creating valuable content, and leveraging your social media channels, you can build a strong online presence and drive really meaningful results.

Any questions? Need help to develop your own content marketing strategy? Just drop me a line.