Business investing in PPC monitor their campaigns very carefully to check the returns. Looking at the size of Google, plainly AdWords works for some! Meanwhile the rest of us face the challenge of helping customers find us in other ways… And part of that solution, of course, is Google’s organic returns.
Don’t panic, this isn’t simply another article on SEO 😉
You will already be optimising your site on important keywords. But it’s tough to ‘own’ all but the most specialist or niche key-phrases. The key to inbound marketing success — getting customers to find you at the precise moment they need you — lies with that magic ingredient: content.
Canny businesses know how to leverage online communities, forums, networks and business advice sites to get their message out. These are the places where prospects already hang out. Get your content onto these sites directly, or indirectly via links, and you are covering the ground well.
Reach customers directly with content they value
Your work here — asking and answering questions, submitting guest posts, commenting on blogs — is doubly valuable. Not only does it wave your flag in the sites where you are engaged, but it will help your organic results, too. Links you leave in these conversations lead back to your site.
Networking sites such as ecademy and LinkedIn can be a powerful route to building your reputation, and they perform well in the search rankings.
Marketing with content in this way is a HUGE opportunity for many businesses. A programme of targeted content that answers your prospects’ questions is a smart investment, because the outputs can be used and re-used in many ways and on different platforms and sites.
So, instead of relying on your company website as the sole source of enquiries, no matter how good it is, you have the chance of being found elsewhere.
The final post in this series will discuss why building a library of content is possibly the best investment you could make.
Other posts on this series:
- Win more customers by showcasing your expertise using compelling content
- Producing regular content helps fine-tune your ‘point of difference’
- Marketing with content means you can go ‘toe-t0-toe’ with the big boys… and win!
- Content: an effective and direct route to market
The only trouble is, if everyone takes this approach it creates an awful lot of noise. I imagine thousands of people out there creating content to promote their projects, won’t Google eventually learn to ignore it all?
Oh, by the way, the ‘noise’ I’m making at the moment is about http://www.favabank.co.uk
Thanks for the article.
Hi John,
It’s true that many people have realised the opportunity content marketing presents. That’s why we have to do it right and consistently!! Google is wise to the ‘black hat’ content farms and duplicate content and continues to deliver good search returns, in my view.
Interesting service you’ve got there BTW, collaborative consumption is going to grow, for sure.