What is Content Marketing? Introduction, Definition & How It Works

What is Content Marketing?

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There are literally hundreds of internet marketing strategies and hundreds of new technologies will continue to emerge in the coming months. Though there are numerous content marketing strategies, we can categorize them in to four major categories. These categories are very fluid and you can see these categories running into each other without creating any conflict. The below categorization is therefore not rigid but it is created just for conceptual clarity. Along these lines, we can group internet marketing strategies into the following major categories namely,

1. Content Marketing

2. Link Building

3. Social Media Marketing

4. Paid Traffic 

If you review Google Search Trends and the level of interest on these marketing strategies in the past ten years or so, you will notice an interesting trend. You can check Google Search Trends for the above terms using the following links yourself:

Content Marketing

Link Building

Social Media Marketing

PPC

As of October 2014, the interest level on Content Marketing and Social Media Marketing is soaring high where as the interest level for Link Building and Paid Traffic is reducing. Social Media Marketing in itself can be considered as one form of Content Marketing if we consider a broader definition of the term "Content." In other words, Content Marketing continues to be a mainstream marketing strategy. Content marketing serves as the foundation for number of other marketing strategies. Google's ranking algorithm and each of its updates makes content marketing increasingly important. In this article, let us try to gain an in-depth understanding of content marketing so that you can use it effectively in promoting your brand online. 

Content marketing can be defined as the process of promoting a brand, product or service through the use of resourceful, coherent, interesting and relevant content to get and retain the attention of the target audience with the intention of increasing the market share of the brand under question. 

Content here can take multiple forms including but not limited to textual content, audio content and visual content such as images and videos. 

The content created keeping content marketing in mind is promoted in variety of platforms simultaneously including but not limited to blogs, websites, online forums, social media sites, social bookmarking sites, article marketing sites and video sharing sites.

Content marketing is one of the simplest but an elaborate form of marketing that is playing a significant role lately in promoting websites in Google and in fighting the increasing online competition. Content is the ‘essence' or the ‘juice' of the worldwide web. Everyone that is going online is doing so to consume ‘content' in one form or the other. Content marketing takes advantage of the internet users that are already in need and looking for information pertaining to a certain product or service. Content marketing provides user-friendly information to the target audience and thereby tries to increase the market share.

When we are trying to understand what content marketing is all about, it is important to first understand what content marketing is not, so that you can take more focused content marketing efforts.

Content marketing is just not about creating a few quick rehashed articles and sharing it in the article marketing sites.

Content marketing is not a quick fix solution for your website's traffic generation needs.

It is also not about randomly making a few blog posts.

Content marketing is not about posting shallow content online.

It is not about creating keyword stuffed content for your blogs or for the article directories.

Content marketing is not just a one-time endeavor that you can setup and forget, but it is to be considered and treated as an ongoing process.

How Did Content Turn Out To Be The "King"?

Content Is The Stuff Out Of Which The Worldwide Web Is Made

You would have already heard it said repeatedly that "Content is King!" It is not just a catchy phrase but also a norm that you need to understand if you want to be successful online. As far as the worldwide web is concerned, content is everything. Content is the stuff out of which the entire worldwide web is made. You take the content out of the web, you will be left with nothing. This is one level of understanding of the importance of the content. There is yet another important perspective, which is the search engine oriented perspective of content. 

The internet is the most advanced communication platform of our era. In most cases, search engines serve as the bridge between the internet user and the other side of the data world, which consists of everything from websites, blogs, forums, ecommerce sites, social media sites, all the web properties that exist and those new properties that will emerge in future. The search engines therefore play a pivotal role in delivering information to the internet users. However to effectively fulfill this role, search engines rely on the web content. 

The proponents of content marketing believe and have proved repeatedly that by creating valuable content and promoting them in various Web 2.0 properties in a systematic way it is possible to improve the visibility of a brand and website. Traffic rate to websites can be enhanced greatly through carefully devised and executed content marketing plans. 

Search engines are nothing but computer programs that try to fetch information that is out there to the internet user as and when demanded by the user. For the accurate delivery of the content, search engines need to first understand clearly what is present in the web pages and how to interpret that information so that they can match the user's query with the actual information in the web pages. This is where exactly, content becomes the "King." If you do not provide adequate information about your products and services in your web pages, search engines will have nowhere to turn to for information. They will not be able to serve the internet community in delivering the required information. Search engines parse through the web pages carefully and from the content that is present in them try to make semantic associations so as to identify the best matching results. 

Search engines not only pay attention to the textual content, advanced search engines like Google have highly sophisticated algorithm that can correlate ‘content' signals from various other platforms such as video sharing sites, social media sites, blogs, article directories, etc. Using a highly complex process search engines try to find the best matches for the queries that are passed by the user. 

In other words, well thought out content marketing strategy can influence the search results and improve your website's search engine ranking. We have already noted that the search engines need to gather clues from various sources in order to return accurate search results. Content marketing tries to provide the search engines with abundant clues regarding the nature of your web pages and gives the search engine adequate reasons why your web pages are the best matches for the keywords that are targeted.

Content marketing is based on certain premises whose validity has already been proven. Today a very high percentage of buying and selling activities take place online. Even those who do not buy a product or hire a service online first seek help from the internet to identify the best brands to go with. 

Every customer is a person with a problem. If your products or services can solve their problem then you have great chances of gaining them as your customers. However, first you need to let your customers know that you have the solutions to their problems. Secondly, you need to convince them that your solutions are the best when compared to the alternatives that are available out there. You also have the responsibility of dealing with those customers that do not know even know that there are solutions available to their problem at hand. Content marketing targets customers that do not know that there could be possible solutions to their problems and customers that are searching for suitable solutions available in the industry. 

The idea of content marketing is not primarily to sell; you do not engage in hardcore selling with content marketing. Rather you try to educate your customers or your target audience so that they can make well-informed choices and choices that are favorable to your brand. When you provide your target audience with reliable information that will help them find quick and dependable solutions to their problems, you earn their trust and confidence. The chances are that they will select your brand over the others. 

It is no secret that Google is a content oriented search engine. Google has tried to reiterate the importance of good quality content in every possible occasion. Google Panda updates are geared specifically to improve the quality of the web content. Google gave a boost to websites that featured in-depth, well-researched and resourceful content and dropped pages that have shallow content. After the Google Panda updates, the length and the quality of the content posted on the web has seen a great change. Web pages have started featuring 3000 to 5000 words content per page in an effort to impress Google and also its target audience. Google's ultimate intention is to secure its monopoly in the search industry by featuring incomparably excellent search results. Purging poor quality content from the web through strict algorithms is Google's way of forcing websites to feature pithy content that its users will be happy about. 

Google being the major traffic sender with over 80% of the market share in the search industry has established itself as a key player. All the webmasters and website owners are busy placating this "God of the search industry" with plenty of content, content in various formats. 

• Content marketing improves your visibility in Google and the other major search engines. Content marketing aims at strategically placing good quality content in various high traffic networks and makes your brand and product related information easily accessible to your target audience. 
   
• Content marketing will strengthen your overall online presence. Rather than limiting your online presence just to your website, content marketing opens up an array of possibilities. 
   
• Increases the rate of organic traffic. You can gradually reduce your PPC spending. 
   
• Improves the quality of your website traffic. Carefully orchestrated content marketing efforts will help you attract highly targeted traffic to your website. Traffic for the sake of traffic is of no use. You will need to attract traffic that makes a difference to your brand. 
   
• Increases the overall conversion rates. As you will be feeding your customers with valuable information regarding your products, services and your brand, they will be prepared mentally by the content that you share online and make them receptive to your brand. This disposition will go a long way in increasing the overall conversion rates.
   
• Helps you project the image of an authority figure in your niche market or industry. Customers are all the time looking for proper guidance. Not all customers are knowledgeable regarding the products that they like to buy or the services that they like to hire. By sharing with them resourceful content you are helping them make better buying decisions and this will improve your brand credibility among your target customers. 
   
• Useful in reputation management. Helps in building positive brand image. Content marketing allows you to share neutral to positive information around your brand. This will help you build resilience against negative feedbacks and reviews that are posted about your brand.
   
• Helps your customers understand how you are a better brand when compared to the competition in the industry. As content marketing just tries to feed the target audience with helpful information and allows them make their own decision, they are more likely to prefer your brand over the others as the content is shared under your brand name.
   
• This is a cost effective marketing strategy and your conversion rates increase with minimal efforts. There are many marketing strategies but each one of them has their price tag. Content marketing is by far one of the most economical and dependable marketing strategies.
   
• Helps you address the concerns of your customers in an effective way through resourceful content even before they escalate the issues, which in turn wins you happy and satisfied customers, or at least customers that are less distressed. Happy customers are the ones that become loyal customers. You will therefore not only win new customers but also retain the existing ones through content marketing.

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Content marketing is an effective marketing strategy but only in the hands of an adept marketer. Not everyone that uses content marketing enjoys the same level of success. Pay attention to the important factors listed below and enhance the overall effectiveness of your content marketing efforts.

The importance of content only continues to grow stronger day by day. If you want to improve your online visibility and fight your online competition effectively, you will need to have a powerful content marketing strategy in place.

The importance of content only continues to grow stronger day by day. If you want to improve your online visibility and fight your online competition effectively, you will need to have a powerful content marketing strategy in place.

Content marketing requires ongoing efforts. Consistent efforts are required to make your content marketing efforts worthwhile. 

Use only good quality content. Make sure that all the content that you use in your content marketing effort is original. When we say original, it is not enough that your content just passes the Copyscape test but we are talking of conceptual originality. Search engine algorithms are very advanced these days and they can spot rehashed content a mile away.

When you are engaging in content marketing efforts, do not limit your efforts to just one single form of content. Try to use multiple as many content forms as possible to reinforce your presence. 

Try to hire an experienced writer with good SEO background and create search engine friendly content. 

Target top keywords in your content but never weave your content just around the keywords. Create content that is search engine friendly but most importantly, create content that is user friendly. Content that is stuffed excessively with keywords can undermine reader experience can result in frustration making all the efforts counterproductive.

Make social media part of your content marketing plan. An integrated approach to content marketing will yield better results.

You will need to maintain very high professional standards while executing your content marketing strategies.

In conclusion, you cannot dream of success without effective content marketing plan. You can take your brand to an entirely new level with content marketing. Focusing on regular content marketing efforts will help you generate new customers and retain your existing customers. Today, content marketing is not just a supportive strategy but it is a mainstream strategy. You will need to plan for an in-house content marketing team or get help from content marketing service providers.