Why your business needs a content marketing strategy

If you want your potential customers to find you, and help them make a buying decision, you have to create content that they are looking for when they’re researching their options.

People use search engines to find answers to questions and solutions to their problems and usually want to make their own decisions, based on research rather than be sold to!

So if you want to be found, you need to answer the questions people are asking online. You can’t expect to be found by Google when people are looking for help if you are not discussing solutions to people’s problems.

If you create the type of content relevant to your customer’s needs, it’s likely this content will be found in search. This does of course depend on the competition and a few other technical factors, but solving people’s problems or answering their questions is a good basis for your content marketing strategy.

The power of Google and other search engines

Google is responsible for sending about 70% of all traffic to websites. It’s the place most people go to find whatever they’re looking for online. So plays a huge role in content marketing.

So, if want to get your content in front of the right people, It’s worth understanding how Google works.

It is Google’s mission to serve the most helpful, relevant content in response to whatever the person searching has typed in. They use various factors to decide how this content is prioritised, but it’s important to remember they are trying to provide a useful service to the person searching, so the factors influencing which content is served is based on the relevance, popularity and quality of the content.

Your potential customers are using search engines like Google to find information on a daily basis

Search traffic is the best type of traffic for your website, because visitors are actively looking for solutions to the problems that you solve.

Much of content marketing is about being found by the search engines.

What type of content should you create?

You need to think like your potential customers. What are they actually searching for and which words do they use? Think about why someone would be searching for an answer to a question or problem and what they would type into a search engine.

Make a list of possible search terms your ideal clients might type into Google. Excel or Google Sheets are good for this. Imagine a customer at the various stages of their buying journey.

Early stage: What would they search for if they hadn’t heard of your company.

Middle stage: What questions might someone ask, if they were already aware of solutions like the ones you offer, but had not made a decision to buy anything from you or your competitors yet? For example ‘How much does anti-virus software cost’ or ‘why do I need marketing automation software?’

Late stage. Almost ready to buy: They might be considering buying a product similar to yours, but want to compare prices or features and compare your features to the competition. So you could create a price comparison table or a list of the features of your product compared to others. Then create content with these questions as the title. For example, ‘How much does an email marketing application cost?’ or ‘Which email automation service is the easiest to set up?’

If you would like us to find out more about how I can help you create a content strategy to attract more visitors to your website, please contact me…