Do you have a content marketing strategy?

I only ask because as the pandemic has forced more of us online, collectively we’re cranking out more content than ever before with no end in sight.

So today I want you to get comfortable with generating content for your business. Not just because it’s one of the best ways to showcase your expertise, but because it will lead to discoverability for your business online. Here’s WHY.

Before we dive in, what’s content marketing anyway?

Content Marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.

Notice the three bolded words: Valuable, Relevant, Consistent.

Making the commitment to writing this newsletter every Saturday can be hard sometimes, especially on those days when I want to sleep in. But I’m committed to providing valuable and relevant content to help you uplevel your brand and reach your ideal customers so you can make the impact you desire. I’m truly honored that you allow me to take up space in your inbox each week.

One of the main reasons I stay consistent is because it helps me build the trusting relationship I want to have with you. But I also do it because I know that people are searching for my type of service online using Google.

FACT: More than a third – 36.7% – found new businesses through online research. Word of mouth came in second, at 35%. Source: Vistaprint Digital Services Study

Google gives preference to content that is current, relevant, and valuable when they return the results from a search. So if your information is outdated, or hasn’t shown to be valuable to anyone, it can hurt your chances of getting returned in the search results or even being found online. The more people who find your content valuable, the more it will help your discoverability.

Here are some ideas to help you boost your content discoverability.

1. Make your content shareable. Make it easy for others to share it across social, via email, etc.
2. Ask people to share your content. Sometimes it never dawns on people to share something great that they find. The simple act of asking them to share your content can help them to take action.
3. Repurpose one piece of content into many different forms. You can turn an article into a great episode for your podcast, record a video about it, create a shareable post for Insta, create a conversation for Facebook Live, etc. The more you get people excited about your content, the more it will drive them to seek you out.
4. Spend more time sharing the content across several platforms yourself to give it more visibility. While putting it on your website is great, don’t stop there. Put it on social, talk about it in your podcast, mention it on a video, connect with influencers who can share it. When you create something great, don’t be shy about letting the world know.
5. Publish content on reputable websites with a large following. An article published on your website will get a lot less views than one published on Entrepreneur or Fortune unless you already have a large following. Take a look at your industry and determine if there are digital publications ideal for the type of content you create. Make sure they all link back to your website.

A final word about content.

Not all content is created equal. Some content types have a longer life span than others. The ones that can be said to live the longest online are blog articles (short or long-form), e-books, photos, infographics, podcasts, and videos with video transcripts – especially if it is uploaded to YouTube (also owned by Google). Please Note: Video content isn’t actually searchable.

Notice that Social Media is not on this list. Although great for engagement with customers, Google does not look at social signals when determining the rank of a web page due to the complex nature of crawling and indexing those platforms. It’s still important to share your content on these platforms, as an engaged audience will consume your content making it appear to be more valuable to Google, but don’t limit your content creation activities to those platforms only or you will miss out on an entire group of people who may not be using those platforms.

So I know this was a lot to digest, but I wanted to let you know that however you decide to start the conversation with your current and future customers, start it. They’re looking to hear from you on these interwebs. You have something to say, expertise to share, and knowledge to impart. Make it a regular habit like I have and you may find that it does not only help your clients, but it will help you find your voice for the things you most love to talk about.