While there are multiple factors that go into creating a successful content marketing strategy for your business in 2022, in today’s post, I’m delving a bit deeper into one of those factors – effective writing.
Ok, I’m saying it… Content marketing is really all about the content you’re putting out there.
Sure, there may be a 20-80 rule which states only 20% of your time should be devoted to making content and the other 80% should be spent promoting that content. But let’s not fool ourselves here.
If you’re promoting a poor-quality piece, your marketing efforts will all have been in vain! To put it simply, content marketing actually refers to ‘quality-content marketing.’
If you truly want your content marketing efforts to succeed, then you need to know how to write effectively and communicate directly with your audience.
Writing content for this years content marketing strategy is so much more than just typing a bunch of words, sentences, and paragraphs. It’s about cohesively bringing to life your ideas and your thoughts in such a way that your audience will find it extremely valuable and helpful.
Doing keyword research is important, too.
Knowing which keywords to target and knowing the search volume for each keyword will give you an idea of the topic’s overall demand. Of course, with search engines becoming smarter every single day, keyword research is more of a guide than anything else. But it’s still powerful, especially if you uncover profitable keywords that not too many people are writing about!
To write effectively, you need to put your content’s message front and center.
The best way to go about this is by storytelling. People love stories. Your message will be easily understood if you wrap it in a story. Use your introduction as a hook to capture people’s interests and keep them scrolling down your page.
When writing for the web, it’s also essential to break down your content into an easy-to-digest structure.
With the plethora of content online, people have become masters at scanning content. They’ll scan through the subheadings until they find the section they’re interested in. So, make sure you use this strategy when writing your content.
Quality vs. Quantity In Content Marketing
There are two different types of marketers out there. The first one will tell you that you should be focusing on publishing as much content as possible (quantity). The second type will dictate that quality trumps quantity every time.
Way back in 2008 when I first started building affiliate websites, quantity got you a lot of traction on search engines. I remember publishing very short blog posts and articles (maybe a few hundred words or so), and finding my content at the top of Google. However, this strategy doesn’t work anymore.
If you check the first page of Google search results (for any keyword), you’ll find that the articles on the top 3 spots average at least 2,000 words. And that’s just the average.
Nowadays, ‘skyscraper’ content is gaining in popularity. Brands and businesses are competing for the top spot by publishing long-form articles.
What does this mean for you?
Well, it means that if you want search engines to give you some ranking love, then you’re going to need to publish long-form blog posts!
Something to keep in mind moving forward is that not all long-form blog post or articles fall into the high-quality category. After all, it’s so easy to string together a bunch of sentences and paragraphs to come up with 2,000 words.
I believe that it’s a good thing search engines have become so much smarter nowadays. It’s harder to game the system, and blackhat SEO tricks in the old days don’t work anymore (and actually doing any of them could potentially backfire on you big time).
If you’re looing to rank up high on the SERP’s, then you’re going to need to publish more then just a 2,000-word (or more) article. It can’t be all fluff and no meat.
Google takes so many factors into ranking your website’s search placement…did you know there are actually 200…that we know about. One of these ranking factors is that Search engines can detect the amount of time people stay on your site. If people bounce far too quickly, then it’s telling Google that your content is no good or at the very least doesn’t answer the searchers question.
The Google search engine is a company like any other…their service is to offer you answers to your questions…if they’re not answering your questions properly, you’re going to use another search engine to find those answers.
Now, while it’s super important to write your content for the search engines, you’ve also got to keep in mind you’re end user is an actual human. So when creating content make sure you don’t just do it for the sake of search engines. Rather, you should always put your human audience first. Make sure they love your content, and you’ll be rewarded by Google and other search engines!
Easily incorporate best SEO practices into your content.
If you’re using WordPress, you can use free plugins like Yoast or RankMath which help you make sure your content is search-engine friendly. It’s best to focus on quantity while also making sure you publish consistently and regularly.
Here’s my best-of-both-worlds suggestion: publish a good quantity of high-quality content, and your chances of dominating the search engines will be so much higher! Because at the end of the day, it won’t matter how effective and valuable your content is if search engines aren’t going to be able to find it!