Content marketing doesn’t require a college degree or Shakespearean level of writing talent. But it is time-consuming. And for a lot of people wondering how to do content marketing, it’s a heck of a lot more complicated than they realize.
Content marketing is more than just creating a few pages of onsite content for your website or writing a blog post here and there and expecting to get success. See the following reasons why content marketing requires more work than simply putting pen to paper…or hand to keyboard.
3 Reasons Content Marketing Is More Complicated Than You Think
The more content, the better
These days, minimalism is trendy and modern. But Google doesn’t read minimalism the way we do. They read content. If there isn’t a lot of it, Google will assume it’s a less authoritative website. Don’t get us wrong, creating a website with a modern and minimalistic design is great. But the more content there is within that website (like blog posts), the more Google is going to pay attention. And let’s be honest: we all want Google to pay attention to us.
Here at Post Launch, we believe every business should have at least five basic pieces of content on their website:
- Who we are
- What we do
- Why you should do business with us (what makes us special?)
- How to do business with us
- Contact
However, these five pages are just the beginning. Websites should also include a services or products page, a blog page, a “meet the team” page, and more.
Content marketing requires keyword strategy
Content marketing without keyword strategy is lazy marketing, and it’s ineffective. The Content Marketing Institute developed the “5 Pillars of Successful Content Marketing” theory, which sums up pretty well the steps it takes to create a successful content marketing strategy. They are as follows:
5 Pillars of Successful Content Marketing
- Understand your audience
- Map the content to the sales cycle (create a content strategy that your audience wants to read)
- Create the content
- Promote the content
- Measure and analyze
We think these are great steps. One thing they’re missing, though, is what comes after understanding your audience and before mapping the content to sale cycle: keyword research. Keyword research will help you strategize a long-term content marketing strategy and help you keep track of which keywords people are actually typing into Google to find services like yours.
Content marketing requires syndication to work
There is no use creating a content marketing strategy if it doesn’t include syndicating out to the World Wide Web. We’re talking more than just social media here. Your business should be listed on at least 30 different online directories, many of which should provide you with the opportunity to share your content. Platforms like Digg, Tumblr, StumbleUpon, MassRoots (for all you marijuana businesses out there), Reddit, and even Google+ are all great online spaces to share your content.
If all of this is sounding more complicated than you thought, more time consuming than you want to deal with, or just plain confusing, that’s where Post Launch can step in. No one likes spending time doing all the things they don’t like or don’t understand well enough to accomplish successfully. That’s also why delegation exists. That is why personal assistants exist. That is why the content marketing agency Post Launch exists—to run the internet for you, so you can get back to doing the things you love. Contact Post Launch for a free consultation on your website’s content.
