21 / October 2016, 1st In SEO
Every year, the online snowball that’s content marketing seems to be getting bigger and rolling downhill faster. Next year will be no exception and if you’re gazing into the crystal ball to see where your content strategies need to go, you’ll see some familiar trends that are building out and some new ideas that are coming into their own. Remember the best Albuquerque content marketing is a quick and slippery animal that’s always changing and if you want to get that fish in your online boat, you need to keep apprised of all the trends as they develop.
A good strategy means you need to stop and think……
There is no doubt the Internet is a gaping maw always needing to be fed and while Content is still King, quality content is a lot like those carefully regurgitated worms mother birds feed their young. Those mommy birds take the time to make sure they feed their babies a quality meal that will help them to grow and stay strong.
Okay. Now that we’ve got that out of our system, here’s a few statistics about how important having a good content strategy really is. Recent research has shown that over 70% of marketers in the B2B arena are creating more content than they did last year, and a full 54% of those find it hard to produce the kind of engaging quality content that Google requires and customers crave. So, if the numbers are showing us that many of these marketers are putting the cart before the horse (sorry, couldn’t resist!) then what does a good content marketing strategy look like heading into the New Year?
1.Don’t toss the baby out with the bathwater.. Old habits like using metaphors die hard but not all of them are detrimental when it comes to content marketing. All indications are you should never miss an opportunity to use email wherever possible in any of your online marketing strategies going forward. Find it hard to believe that a technique so “Old School” can be so effective? Check out these numbers. Salesforce reports that 80% of business as reported in their 2015 State of Marketing Report they tied emails to their primary revenue.
2.Longer posts have a better reach. Don’t let the incessant demands of Internet marketing get inside your head and cause you to panic. There was a time where 200 word posts that relied heavily on keywords were the benchmark and standard everyone wrote to but, like everything else online, that standard has changed. It’s better to write posts that are over 1000 words long that will help you to pack that one/two punch of better search rankings and value to the reader. Today’s best practices are about creating interesting things to read for the people you want to entice to buy your goods and services. Trying to game the system with keyword stuffing and other black hat techniques will only put you on Google’s radar which has become almost instantaneous with the latest updates.
3.“Intelligent” content gets out in front of new eyeballs. As you might have already noticed there’s lots of catchphrases and new sayings cropping up every day when it comes to finding and putting together content strategy that works. If there’s one that’s more redundant than the rest, it has to be the whole notion behind intelligent content. Reason being, producing anything less is an insult to your target market and most of the people who are producing substandard content are trying to game the SEO system one way or another. Writing well and producing blogs and other types of text that have value and are grammatically correct is really a no-brainer if you have respect for the online system and your customers alike. Next year, you’ll hear a lot about getting your message out in front of new eyeballs but that’s really another word for the type of syndication that’s been around for years. The difference is in the online world it’s a good idea to make sure your guest blogging on sites that have good page rank/domain authority.
Building an audience is another important element that you need to take a good look at. Realistically, people who only tend to their business once in a while don’t make the money that someone who’s constantly tweaking and plugging away at their enterprise does. The same goes for writing and that trend will continue well into next year. Consider the fact a recent Hubspot survey found that a full 82% of business owners that had a daily blog on their website reported getting at least one customer for their efforts as opposed to the 57% that only blogged monthly.
Next year will be the year of mobile….no really!
While we’ve been hearing for several years now how critical and imminent it is that your website is mobile friendly, the cut off will be 2017. Don’t believe that? Say you’ve heard it all before? Well, then…. here’s a few more numbers you’ll need to pay attention to:
There was a time not that long ago that people were predicting video would replace written text and find its place on the top of the content hill. While that never really happened because they work together and complement each other, video has dug in and firmly entrenched itself on the content marketing battlefield. Next year will see much more of the same as marketers tweak and adjust their strategies for this all important part of a complete marketing toolbox.
With an increased emphasis on quality content and the flood that it’s sure to bring, making sure the reputation of your company stays afloat like a raft on an ever deepening ocean will be important next year.
There are still more than a few businesses out there that don’t understand the importance of being proactive when it comes to reputation management. Translation? They’re left sitting like a deer in the headlights in the middle of the tracks when someone comes to lay claim to their good name. So here’s what you’ll need to focus on:
The idea is to have a presence in all relevant social media sites that you are using for marketing. It’s not important to spread yourself out too thin but painting an even coat across the sites that matter to your industry will help you to stay proactive if your reputation is attacked. For example:
Imagine if the troops had landed on D-Day during World War II and just sat on the beach without trying to advance forward with a consistent effort to push their enemy back? Although the two things aren’t the same, you need to show a determination with your social media and consistency to keep your reputation intact.
The more you interact with your customers the better your branding will be and the stronger your reputation. If you take your foot off the gas for any amount of time, any posts that you put up will be strong enough to outrank negative comments posted by your business enemies. You can keep an eye on your progress by checking on your followers and likes and interacting with the comments on your website to build the kind of online creds that will make a difference if you need it to.
You’ve probably been waiting for this one to crop up again in our predictions and trends for 2017 when it comes to content marketing, so we won’t disappoint. Although people have tried over the years, it’s really hard to reinvent the wheel. That’s the reason we want to draw focus on blogging is one of the things that you need to consider to get the best of content marketing next year.
While some of the foundations to your content marketing House will stay the same in 2017, other rooms will be adding extensions that will make them leaner and meaner. Next year it’ll pay off in spades for you to have a good content strategy and to put your nose to the grind stone and implemented consistently. Remember, it doesn’t matter what kind of tools the Internet comes up with the help you along, everything is still fuelled by consistent hard work.
