Online Marketing Blog

Most companies understand the benefits of a well-executed online PR strategy: improved brand visibility and industry reputation, increased traffic to the company website and even sales. It’s no wonder that companies trip over themselves to come up with a regular stream of PR related content.

Unfortunately, lower barriers to entry for publishing and distributing information have resulted in a plethora of non-news littering the web.

Is there any harm in “putting it all out there,” as in writing and distributing a press release for every event, newsworthy or not? I’d argue that yes, there is potential harm. As an industry journalist, I’ve personally become annoyed with companies or PR people sending me twice-weekly emails about everything under the sun. Whether someone has moved up internally or a company is seeking another round of funding, isn’t exactly compelling news.

Content creation isn’t easy and I, for one, am very glad. I’ve been writing online content for almost a decade now and have truly enjoyed the increased emphasis on quality over quantity and targeted messaging we’ve seen over the past few years.

Companies are now fully aware that simply distributing information on a regular basis is not enough. As Lee pointed out in a recent article on the reasons companies are challenged by content creation, “Anyone with half a brain can create information, but ‘content’ implies usefulness or utility.”

At TopRank, part of my job is the creation of content for our own channels – this blog, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I also assist clients in planning and developing engaging, interesting content for their unique audiences and business needs. As a result, my day typically goes something like this:

A lot of the blog content planning for business blogs focuses on different ways to tell the same story about a company’s products, services and key messages. If it’s an SEO approach, then the focus is on content to justify visibility on search engines for specific keywords. Blogs are a great resource for people that are searching for answers, insight, how to’s, others’ experiences and opinion. Finding a way to create content that meets customer needs as well as achieving high search visibility for relevant business solutions is what makes blogs such useful online marketing assets.

One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type in to search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.