Online Marketing Blog

April 1st is prime time for jokes from brands seeking to capitalize on the holiday. One trend that is no joke involves the importance of content in the digital marketing mix.

According to a study from Econsultancy and Adobe, content ties as the number one digital marketing priority along with conversion rate optimization for 2013.  That confidence and focus on content has companies responding with investments. A study from MarketingProfs and Content Marketing Institute reports that 86% of BtoC companies will keep or increase their investments in content marketing spending in 2013. Additionally, 54% of BtoB companies will increase content marketing spending.

Along with an increased digital marketing focus on content are the major changes with search engines and the practice of SEO. Now more than ever, the importance of on and off domain content is as important or more than the technical aspects of optimization.

Recently I spoke with Content Strategist, Margot Bloomstein, who was conducting research for an upcoming publication about Content Strategy intended for a variety of audiences. In particular, we discussed productive interactions and exchanges between Search Engine Optimization professionals and Content Strategists.

Organizations advance their reach and engagement goals through content and Strategists work to audit, develop strategy, plan, create and maintain that content. Ahava Leibtag provides an excellent and practical approach at CMI in her post, “Creating Valuable Content” which outlines how content should be: Findable, Readable, Understandable, Actionable and Shareable.

SEO and content strategy intersect in more ways than optimizing web pages with keywords. My take on Margot’s question, “How does SEO and content strategy interact?” starts with understanding customer segments, behaviors and preferences for information discovery, consumption and sharing. Knowing what customers care about and how those concerns and interests manifest as search keywords and social topics folds very well into the keyword research practiced by professional SEOs.

A recent comment on Online Marketing Blog in response to advice on Content Marketing Optimization states: “Why not write less and give more to gain credibility …  reach the audience and the rest will follow?”    It makes sense to create great content that people will interact with and share, growing visibility over time naturally. But that’s a superficial and often naive approach to content marketing.

Here’s the full comment from Kal:

“I find a lot of content is wasted! You see the site ranking and click! All you see is garbage and you know it is written for the search engines and not for the reader, researcher, consumer or the surfer.”

We’ve established the value of content marketing here through many different posts. Most of the focus has been on creating value from content at the top of the funnel in a buying cycle. That’s where a lot of marketing dollars are focused and it’s an area of focus for the consulting offered by many online marketing agencies.

Content is the source of why search engines exist and therefore, essential for any discussion of SEO. Content is also the means through which brands engage customers on the social web through helpful information, resources, advertorial and even entertainment.

Another perspective to consider is that when brands and individuals share information on social networks and media sharing sites the outcome is content. There are many ways to be more effective with social content creation, sharing and engagement that marketers are not taking advantage of.

SES New York kicked off with an excellent keynote presentation by David Meerman Scott (interview) followed by a panel on Digital Asset Optimization including Mark Knowles, Chris Boggs and myself. Richard Zwicky moderated.

The rising importance of optimizing one’s digital assets came out of Google and other search engines’ decision to start including information and file types from other sources than their main search index. Some queries trigger search results that go beyond web pages, MS Office docs and PDF files to include sources such as images, blog posts, news, video thumbnails, books and shopping.

While many SEOs were responding to the changed landscape of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and optimizing for other file types, many others were already optimizing holistically under the premise of, “What can be searched on can be optimized“.

Development of a content marketing strategy that speaks to the target audience plays a key role in successful execution of an overall online marketing program. Companies that embrace the social web as part of their marketing mix need to consider the content created within social media channels just as much as corporate web site content.

Whether you communicate to your audience via a blog, Twitter or social networking sites like Facebook, the only true way to build relationships with a growing network is to listen, engage and provide content they find valuable.

When developing a social media content strategy, start by asking questions like: “What does my network find valuable?”.