Readers Want Your Content, Not Your “Content Marketing”
March 7, 2013 | Marketing, SEO
Content marketing is a hot buzz word in the world of internet marketing. But the reasoning behind it has been around for ages and is a timeless and effective way to show your expertise, build trust and generate business.
The idea behind content marketing is that you produce content that people want to view. In the old days these channels sounded like: present at a conference, write an article and get published, or send out a printed newsletter. Nowadays it can mean writing a blog, posting a video on YouTube, designing an infographic, sending out an e-newsletter or sharing information on Twitter.
This content allows you to showcase your expertise.
SEO benefits of content marketing
I love that content marketing is proving to be effective. I love that Google says they want to continue to refine their alogrithm to benefit people, companies and organizations who are genuinely creating new, thoughtful, relevant, engaging, content. These are the thought leaders who should benefit.
When you create great content, people who already know you will listen more carefully. This is what happens with an effective e-newsletter.
People who don’t know you will seek answers and find you. This is what happens with effective organic search.
After all the SEO snake oil salesmen got screwed by Google’s Panda and Penguin updates, they started to realize that “content marketing” is a great way to build web content, traffic and backlinks to promote a web site.
People want content, but don’t want to be marketed to
So to summarize, if you share good ideas with people are who are interested, they will take notice.
But, people don’t want “content marketing” dumped on them.
If it feels like marketing, rather than sharing great information, it may backfire. You may get some good SEO juice, but that traffic will never convert to leads or clients.
Recently, I was pointed to a group’s web site in hopes that I would become a member. This is how they described one of their benefits. Ugh.
Call it ideas, tips, expertise, case studies.
Don’t just call it content.
