A few years ago, content marketing and SEO were completely separate concepts in online marketing industry. It seems they have become one and the same. The reason is, of course, Google ranking based on the quality of experience visitors have with website content. So, forget about aggressive SEO, link building and overnight marketing strategies. Instead, create content that will naturally attract attention from social media networks and credible, topic-related websites. I’ve asked Guy Galboiz, online marketing expert, about the top content marketing trends today.
User-Generated Content – Why is this a good idea? When clients/customers themselves create content for a business, it becomes more trustworthy, authentic and appealing to other visitors. In fact, more than 65% of consumers place peer reviews and recommendations above any professionally written content. For that reason, asking clients and customers to create content and displaying it on a website (or in a store, office etc.) gains the trust of the target audience.
Visual and Interactive – Once upon a time, it was important for the web page to load fast enough, so keeping it simple was highly recommended. Luckily, internet speeds and wireless connections have been increasing, so people have more capacity to access videos and images even on their mobile devices. Also, the written content has become increasingly saturated. For all these reasons, users demand more visual forms of content and they are getting more and more impatient. In addition, people want content in which, without feeling targeted, they can get involved. So, a well-planned content marketing includes interactive storytelling by presenting high quality content through videos, images, quizzes, infographics, generators, calculators, graders and assessments.
In the past, online marketers didn’t see content marketing as something worth investing in. But, times have changed and content marketing is proved to be among the most effective methods of driving natural traffic. On the downside, it has always been very costly method and anyone interested in investing in content marketing needs to be aware of that.