Content marketing remains one of the main channels for Business in 2017, In the 2017 edition of the content marketing survey by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, 70% of B2B respondents, and 73% of B2C respondents said they expect to create more content in 2017 than they did in 2016.
But with the internet becoming saturated with content – how can you stand out and get your content in front of people?
Specialise
Creating more specialist content is one way of cutting through the noise. Niche topics are likely to be a better bet in 2017, it is not enough to write more general pieces any more, you need to get into the details. This works whatever industry you are in. If you were an estate agent, instead of writing about the housing market in general, you could write more specifically about the market in your own geographical area, using local knowledge to lend authority to the piece. A website selling clothes could feature a particular stock collection or put together ideas showing multiple products in combination rather than writing more generally about seasonal trends.
Get Visual
Video is set to continue to be an important medium in 2017. Videos rank well with Google and get great engagement. Websites featuring video get an average of 41% more traffic than those without. According to Cisco’s Visual Marketing Index It is now estimated that video accounts for 70% of online consumer traffic, with this figure set to rise to a whopping 82% by 2020. Emails featuring a video enjoy much greater click through rates than those without. Other visual content like infographics are also shown to get better engagement than content which is purely text based. Infographics are liked and shared on social media 3 times more than text based content.
Make it unique
Make your content, your content. With the pressure to create content regularly, especially if you run a smallish business, it may be tempting to recycle existing content or repurpose something you have found on the web to save time. Whilst you can get some good ideas from looking at what others are writing, your content needs to be relevant and engaging to your audience, this will not often be achieved by plagiarising other’s content. Unique content will also be optimised around keywords and phrases which are relevant to your business, and therefore will be more SEO positive.
Verify your sources
If you are using facts and figures to illustrate your points, make sure that you attribute these to reputable sources, making vague claims which are not backed up by verified sources makes your information appear less trustworthy. Good quality content should inform and entertain your audience. You are aiming to generate trust and authority. As well as backing up your information, linking to external sources also helps with organic SEO.
A content strategy does take time and effort to achieve but it remains one of the most effective types of inbound marketing you can do. To find out how we can help you to up your content marketing game in 2017, contact us