Content marketing is therefore fundamentally part of corporate communication. Here, the marketing discipline takes on very different forms. For example, content marketing can promote brand building, contribute significantly to lead generation, take on “simple” PR tasks or support search engine optimisation.
Especially in the latter area, content marketing is receiving more and more attention. This is primarily due to the fact that customers are not only predominantly looking online for content solutions to their challenges or needs, and in many contexts are primarily persuaded by these to make a purchase. Moreover, they also do their research significantly often via the large search engines. Today, both buyers and Google and Co. are able to differentiate between good and bad content in a very sophisticated way. The search engines determine the quality of content to a large extent by the so-called user experience. This, in turn, results from the behaviour of the users of the content in question with regard to their dwell time, bounce rate, interaction, etc.
If you offer your customers content that provides real added value, this is not the only reason why it is used so often. This is because the search engines also determine the quality of the content based on how well it is received, and therefore emphasise information that is classified as high quality in their rankings. With the improved positioning, more customers in turn become aware of the content.
But which contents are particularly beneficial here? A comprehensive answer to this question is of course not possible at this point. What is certain, however, is that you should know your customers, i.e. the target group of your content, and their problems or needs that are to be solved with your goods or services, as well as possible. Only under this condition can you conduct content marketing as efficiently as possible. Furthermore, this group of people usually acts according to a certain sequence of phases during their purchase decision, the so-called customer journey – and it is also important to keep a close eye on this.
Find target groups and added values
In order to play out target group-specific content and thus provide your customers with maximum added value and a good user experience, it is necessary to find out as precisely as possible what they actually expect from your content? On the one hand, it is important to take a close look at the competition and identify added value potentials that are not taken into account there. On the other hand, you need to know what challenges or needs customers have, for which they would like to find solutions within the major search engines, which you in turn can deliver with your products or services. The comparison of both result areas forms the basis of your content marketing.
Consider the customer journey
The Customer Journey, in some contexts also described as the Buyers Journey or Users Journey, is a methodical model that helps you to map each individual stage of your customers’ journey to purchasing your goods or services. This is extremely important in terms of content marketing as well as search engine optimisation, as buyers need/want different types of information at different points in their customer journey. For example, shortly after registering a problem, basic data is more useful. Whereas those who are already close to closing the deal require much more detail. If you succeed in providing the appropriate information at each stage, your prospects will thank you with purchases and the search engines with a ranking boost. In addition to the target group of your content, you should also analyse their customer journey and cover the latter as comprehensively as possible with your content marketing.
What is SEO Content?
The perfect SEO content is always absolutely target group-, customer-journey- and value-added-focused in the contexts described here. If you manage to get exactly this kind of content to your customers, you are practically guaranteed a significant ranking push.
With all content marketing, however, you must not forget the technical background or the relevant mechanisms of the search engines when evaluating content. You should also find out exactly which keywords your customers are likely to use when they search for solutions provided by your goods or services. Furthermore, it is important to ensure optimal content structures, the best possible page speed and clean programming of any web applications that may be implemented in order to make it as easy as possible for Google and Co. to evaluate your website.
Because no matter how good your content may be in terms of information content for your target group and their buying process – if the technical functional basis is not right, it will still never develop its full SEO potential.
What does content mean?
The behaviour and expectations of customers on the Internet have changed drastically over the last two decades. At the beginning of the online marketing boom in the early 2000s, it was enough for a company to present its customers with a more or less attractive website with the most important basic information about its services. This static content was perhaps supplemented by a few – at that time definitely to be described as such – showpieces in the form of flashing banners or similarly intrusive advertising. In fact, with such an approach it was once possible to do very effective marketing on the web, i.e. to really convince prospective and existing customers of one’s own brand.
These times have long since passed! Your customers now move around the web in a completely self-determined and highly differentiated way. They hardly ever let conventional advertising get to them – and if they do, it is strategically perfectly adapted to them as a target group and their probable behaviour on several levels. Today, the Internet primarily takes on the role of a source of information, which is indeed called upon for almost every problem or need that arises – be it of a private or business nature. Only if you accept these facts in their entirety for your online marketing, i.e. if you serve your customers’ desire for information fully and with all aspects to be taken into account in this respect, can you remain competitive in the long term.
Unique, target group-specific and value-added content is always at the centre of such measures. This not only has a positive effect on your customers, but also on the search engine positioning of your website. The exact SEO connection will be explained in detail in the course of this series. You will learn what makes perfect SEO content and, in the course of this, how to create it. First, however, we have to start at the basis. The central questions of the first chapter are: What is content in the first place and what are the most common types?
