Does Content Marketing Matter to Your Business?

Having been involved in blogging for some years now, I’ve listened to many experts talk about the best and most effective ways of getting site visitors, what makes a good website, why people trust certain brands and the future of the internet as a source of great information.

Irrespective of what the latest website look is all about, or which method of driving traffic is flavor of the month, or whether your domain name should reflect what your business is about, none of this is really key.

The one thing that all experts agree on, the one thing that everyone is emphasising, the one thing that is common across all successful sites and niches, and the one thing that all online businesses are built on is content. And as a website owner you must have content irrespective of whether your operation is purely online, or a bricks and mortar business.

Think about it. You can drive as much traffic to your website as you can muster. You might even be a real expert at it. But without content to engage your visitors they’re just not going to hang around.

If all of your website is just one big advertising board with flashing banners and pop-ups screaming “Buy Me, Buy My Services”, then visitors are just going to click away in droves.

Now it’s pretty obvious to see why blogs have content. The whole purpose of a blog is to discuss, review and engage visitors.

Hopefully through our writing we manage to subtley steer our lovely reader into the direction of our latest offer or recommendation.

Content is what we do.

But why should a service provider such as an attourney or tax advisor have content on their corporate website. After all, doesn’t the website scream “Hey there, I’m a lawyer, or I can do your tax returns”. What do they need a blog for?

Years ago (well not that many really) people visted companies to conduct their business.

For example, if you needed car insurance you’d go and visit your local broker and discuss options. That way you developed a relationship, built up trust and gained an insight into whether this company knew there onions or not.

The same with your tax advisor and lawyer. Personal contact and enquiring was a way of deveoping trust and gaining visibility.

It allowed you to evaluate and decide if these are the people that you want to do business with. It was relationship building, and because relationships were built face to face trust was established, and people became loyal and long-term customers of the business.

I know that to be true in my own life. I used the same insurance broker for my home, my car, my possessions and travel etc, and I used the same bank for many years.

These days I do like everybody else and go online hoping I’ll get the best deal with the most trustworthy company I can find.

But how do you know?

Well this is where content marketing comes in. People (customers) still like the thought of visibility and trust. It’s a basic human trait to want to trust somebody and feel safe.

If I’m choosing a tax expert, I want to know that he has his finger on the pulse when it comes to ways of saving me money on my tax returns, plus I also want to know that he’s going to submit my return properly so that no nasty letters from the IRS or Inland Revenue land on my doormat.

So how can I guage this trust and visibility just by looking at a business website?

By good content marketing of course…

If I can see on a tax adviser’s website that the business has a blog that’s up to date and full of content relevant to the latest tax laws, or tips on saving tax, then I can feel pretty confident the owner is engaged in his industry and knows what he’s talking about.

Unfortunately, most business owners don’t appear to see the value of regularly updating their website with industry specific content.

For businesses I’ve spoken to it appears to be a lack of time, but I also don’t think they realise the impact it has on sales.

Maybe for those of you who like writing, this could be a part time gig on a local basis!

So what sort of content works best?

Below are 5 examples of the kind of content you can produce that works best and engages visitors on your website.:

1) Information.

2) Opinion based.

3) Advice and guidance.

4) Best practice within the industry.

5) Industry insight.

Now we know what we are going to produce content about, it’s time to consider why it’s important.

As discussed earlier, visiting a local business was the way to develop trust, and businesses went all out to showcase why you should do business with them.

In this new and brave world of virtual shop windows, content is the new way to build up trust and understanding of what you do as a business.

It showcases the expertise of a business and allows the target audience to build up an appreciation and belief in the services on offer.

Primarily, it is a way in which to engage your potential customers, but in addition to that it also allows you to build up a catalogue of high quality and relevant material which Google loves.

This is really important for ranking your website as recently Google decided that it was going to punish websites that offered little or no relevant content, and reward websites that matched more closely with what their users were searching for.

So in answer to the question, Does Content Marketing Matter to Your Business?, the resounding answer is YES it does…

However, in order to write content effectively and easily, and get it onto your website isn’t always straight forward.

For example you might have a website that was written purely with HTML. If that’s the case then updating anything on your site will either require the services of a web master, or it may take you hours to code it in.

Websites built on CMS (Content Management Systems) are easier to use, but can also be complicated, clunky or daunting for the novice user, and that brings me back to an earlier point about business owners not having sufficient time to update their websites.

Ideally you need a system that allows you easy and smooth access to your website back office, where you can easily write content within the dashboard, have access to thousands of royalty free images and upload it with a single click of a button on completion.

The system I use is known as SiteRubix and allows you to do all this plus a host of other ground breaking benefits such as a built in keyword search system, automatic HTTPS site security, choice of thousands of themes to build or update your website.

Try The Keyword Search Tool Below

 

 

Plus it’s part of the Wealthy Affiliate online training University which has thousands of hours of training on every aspect of online business and promoting offline business.

You can set up a free account and discover more today.

Read My Full Review Here >>> Wealthy Afiliate and SiteRubix Reveiw.