Seeding Your Website

Purposeful content marketing.

Diana Lillicrap 2.17.2015

In a service industry like ours, new work is traditionally referral-based. But recently, several valid leads have been from our website. This isn’t occurring simply because we have a site. It’s a direct result of purposeful content marketing.

How does content marketing work?

Content marketing is the creation and sharing of media and information in order to influence, educate, or entertain. Successful content marketing isn’t “selling,” but rather communicating through the use of consistent, high-quality content that addresses people’s needs.

If you can figure out what your customers need (which is not necessarily what you think you should tell them), you can create effective content.

Creating content that your customers are searching for improves your search engine optimization (SEO). And unlike those annoying spam messages claim, SEO doesn’t happen because you hire a slick SEO expert. It takes good content, time, and focus.

Find your focus

Start by figuring out what your customers want to know and how your product or service can relate to it. This is usually an indirect relationship, not an exact sales link. For instance, if you own a health club, a direct sales approach might be to talk about what a great workout you can get at your club. But an indirect relationship might be to create content that links exercise to solving problems like insomnia, joint pain, or memory issues.

Go deep, not wide

When it comes to SEO, it’s better to have depth of content, rather than breadth. Don’t try to be all things to all people. Decide what content you can create consistently and really well. Determine a series of topics that matter to your audiences and are relevant to your business. Work on posting only the things that will help you become known as a valuable source for your singular expertise.

Repeat, repeat, repeat

Effective content marketing doesn’t happen by putting out relevant content once a year. It takes persistence and discipline. Stay current with the terms your customers are searching. Use a content calendar to be strategic and accountable. And be sure to keep a pace that you can sustain.

If you focus your efforts, build a deep reservoir of relevant information, and consistently deliver value-added content, you can successfully move away from twentieth century “push” marketing strategies and into twenty-first century customer-centric “pull” methods, where customers seek you. Or as we like to say, seed your website with the right content, and the customers will flock to you.

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