Using Content Marketing to Brand Yourself as an Expert

Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies for companies to brand themselves online. You can improve your business substantially by leveraging powerful content to brand yourself as an expert and improve your SEO.

Benefits of Content Marketing

A recent study from the Content Marketing Institute found that 94% of businesses use some form of content marketing. Here are some reasons to embrace it:

• Sharing high quality content is one of the most effective ways to build your brand as an expert.
• Content marketing is a very important way to build high-quality backlinks for SEO.
• Creating content is one of the best ways to interact with your audience.
• Creating content regularly shows your readers that you are disciplined about running your business.

Creating content is becoming an increasingly important element of online branding. Research from the Custom Content Council found that 61% of customers have more faith in companies that brand themselves with quality content.

Executing a Content Marketing Strategy

Content marketing is an essential aspect of online marketing. Unfortunately, it is only beneficial if implemented properly. Here are some tips to help improve your content marketing strategy.

Write for Your Audience 

Demonstrating your expertise isn’t enough to gain traction. You need to make sure that your content is catered to your audience. Try to put yourself in your readers’ shoes and write something that will benefit them. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Readers are rarely interested in technical elements of your profession. If you are a plumber, then they probably don’t want to hear how pipes work. They want to know what warning signs to listen to and how to deal with them. Your content should focus on providing actionable advice.
• Don’t make assumptions about the types of things your readers are interested in learning about. It is a good idea to talk to your customers to understand what issues are most pressing to them before writing content. You may be surprised about the types of things that are important to them.
• Present content in a way that your readers will want to read. Try to avoid using technical terminology or a tone that you are accustomed to using with your colleagues. You will want to make your content engaging and easy to understand. Your content will be more likely to be shared and your readers will be more likely to remain on your website.

The purpose of content marketing is to reach prospective customers. Always keep their needs in mind before creating content.

Use Content Marketing Consistently 

Content marketing is only effective if it is used regularly. Unfortunately, many businesses have trouble generating content on a regular basis. One study from TechValidate found that 61% of small businesses feel that content marketing takes too much time.

Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to use content marketing consistently. You can create a backlog of content while you have time and schedule it later. Many small businesses write several weeks’ worth of content at the beginning of the month, which gives them more time to focus on other priorities that arise. You can also outsource your content marketing strategy if you are strapped for time.

Look for Newsworthy Events

Coming up with ideas for content is one of the biggest challenges many small businesses face. Fortunately, you can effortlessly generate ideas by simply reading the news. Try to find newsworthy events relating to your industry and write high quality content around them. Topical stories are more likely to get shared on social networks and create more interest with your readers.

Repurpose Content

You should always look for different ways to leverage your content. You may be able to take a number of your old blog posts and make some minor tweaks to create an ebook, which can be used to lure new subscribers. You can also modify existing content to create press releases to reach new viewers and build backlinks.

Monitor the Effectiveness of Your Campaign

You always need to monitor the effectiveness of any marketing campaign. Fortunately, tracking the success of your content marketing strategy is fairly easy. You should use Google Analytics and other analytics tools to monitor the following variables:

• Traffic acquired over time
• The amount of time users spend on site
• The sources of traffic
• The conversion rates for traffic coming through different content marketing channels or landing on various pages
• Changes in your search engine rankings

You will probably need to tweak your content marketing strategy over time. Companies that study their analytics carefully and customize your strategy.

Make Content Marketing a Priority

There are a number of reasons to use content marketing to promote your business. Surveys from the Content Marketing Institute shows that more businesses are recognizing the value of content

Unfortunately, many companies fail to generate any traction from it, because they don’t make it a priority. Many companies still haven’t created a formal content marketing strategy, which undermines the effectiveness of their campaigns.

You will need to create a content marketing strategy and assign someone to oversee it. Take the time to understand your customers and create quality content that caters to their needs.