Thanks for sharing this article with everyone. It is very important for people to realize how powerful content can be! As an owner of an Internet Marketing firm, we specialize in professional copywriting. Many times our customers will ask us to use keyword stuffing and we have to turn them down. What they don’t realize is that the quality of the content is more important than trying to trick the search engines.

Great post, Nick!

Speaking as the VP of marketing at Imagination Publishing (a content marketing agency), I’d add this:

In order to use content to marketing your company, product or service, the content must:

1) Be written for a specific audience (ideally, your content will address a business objective).

2) Be optimized for search engines. There’s no getting around this one. If you don’t know how to optimize your content/website, find someone who does!

Content marketing works, because it involves not just the selling of a product or service (the bottom of the funnel), but the building and strengthening of a relationship between a company and its clients (the top of the funnel).

I couldn’t agree more. Providing not just real content, but relevant content, makes sense on several levels. Clearly, it provides value to the reader and in doing so, helps to build brand for the marketer and establishes him or her as an industry expert. Blathering on about what an “industry leader” your company is or how your technology, product, or service is “cutting edge” not only lacks credibility but, worse, can render your company irrelevant to potential customer. They simply won’t believe ANYTHING you say.

I know it’s a tired old saw, but Content IS King.

@Christy Taylor – This is very true! I do turn potential clients down that want any type of stuffing or black hat content trick…so I agree! )

@Michelle O’Hagan – Thanks for the additional content marketing tips. The building and strengthening of a relationship between a company and its clients tip, I find to be very important so thanks again for mentioning it!

@Jim Schakenbach – Content is ALWAYS going to be King! )

Very relevant….In my field of network marketing and Real Estate sales, content advertising is a must! Sort of the the good consumer is an educated consumer…..

@David J. Weiner – It really is very true…even for my business, I find clients that have a basic high level understanding of the value tend to be much better long term clients.

A concise explanation–which I like. Relevance is of great importance, not just for SEO purposes but mainly for providing value. In an online world with high bounce rates, providing relevant content and as you put it “repackage [it] creatively” is one of the best approaches to not only reduce bounce rates, but to keep consumers returning to your site.
When a consumer doesn’t feel like just a number amidst your analytics, and you’re providing them value via relevant content–then I think that’s a good start.
BTW–I’ve read your company posts on Talent Zoo as well, nice to see your company practices what it preaches.

Best,

Alma Gray

Thanks for the explanation of the term content marketing – haven’t come across such a simpla one before. Being primarily into B2B marketing (if there is such a thing as B2B marketing – another discussion, though), I think “content marketing” is what we’ve been trying to do all along. For this type of marketing, which is much about sharing ideas and knowledge, the web now presents enormous opportunities. Advertorials offline, white papers, etc have tradtionally been key elements – this type of content is now also spreading online, which I really like!

@UlrikaB – Thanks for your comment! I agree that many of us consider content marketing as something that we do all along!

I think what you have written is very valuable, but I’d like to add to what you’ve said.

Content marketing is not advertising or thinly disguised marketing materials. It is creating valuable information that solves your target audience’s problems or helps them achieve their goals.

Using this definition, content marketing can be blog articles, free ebooks, white papers, YouTube videos or mp3 files of teleseminars.

In each case you gain by providing information that positions you and your company as the expert on this topic, AND you gain because readers are more likely to pass your content along (which they would never do to an add).

If you promote this type of content on Twitter, for example, it often becomes viral as people “retweet” it from one person to the next.

Good, educational content gains friends and fans. And it sells indirectly by demonstrating both expertise and an element of selflessness.

@Charles Brown – Thanks for reading and your additional points, all of which are right on target!

The best and most important lesson to learn here is the reason why relevant content is the most important thing in SEO. It stands to reason that writing relevant content for of line campaigns will attract interest to that ever you are promoting. I mean who would ever but the widget you’re selling if your content was all about tomatoes?
In writing online content you need to consider this as well for your end users. However, when it comes to SEO, you need to realize that the job of the search engines is to provide to your end users the most relevant information for their search. So the content on your webpage not only needs to be relevant to the end user but needs to be relevant to what your end user will search for to fine you.
If you are going to use content to market you products or service, make it 1005 relevant to the you have to offer so the search engines can put your webpage in a position that your end users can fine you.

@Planet Buzz Man – Thanks for reading and your comment with additional great points! I agree with you that good quality, user focused content is very important!