Content & Email Marketing Give Them Something Valuable

Why is there so much free content out there?

Web pages, logs, articles, YouTube videos, e-books, white papers, podcasts, infographics… Why would people go to so much trouble to create all that stuff when they’re not getting paid for it?

Obviously, there’s something in it for them…

I have no interest in things I have no interest in.

Raymond Reddington

Content Marketing

definition: content marketing is providing information that is consistently valuable and relevant to the people consuming that information.

The why is actually pretty simple: because when people consume the content, over time, a relationship is forged between the provider & consumer. The consumer will begin to recognize that the provider has expertise, authority and trustworthiness (this is affectionately termed E.A.T. in this biz and it’s a big deal for your SEO).

There’s no substitute for having quality content on your website. This is always our primary focus when it comes to SEO. However, as you may know by now, we’re big into research and we like to have a feel for how that content is likely to perform.

We prefer content containing keywords that are LOW COMPETITION and HIGH SEARCH VOLUME to find what will actually be of interest to people out there and that we stand a chance of ranking for.

Many websites put out copy that is incredibly general. The problem is that all those general keywords are very competitive. If you run a medical clinic, you might have a tough time ranking for the keyword “medicine” on Google. You’ll be competing with everybody who has anything to do with medicine (high competition). Conversely, you’ll usually want to rank for your own business name but, unless you’re already widely known, there probably aren’t going to be many people googling it (low search volume).

Here are some questions to think about when creating content for your website:

Source: this is directly from Google, following an impactful core update. We’re including it here because it’s good info and we know that nobody but SEOs read the webmaster guidelines.

Content and quality questions:

Does the content provide original information, reporting, research or analysis?
Does the content provide a substantial, complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
Does the content provide insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
If the content draws on other sources, does it avoid simply copying or rewriting those sources and instead provide substantial additional value and originality?
Does the headline and/or page title provide a descriptive, helpful summary of the content?
Does the headline and/or page title avoid being exaggerating or shocking in nature?
Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
Would you expect to see this content in or referenced by a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?

Expertise questions:

Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?
If you researched the site producing the content, would you come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?
Is this content written by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
Is the content free from easily-verified factual errors?
Would you feel comfortable trusting this content for issues relating to your money or your life?

Presentation and production questions:

Is the content free from spelling or stylistic issues?
Was the content produced well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
Does the content have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
Does content display well for mobile devices when viewed on them?

Comparative questions:

Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
Does the content seem to be serving the genuine interests of visitors to the site or does it seem to exist solely by someone attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?

Email Marketing

Some marketers continue to express the opinion that the now decades-old technology of electronic mail marketing (messaging delivered electronically to a recipient’s email inbox) is passé. The truth is that most people still use the inbox as their primary means of communicating online, which makes it a fantastic tool for converting hot leads at the bottom of your marketing funnel.

We feel that email list-building should be a primary concern for most businesses with an online presence and that email marketing, when done correctly, can be one of the most powerful tools in your marketing toolbox. We build your list using forms on your website and landing pages or even directly from lead-generation digital ads. When those emails start coming in, we’ll use that list to generate “lookalike” audiences on Facebook and Instagram. As the name suggests, this uses the social media algorithms to find people that are similar to your email list. Google has a similar mechanism for doing this. We can also use your list for retargeting (sending ads directly to your email list).

Our email remarketing campaigns typically consist of a periodic blog or newsletter as well as an auto-responder, which is a sequence of pre-prepared messages that are sent to people after they provide you their email address, in exchange for that valuable content you’ve created.

Pro tip: content creation can be time-consuming and expensive! You can repurpose a single piece of content in a number of ways to get more “bang for your buck”. For example: take that video or blog article you created and parse it out into content for future newsletter and social media posts.