- 7 February 2024
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Agnieszka Jagusiak
We can find answers to almost every question on the Internet. Most people are happy to use it, but for those who want to be present and sell in the online channel, it is a curse because it is increasingly difficult to stand out. Every second, several dozen GB of content is uploaded to the Internet, and as many as 6.3 million Google searches take place every minute. That’s why companies use paid activities so that their content ranks high in the browser and is quickly found by potential customers.
This is a solution that brings the desired results, but less and less often because our aversion to advertising is growing — every fourth Internet user in Poland uses Adblock — and we do not trust sponsored content. Sometimes brand XYZ simply cannot afford to advertise or there will always be competitors with a larger budget. Is it doomed to failure? Not if he chooses to place quality content marketing content online, which will defend itself. This is about content that was created based on insight, i.e., it responds to the needs of the recipients!
From insight to content marketing
Placing content marketing content in an organic way that the Google algorithm likes, in high positions in the search engine results. There is also a common challenge for PR/marketing agencies that “fight” with very limited advertising budgets for a good company image. Or they work for clients operating in a given industry where advertising brings poor results or is even frowned upon, etc. The customer journey and the consumer’s adventure with a given brand begins when he runs the Google search engine on his device.
Google also has no competition in Poland — it is used by 96% of Internet users. That’s why every brand today wants Google’s algorithms to push it as high as possible on the search list. But how to do this, taking into account the “obstacles” mentioned? The key to success is to create content based on insight and promote it appropriately on social media. Customers — current and potential — leave behind various traces on the Internet, informing themselves about what they need and what they want to buy. You just need to know where to look for this insight and analyze it appropriately.
Content marketing definition — a marketing strategy involving the creation, optimization, and distribution of valuable content that attracts, engages and increases the number of loyal customers to the brand — generating potential leads and sales.
Insight from Google, i.e., get to know your target group
When you are responsible for valuable content marketing on a company’s website that is supposed to sell, you need to know who is the recipient of your content. You need to know who you want to “buy”, who belongs to our target group.
Analysis of the competition’s content marketing activities involves extensive qualitative and quantitative research on the target group. Data is important and valuable, but consumer needs and interests are changing. Recently, at a rapid pace.
Therefore, the insight coming from the Google search engine, from the queries they leave on the Internet, is crucial. This way, you can learn about the most frequently asked questions and how they find the content they require on a given topic. The conclusions from such research may be surprising. Average Internet users browse interesting content using search engines in a completely different way than the marketing manager of XYZ company or a salesperson.
SEO will tell you the truth, i.e., put insight into keywords
It is worth translating the conclusions into valuable content that will continue to work on itself and finally be compared with SEO analysis. We phrase queries left in the browser by Internet users with specific phrases. We check what tools such as Google Trend, Senuto, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, etc. tell us about them.
Thanks to them, we obtain the necessary content in content marketing, i.e., the potential of the indicated keywords. We check whether a given phrase/query actually appears on the Internet as often as we suspected, or on the contrary. We find out in what seasons/periods of the year consumers are interested in a given topic.
We supplement the list of previously selected key phrases (Google queries) with additional, related ones suggested by a given program. This increases the list of content marketing topics that we will create.
Analysis of competitors’ content marketing activities and capturing the content gap
Content marketing tools (and similar ones) also allow you to check what keywords your competition is positioning for in Google. What does his content marketing strategy look like, does he create valuable content marketing:
- A good website, product descriptions and instructional videos, expert articles, case studies, or articles written in the industry press and external portals, or through advertisements or sponsored articles.
Competition analyzes indicate how to fight with brands in the distribution of attractive content. You can also go “against the grain” and try to complete the so-called content gap. If we discover a thematic niche not occupied by the competition. Topics that are not discussed at all in communication, but are important for the recipients of the content, further points go to our account.
Content marketing and SEO tools, although useful, are not worth limiting yourself to when analyzing competition. Let’s take a closer look at this view:
- what text optimization should the website undergo,
- what should content distribution on social media look like,
- which key performance indicators to choose to rank high in organic search results.
It is worth spending time on such research, because it provides a lot of valuable data.
Stay up to date with trends
When creating content marketing that is to be visible in the first search results in Google (and organically!), you also need to take into account current trends. We have dedicated tools on the market that help with this, but sometimes they cannot keep up with what is happening. Each event — a post by the XYZ brand on Instagram, another episode of a popular series — can contribute to the creation of a new “fashion” and change the needs or interests of consumers. This must be remembered.
This requires additional involvement of the person responsible for content marketing activities — staying up to date with what is important, but such attentiveness pays off. It’s not just about creating quality content. Consumers increasingly notice and appreciate real-time marketing.
(Almost) last but not least, i.e., don’t forget about the client’s business with content marketing!
Every PR specialist or person responsible for creating content and conducting marketing activities for brands creates content not for themselves, for art, but for company X, Y, etc. And this also needs to be taken into account. And it’s not about sticking to the principle “our client, our master”.
Content marketing that is created must be consistent with more than just the business goals of a given brand. It must also be consistent with its previous messages and with the image that already exists online. We face a completely different situation when we start building the image of a given company and its recognition among potential customers.
Insight from the customer is crucial and will be even more important if the brand has been operating successfully on the market for a long time and knows its target group. He knows from experience what doesn’t work in communication. Therefore, it is not worth throwing the baby out with the bathwater and taking into account such insight.
To sum up, going through an insight analysis that gives information necessary to prepare qualitative content marketing content, i.e., content that:
- Important for the recipient, they respond to the needs of consumers and to the queries they leave on Google,
- They provide specific, comprehensive information and are not a collection of generalities, they are substantive and reliable,
- Visible in the online channel (preferably in the TOP 10 search results in Google, which is what every brand should care about) — content marketing that reflects the real needs of consumers (point 1) and is substantive, i.e., brings real value and help (point 2), is visible in the search engine; what’s more, such content works for itself — Google promotes the content that is more often clicked, read, etc.
When creating quality marketing content that is supposed to sell, let’s not skip any of the points described, because they are complementary to each other. There is a temptation to believe that keyword analysis is the most important, but certainly classic “writing for SEO” is not more important than a thorough understanding of the needs of the target group. You can’t focus only on trends, ignoring the brand’s business goals, etc. And finally, you can’t forget about the last point.
Test content marketing, verify your activities…
We created content marketing according to the given “recipe” and we achieved success. What’s next? We don’t rest on our laurels. Let’s analyze how our content performs over time. How many days is the material in the first position in the TOP 10 searches in Google, for what word/keywords was the brand positioned?
If it drops to lower places after some time, why? What phrases does the competition rank higher for? Maybe it’s worth updating the content with new trends or supplementing it with additional information to make it even more attractive to the recipient?
Content marketing that we create and publish online is like a living organism. In order for it to meet the goals we set for ourselves, we must take care of it and respond to changes that affect it.
