Too much, too fast: How content marketing is hurting your search engine rankings

Open this photo in gallery Web search is increasing to be a massive driver of consumer behaviour in today’s Internet era. Udo Brenneke/thinkstock

As marketing budgets continue to grow, so does consumer interaction with media. While this presents opportunities for brands, it can also hinder them – with services rising to compensate for poor search-result scores. This has led some marketers to shift their efforts away from marketing via paid search as a result.

This is not new, however. Aside from search engine optimization, marketers are increasingly embracing content marketing to make their presence more visible across the myriad channels that marketers are leveraging, including Facebook, YouTube, blogs, podcasts, webinars, etc.

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Recently, media reports have indicated Google has decided to stop ranking websites according to how highly they rank for a particular search term. This is being perceived as an attack on the free-for-all nature of content marketing, which some would argue is an ineffective answer to SEO optimization.

According to search engine optimization analyst Perminus Roach, several aspects of content marketing are being overlooked by marketers. These include:

Content should be “quality”

One of the biggest mistakes that marketers make in content marketing is to publish articles that are hastily written, lack original content and rely on redundant SEO strategies – to the detriment of brand values and personal brand. It can be overwhelming to run a content marketing strategy, and many people mistakenly attempt to do it all themselves, thus risking serious decline in site rankings.

Content should be timely

Developing content for the right time of day – for example, during times when people are most likely to be searching for information – helps strengthen a brand. That is, giving the content the right timing promotes the delivery of a compelling call to action.

As research shows, most people now search directly for products and services they are considering purchasing. When there is little time available to search for information and evaluate a product or service, this is the ideal environment for marketers to deliver content to generate leads or sales.

Content should be interesting

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Content must provide a visual element, an engaging storyline and a strong emotional connection to grab consumers’ attention. In a recent study, 51 per cent of consumers admitted to becoming frustrated by marketing that often fails to provide them with a useful or engaging experience.

In addition, one in three people said they had stopped using an online product or service due to a poor customer experience, while 55 per cent said an easy-to-use service made a strong enough impression to help convince them to switch.

Content should make things easier for consumers

While content that simply offers up a laundry list of promotional offers can always end up in the waste bin, search rankings are highly influenced by the ease and convenience of doing business online. Studies show that this is especially important for lower-product-category retailers that are desperately competing for consumers’ eyeballs.

While there are plenty of exciting and effective content marketing tactics to focus on, it is important to realize that while search engine optimization is important to the success of a website, content marketing remains the backbone of ensuring that the brand engages its customer base.

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Content Marketing World 2019: Best Use of Blog, Facebook, Twitter

Read here to learn how to achieve an industry-centered strategy that gets the most out of your content marketing spend. In this way, content marketing becomes a case of knowing where the opportunity is and are you going to give it to the public. In the world of digital marketing, where speaking the language of the crowds has become an almost essential skill, getting noticed as a content creator isn’t always easy. With those Community Managers engaged on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit – they can spread the word on Google: and that sounds like a pretty big advantage. As much as we would like to think that a strong buy-now strategy will push us to purchase in the moment, the reality is that it won’t. Instead, you can segment your broader userbase with the right messages and offer a discount only for C2 customers, for example, a discount or a purchase promotion that only reaches the most likely buyers.When you combine lead scoring and personas with data analytics, buying intent should be kept simple. It is only part of a larger buying scheme, which consists of your most valuable content, offers, and marketing campaign data. When you collect the correct data, you can show the audience in the correct manner the content and offers they want to see in the relevant channels, at the right time. Unless you are a creative production company that actually spends their time creating things from scratch, writing and delivering a few thousand words of content for publication every day, you are likely to have a manageable percentage of publishable content on your blog or webpage. Not only is this the evidence in front of you, but also in front of the customers (who generally like to read content that is relevant to them and works for them). Marketers that value their branding and reputation will invest time in producing specific content for specific audiences, places, and occasions. As marketing transformation takes off, these are the types of things you will see getting organized – a stream of content, so to speak. When you have a lot of content and focus on producing compelling content, you will be able to reach the right audience in the right place at the right time, when they are ready to buy. And here’s the thing – the content marketers who are prepared to master the art of testing, and learn how to listen to their audiences, can earn some pretty big advantages in terms of their bottom line. Content Marketing World is an opportunity for you to stay up-to-date and learn new things, and to run towards the opportunities that will keep your website updated with high-quality, relevant content that will keep people coming back.

Content Engine

Jan 23
5 mins read

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Digital Advertising Agency Kyobri Releases Data Driven Media Report

Global digital advertising agency, Kyobri, recently published a report that discusses the Content Marketing Service Industry, and helps guide a better understanding on what the future holds. The Data Driven Media Report was developed by Kevin Motts, Director of Competitive Intelligence at Kyobri, working with the analytics team led by Ariel Wilkerson, in collaboration with external editors from Kyobri and Deloitte. “Marketers need to consider this higher investment in content marketing services as one of the different ways to allocate marketing budgets. The data generated by content marketing services also helps a lot in showing the digital consumer when consumers have interest in a product, and when they don’t. By not only providing great content, but also by working with local leaders to the content itself, technology partners can expand into content services, and stand in the way of the bigger giants, such as Google. Once you have worked to understand content marketing and content marketing services, new opportunities will present themselves. This is why Co-grow with Gartner is discussing the technology uses in the content marketing space. Q&A: Motts Provides Tips on Successful Content Marketing Service Delivery Q: What are some of the biggest challenges to running content marketing services business? A: If you can find a content marketing services provider with a very engaged team, it will be easier to manage everything, including monitoring. When you sign up with a content services provider, you need to take the time to take a hard look at them and get to know them. There is another big thing that everyone in marketing knows is essential to building a company that sticks around over the long term, and it’s alignment between the people, strategy, and processes. Right now, the biggest technology I’m using is Google Analytics, which is a tool to measure the performance of a company’s efforts in multiple areas, both inside and outside the company. Although data is used to make decisions about creating content and how you will reach them, social listening and information sharing is also a key part of this: You need to know what’s happening on other channels, especially Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, so that you’re not missing out on important conversations that people are having about the organization. In marketing, it’s a lot about trying to connect to people through the various ways they are consuming information. Both inside and outside the company, technology is your gateway to delivering high quality content in a way that people want to hear. I also see a lot of companies using surveys to get a better understanding of the people working for them.

Content Engine

Jan 23
5 mins read

Comments (7)

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