Seventy percent of digital marketers now use content marketing. Data suggests that digital marketers expect to spend 19.4% more in 2019 than they spent in 2018.

Content marketing, the use of editorial content such as articles, videos, editorial calendars, blog posts, case studies, videos and social posts by non-corporate brands to communicate brand philosophy, outlook, and related messaging, has been growing at a solid clip. In 2018, content marketing showed 28% of the nearly $100 billion US digital marketing budget.

This bodes well for publishers, agencies, etc., many of whom produce high quality content for a multitude of platforms and have accordingly realized sharp revenue growth. Smaller businesses are taking notice and are outsourcing content creation to add accountability and reduce inefficiencies.

I recently spoke to Jack Bradley, Managing Director of the Digital Media Group at MediaCom US, and Sumantra Gurnani, Director of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Platform for Google in San Francisco about the opportunities and challenges of content marketing for small businesses today and next year.

The saying, “content is king” absolutely rings true in today’s content marketing landscape. A thoughtful and strategically optimized content marketing effort can really drive traffic and attract potential customers. Not only that, but it can be a powerful marketing tactic to boost search results for that search term.

However, the challenge for small businesses is whether they are able to supply a unique and innovative story, that will stand out among other brands. Small business’ accounts tend to be smaller in scale and resources than larger businesses, which can create a much more precarious position when it comes to addressing the SEO and digital marketing landscape, especially as they expand into search engine optimization.

Bradley spoke at some length about the types of content marketing opportunities that can be used to enable a digital marketing strategy for small businesses. I asked him how to create compelling content that will be attractive to a wide audience, particularly on a mobile platform.

Find the Holy Grail

There is an infinite amount of content out there to choose from, so searching for material with a proven return on investment will yield a variety of successful examples. A common rule of thumb is that content will be found if it is shareable and interesting.

He mentioned Google’s Allo messenger, which has numerous channels, including the Google brand channel, so that the user can post news or ads to that channel with no fear of doing so on other channels. (Google invested in Allo as a way to provide an alternative to the usual messaging options currently offered by messaging apps.)

He also pointed out that many blogs and content portals offer hundreds of millions of articles, so that a link from the blog or portal can be found by many, which can lead to a potential increase in content readership, traffic, and conversions.

Include keyword opportunities

Carrot content can often be seen as a proxy for reaching a wider audience through Google’s search engine. For example, if a blogger writes about discount health food, a small business owner might want to use this content to gain followers on social media in order to attract leads.

These offers can also help increase natural search rankings. Increasing natural traffic from SEO campaigns will help boost organic search results and improve a business’ search engine optimization in the coming months. Bradley shared several examples of searches in other languages, which showed that these types of search queries increase through the year.

He said that many of the CMOs and marketers he was speaking with (he estimated that he speaks to 4,000 CMOs and marketers per year) had done an analysis of their website and found that their website ranked poorly in terms of natural search rankings, which contributes to a constant downward spiral.

However, based on the information Bradley shared, business owners can craft a content strategy to get paid leads, drive traffic, and rank for search. He shared, “Everything starts with your content.”