Content marketing is hot today, in part because Google and other search engines demand it for high search engine rankings. Human beings are also looking for good content as millions of searches are performed every moment, most by people looking for useful information.
As a longtime professional writer, content marketing was a natural fit for me, and Lawrimore Inc. is providing this service for a growing number of clients nationwide. In the process we have gone through three phases or stages of understanding and developing content marketing strategy.
1) Phase 1 – Write about anything you can think of. Just do some creative thinking about content that might be interesting to potential customers or clients, and write about it. Be careful not to duplicate what is on the website already, but don’t get so far removed that it’s like oil and water. Ideally the content is posted on the client’s blog, such as the one you are reading now.
2) Phase 2 – Write about keywords. Choose a good set of keywords using Google’s Keyword Planner or other tools, select 10 to 20 top keywords you want to rank high for, and write blog posts and other content that are about those keywords so your expertise is apparent. This will help your website rank higher for those keywords as people search for information and providers.
3) Phase 3 – Strategically plan your content to create a unified whole. Go beyond the keywords, which may only be loosely connected, and map out or outline in advance a strategic overview of your content area or expertise. This is closely related to knowledge management and business process management. In other words, think about all that you do to provide value for customers, arrange that in an outline, modify it to include your keywords in an authentic manner, and then deliberately write one part of the outline with each post, until all the parts are written and – voila! – you will have a not just a series of valuable content marketing posts, but something you can combine into an ebook or printed book to use as a more impressive marketing tool. It is really easy to publish a book using online resources like Lulu.com, and then sell it online through Amazon and Google Play. All at little or no cost to you! Once you have written and published a book, your expertise is enhanced and your content marketing strategy has reached a new pinnacle!
If you need some help with your content marketing strategy or execution, contact us at Lawrimore Inc. today.