How Good Content Can Benefit Your Business

You might be familiar with the phrase ‘content is king’. It was originally coined by Bill Gates in the essay of the same title, and it has become a popular phrase amongst digital marketers and SEO companies for many reasons. Ultimately, content and SEO are what brings organic traffic to your sites, and without them, your pages wouldn’t rank. But it isn’t just about hitting keywords and a word count. People want quality content that reaches the EAT criteria.

What Is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a type of marketing strategy that focuses on creating and sharing quality and relevant content. This type of content is used to engage with customers: attracting new clients and keeping the existing ones loyal to your brand, business, or service. Repeat customers are the backbone of a thriving business.

This type of strategy can be hugely profitable if done right.

Why Is Content So Important?

Content is important for businesses because it bridges the gap between business and customer. According to Sprout Social, of over 1,000 people surveyed, 64% of consumers want a brand that connects with them, and 70% of consumers feel more connected to CEO’s who are active on social media and have a presence in their brand.

Good quality content helps your brand establish itself, creating a personality and an image for customers to align with. Good content should reflect the style and tone of your business and give customers a presence to feel connected to.

Valuable content will help your business build a relationship with the customer, with the main aim being the customer establishing loyalty to your brand. To do this, the content you put out must be relevant, correct and indicative of what you have to offer. Content that speaks to customers is more likely to drum up some following.

Aldi’s marketing team are a great example of quality content and brand loyalty. Their team have established a fantastic following through funny and relevant content, their social media platforms, and even their adverts. All their content utilises intelligent, relevant, and humorous content to bridge the gap between customer and company.

Customers

Having a client base of customers who support and trust your brand is the best kind of marketing out there. Customers who feel they have a connection to your brand are more likely to establish loyalty to your brand and become a repeat customer. Once you have a loyal client, your brand name is more likely to be spread through word of mouth, as well as through positive reviews and feedback online from existing customers. Loyal brand advocates inevitably drive in repeat and new customers and ultimately encourage sales.

How to Engage With Consumers

Sprout Social’s survey also surveyed what consumers want from the brands they associate with.

72% of consumers want brands to be active contributors to society

64% want brands to connect with their consumers

64% want brands to use their power to help people

46% want brands to unite people from different backgrounds

Ultimately, consumers today want brands that align with their personal ethos and utilise some of their power to connect to consumers and make positive changes. Ultimately, consumers want to purchase from brands they can support morally.

For this reason, content is absolutely essential in connecting with your consumers. Good content will get people talking and can likely turn a new customer into a repeat customer, if they like your content.

E.A.T Criteria

The EAT criteria is an anagram that stands for what algorithm Google uses to rate the content you put out and the quality of the webpage. The concept comes from Google’s Search Quality Rater guidelines, and it became well known after the Medic Update in August 2018.

E. Expertise.

Expertise means that Google looks for a level of expertise in the content. If the content you produce isn’t accurate and doesn’t actually provide consumers with answers or solutions, this naturally decreases the quality of your webpage. Content should always be well informed and designed to provide answers to consumers questions. Not just hit keywords.

A. Authoritativeness.

Authoritativeness looks at the authoritativeness of the main creator of the content, the content itself and the website providing it. So, say for example your business is about van hire and you put out a blog on gardening, Google is going to want to check the authority of your webpage against the content to justify if you have the right information to be answering the blogs you are producing.

T. Trustworthiness.

Trustworthiness is the same kind of thing. Google looks at how trustworthy your content, creator and website are compared to the content. This method looks at reviews, customer feedback and the links associated with your web page to decipher how trustworthy your content is.

The EAT algorithm essentially helps maintain accurate, honest, and useful content being available to consumers. For example, you don’t have to have any sort of qualification to start a website and start writing on a topic of your choosing, and this can be damaging to consumers who are at risk of seeing misleading content.

This, of course, is a positive thing as it helps consumers find exactly what they need. However, it also means that all the content your business puts out must have the algorithm in mind to make sure it hits Google’s criteria and therefore generates traffic.

This shows us something crucial: that consumers make big decisions based on what their search results find. So, your content needs to be correct and useful above all.

How Do I Provide Good Content?

You can’t provide good content if you don’t know your audience and what exactly they want. Once you do have this, good content includes:

• Nuanced information and ideas that comes across as original and authentic. You want to stand out.
• Contains relevant keywords, headings, and topics. Consumers like to skim content for what is relevant.
• Easily digestible and informative. Consumers want to find the information they require quickly. Hard to digest content is bound to result in the consumer bouncing from your site and seeking the answer elsewhere.
• Answers their questions at the right level. i.e if the blog is about managing a budget, a breakdown of the economy is probably not going to be digestible.

Content to Boost Engagement

• Interesting blogs that offer entertainment and educational value
• Concise and relevant blogs
• Visual content that is both interesting and informative
• Step-by-step guides
• How to guides
• Blogs with a number (i.e ’10 reasons why your hair is thinning)

Ultimately, content is one of the ways you can truly connect with your consumers and encourage organic traffic to your site. Investing in quality content is essential for business growth, brand loyalty and repeat customers. Good content is what separates a business from a trusted brand.

Sherbet Donkey Media

At Sherbet Donkey Media we understand quality content is key. Our SEO team are experts at what they do, and content is just one of the ways we can help to establish your business and brand. Contact us today for a free SEO audit and to discuss how our team can help your business grow.