Content marketing is a buzzword these days. It’s often confused with blogging, but the two are different. When our team at Magna Technology builds websites, we often find that clients are unsure of their content marketing strategy going forward. Some choose to hire a dedicated content writer while others decide to save money and do the writing themselves.
It’s important to know that an effective content marketing strategy requires more than good writing. There are a lot of technicalities that go into this style of writing, which we will explain below.
Why Content Marketing is More than Blogging
Here are five ways that content marketing differs from standard blogging.
- Content marketers perform keyword research.
Bloggers tend to write on topics that interest them or share experiences they have had. Content marketers do not take this approach. They start with keyword research to discover what keywords are popular and easy to rank for. Using these keywords, content marketers come up with engaging content topics and creative headlines that their audience will want to click.
- Content marketers watch their competitors.
Content marketers must keep on top of their competition. By doing this, they know what content is being published in their space and the response from readers. If a particular post performed well, content writers will use this as inspiration for their own content. Blog writers, on the other hand, are not in direction competition with anyone because they are not selling a product or service.
- Content marketers study analytics.
Once content marketers start filling out their blog, they analyze their posts and identify trends in their highest performing pieces. Content has a job to do, after all. This job may be to increase conversions, draw more traffic to the site or boost revenue. By looking at Google Analytics, marketers learn which keywords rank best, which topics are most engaging and more.
- Content marketers understand SEO.
Content marketers have a firm understanding of SEO – and often paid search, display advertising and social media marketing. All of these advertising channels work together to support a digital marketing strategy. One of the best tools for content marketers is Yoast SEO. It’s user friendly and offers plenty of suggestions on how to optimize posts based on the content itself, the metadata and keywords.
- Content marketers have editorial calendars.
Content writers have a carefully planned out editorial calendar. The calendars are strategic and designed to target various keywords and audiences. It’s safe to say that most content marketers know what they will be writing on in a couple of months from now. Sure, there is wiggle room based on the trends, but content writers have a general direction of what they want to accomplish.
A content writer is not better than a blogger – it’s just a different writing style. It’s not necessary to have a content writer for every project, but when it comes to marketing your business online, a content writer will help you achieve your goals.
