It may be a massively overused term in marketing but we just can’t help ourselves, ‘content is king!’
Marketers across the globe have shifted their focus towards content and educating their users through interesting, shareable content that naturally generates links and exposure.
Gone are the days when you could just spam a load of sites to generate links to propel you into the highest positions within Google. Today you need to be a lot more creative to both rank high within search engines and generate substantial visitor numbers.
The Internet is focused on making information more accessible and through content you can engage and educate your audience.
By creating valuable pieces of content that make people come away feeling as if they have learned something or gained some sort of value you’ll find that people will naturally link to and share your content, which will only have a positive effect on your search rankings and traffic numbers.
The key is to create valuable pieces of content. It’s one of those things where you get back what you put in. If you spend 30 minutes on a piece that has little research or substance behind it you probably won’t see a great return, but for a meaty, interactive piece that provides immense value, it could be a completely different kettle of fish.
Time related content that is centred on specific current events can be fantastic for generating links and exposure in the short-term, but once the topic is ‘old news’ you’ll find that particular piece of content has run its course and it is going to be no more than an archived piece deep within your blog or resources section.
A perfect example of time related content is this infographic about what people expect from the iPhone 6. It is bound to have generated some hardcore attention at the time but now that the launch of the iPhone 6 is old news it won’t attract even 1% of the attention.
Now don’t get us wrong, time related content has it’s benefits and if you are the first to produce a piece of content around a specific event you could see the exposure of your brand skyrocket. However, here we are focused on generating long-term exposure from your content efforts so that you don’t have to rely on constantly coming up with new ideas to generate buzz around your brand.
Adopting an evergreen approach to content is the perfect way to generate a steady stream of exposure over lengthy periods of time. Of course with businesses that are subject to seasonality you’ll notice the amount of buzz generated from your content will fluctuate, but the point is that it is timeless and continually relevant.
Making your content timeless
A perfect example is this guide to kitchen styles. AutoKitchen have created an ultimate guide to the different styles used in a kitchen and as they have packed it full of useful information and images people will find it of use, especially if they are about to re-design their kitchen. However the beauty here is that the piece is simply a guide to today’s kitchen styles – its timeless. Had they said a guide to kitchen styles in 2015 you’d find that people would lose interest in it after a year and a new piece would need to be written.
When content like the above isn’t time restricted it has an almost infinite lifetime and you’ll be able to use it in various content marketing efforts for months and possibly even years to come (AutoKitchen may just update their page every now and then if a new design trend emerges).
Thinking outside the box and creating interactive content
Static content that is simply words and images has its uses, but to really make your content stand out become that bit more valuable and shareable we strongly recommend adopting an interactive approach.
This interactive infographic on farming in the UK is a good example. As soon as you log onto the page you can see the numbers changing before your eyes! In the time it took us to write this post we can see that 37,000 chickens have been consumed! It just makes things a bit more fun and you can bet that you the piece gets more shares than if it were a static infographic.
When you put your mind to it you’ll be able to create a wealth of interactive content around your business, it could be infographics like the example, questionnaires, html flow charts and much more.