What is content creation and why is it so important?
Content marketing is the creation and sharing of materials, intended to engage your target audiences, that don’t explicitly promote the brand in question.
Unlike traditional advertising, where the direct focus is on your organisation and its offering, content marketing is about informing or entertaining your audiences, helping to build awareness and positive sentiment towards your brand in general.
Some aspects of the practice are almost as old as print itself, but content marketing wasn’t truly revolutionised as a discipline until the explosion of the internet. When done right, content creation is a powerful tool for brands, both from an emotional and functional perspective. Here’s why it’s so important.
#1 Content builds trust
The more high-quality content you publish on a consistent basis, the more time your audiences can spend reading and engaging with your brand. Content creates exposure for your brand, which in turn builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust.
Content is an excellent way of generating lasting interactions with audiences which contribute towards their overall impression of you and their experience of your brand. Whether you’re entertaining or informing audiences, you’re interacting with them in a memorable way, helping them form lasting, positive associations of your brand in their minds.
#2 Content cements your position as experts
Delivering informative, insightful content centred around your area of expertise is a sure-fire way to demonstrate you know what you’re talking about.
Content reaffirms your position, it showcases the wealth of knowledge and experience you have in the areas you’re talking about, building confidence of your abilities in the minds of your audience. If you’re able to provide something useful and of value to your audiences, beyond your service, it further enhances your user experience and the perceptions of your brand.
#3 Content improves your SEO ranking
Consistently publishing quality content helps your website climb up the search engine rankings and improves visibility for audiences.
Whilst the Google algorithm isn’t always an exact science it is well documented that dwell time is an important metric that boosts your SEO score. Put simply, dwell time is how long a site visitor spends on a page before exiting, a good dwell time average is said to be around 2-4 minutes. Quality content will engage audiences and see them spending more time on your website, improving your SEO score and page ranking.
Furthermore, content provides a great opportunity to include keywords typically used by audiences in their search queries. Optimising your content for keywords tells a search engine what your content is about, so the search engine can rank it accordingly, improving your visibility. A word of caution though, algorithms have clamped down on “keyword stuffing”, so don’t go overboard!
#4 Content conveys your personality
At its core, content creation is a form of expression, it’s a way of showing who the real people are behind your organisation and adds an extra layer of character to your brand.
This can be a huge positive, giving audiences a snapshot into your culture, engaging them on a more emotional level. People relate to other people, this remains true in both B2B and B2C settings.
Use your content to humanise your brand, convey your personality and persuade people that the overall experience you provide is right for them.
(For the record, although this is quite an information heavy blog, we absolutely guarantee you that we’re a good laugh as well!)
#5 Content generates leads
And finally, content gives you a reason to go out onto your channels, make some noise and connect with audiences across multiple touchpoints. All helping to increase your exposure and improve your odds of generating leads.
If your content is strong, be it entertaining or thought-provoking, it should generate more engagements and be shared across social networks, widening your reach and helping to build awareness of your brand.
Higher awareness should increase traffic towards your website, again boosting that sweet SEO, and commencing the first stage of online lead generation. Consistently releasing content also maintains your online presence, keeping you fresh in the minds, newsfeeds and timelines of your audiences.
A final word
Content creation should always be taken seriously from a strategic planning point of view as it can truly define your brand and bring it to life.
Content engages your audiences, elevates perceptions of your brand and transforms onlookers into your biggest advocates. So next time you can’t be bothered to write a LinkedIn post, remember what your goals are and the amazing outcomes that can be achieved.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this blog, and keep your eyes peeled for more Notepad content on the subject. (pun intended)
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