Imagine if you could implement a marketing strategy for your online business that would attract new customers and set your business apart from the competition.

• One that integrates easily into all aspects of your marketing

• The search engines reward it with better placement

• Google even demands it

• You could use it in  your product pages on your website, on eBay, on a blog or with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest

• It would engage your customers

• Help convert browsers to buyers

• And you could use it no matter what you sell or where you sell it

• It was the secret sauce for your business

What if this powerful marketing strategy were free or low cost, and you could begin implementing it today with no prior experience?

So what is this secret sauce?

It’s content marketing!  And it been doing the job of selling products and services long before the age of ecommerce!

Yet more than ever, it is the future of marketing on the Internet.

What is Content Marketing? 

Content marketing is the technique of using relevant, valuable content to attract and connect with your target customer base.

Content is any kind of information that your target audience will find useful and relevant to the products you sell or the niche you sell in.

For example, if you sell wedding supplies, your content might contain information on wedding trends, checklists for the busy bride, how to create a beautiful wedding on a budget, famous brides, etc.

Niche etailer, ToolKing uses its blog to provide tremendous value to their customers in the form of how-to information, videos, buying guides, reader’s choice product features, even a “tool heroes” section where customers can submit stories and photos about unusual projects they’ve completed using a ToolKing tool.

All this content marketing serves to make ToolKing a leader in a very competitive niche.

Content can be delivered on the web in written, video, even audio format. (We’ll cover each of these during March Marketing Madness!)

Content marketing can cover any topic that your customers would be interested in and is limited only by your imagination.

Google Rewards Content Marketing

Google recently reaffirmed the importance of content marketing with the release of its new Caffeine search index. Promoted as the largest index of web content Google has ever offered, the purpose of Caffeine is to help Internet searchers (i.e., your prospective customers) find newer content, faster.

The more content you publish on your website and blog, the more valuable Google will find your pages, leading to better search engine results for your business.

3 Simple Tips for Writing Content

1) Keep it short! 250-300 word posts are all you need. Most people write emails longer than that several times a day. A short topical article or blog post that covers one topic is all you need.

Within the text, incorporate a link or two to the product you sell that fits with your  content.

2) Look at everywhere on the web as a potential home for your content. Two or three lines in a Facebook post providing a tip about what you sell (with a link to your store) can provide enough incentive to get people to click over to your store.

3) Enlist the help of the “5 Ws (and one H)” – who, what, when, where, why and how. Stuck on what to write? The 5 Ws and an H is all you need!

When creating content to promote your product,  pick and go!

• “When is the best time to can peaches?”
• “How to improve your golf swing.”
• “Why you should choose organic cotton t-shirts over regular cotton.”
• “Where are the sunniest vacation spots in the world?”

You’ll be writing short, valuable content snippets in no time!

But What About Keyword Density?

When writing content, there is no longer a need to obsess about keyword density.

In the old days of content marketing, people had to concern themselves with keyword density – making sure enough (but not too many) of the right words were on the page.

What Google is looking for now is relevancy. Not a list of spammy keywords.

If your content is topical and created with your target audience in mind, the right keywords will naturally become a part of the conversation.

If you’re truly at a loss for what keywords to include that represent your topic, the Google Keyword Tool which show you exactly what keywords potential buyers use when searching for your products.

The “Secret Sauce” for Your Business

Content provides the secret sauce for your business by enabling you to differentiate yourself from a mile long list of commodity sellers.

Listen to what Google’s Matt Cutts has to say about this….

Do you use content marketing in your business?  Tell me below!

-Lisa

Read All the March Marketing Madness! Posts

Day 1 It’s March Marketing Madness!
Day 2 Reaching New Customers with Signal Marketing
Day 3 Content Marketing: The Secret Sauce for Your Online Business