Is Content Still King In 2020-2021? 7 Pieces Of Evidence
Before you cringe or facepalm at the cliche phrase “content is king”, let us explain.
Or rather, let this article explain.
If you can stand the cheesiness of the phrase, we’ll show you:
- Why content is king in digital marketing
- Why content is king in SEO
And why you should care (or at least know) about the meaning behind the phrase.
If you have a blog, local business, or an e-commerce store, you’ll learn why SEO is your friend and content is your king.
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Contents
What Is Content Marketing?
According to the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on:
- Creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content
- Attracting and retaining a clearly-defined audience
- Ultimately driving profitable customer action
But how is it different from other marketing strategies?
The goal is to provide as much value from your content marketing to as much of your target audience as possible.
The key is to write content that adds value to the reader.
Instead of strictly advertising your products or services, you are providing truly relevant and useful content to your potential customers to help them answer their questions and solve their problems.
What Does “Content Is King” Even Mean?
Before we get any further, let’s get to that burning question of yours.
What does content is king mean?
The phrase “content is king” could easily date back a few decades.
Arguably, the earliest well-known use was in Bill Gates’ article, fittingly titled “Content Is King” from 1996.
Since then, many top marketing and content giants have used the term, including:
- Microsoft
- Yahoo
Gates used the term to paint the picture that the internet is a marketplace for content. Today, it means much the same.
Content is king essentially means that content is everything.
The success of any given website depends on quality content.
A website must offer content that meets the demands of users, and it should be optimized for search engines (think Google, Yahoo, or Bing).
7 Reasons Why Content Is King
Google favors quality content.
If your website is filled with valuable content for the reader, you’re more likely to rank higher on Google search engine results pages (SERPs).
There are a variety of factors that influence how high a website ranks on a search engine, including:
- Is it a secure website?
- How is their page speed?
- Is the site optimized for mobile devices?
- Technical SEO
- The ratio of internal to external links
- Actual quality content
- Keyword relevance
- And more
Trying to balance all of these in one piece of content can feel overwhelming.
Keywords are a huge part of successful SEO. Instead of spending hours (or days) doing keyword research and getting frustrated, let Portland SEO Growth help.
In the next section, we’ll highlight the SEO benefits of having quality content for your readers.
#1: Content Is King: SEO Benefits
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of growing the quality and quantity of website traffic by increasing the visibility of a website or a web page to users of a web search engine.
And it just so happens that SEO is the content king of all digital marketing.
Before we get into why, let’s back up for a minute and look at how SEO works:
- Kate types a keyword into Google: “best yoga pants”
- Google does it’s magic to determine which website page (AKA piece of content) will answer what she’s searching for
- Kate goes to the top-ranking pages on Google and decides to make her purchase
Without creating content, your website has absolutely no opportunity to rank for the high-value queries your target audience is searching for.
How Does This Benefit Me?
Because content is absolutely still the king of SEO, in order to be successful on the internet, you have to have content that focuses solely on your reader.
When your content is written using SEO best practices, your blog or business will reap the benefits.
After creating high-quality content:
- Motivated buyers will be more likely to find your business online
- Your local organic traffic will increase, resulting in more phone calls, more leads, and overall more revenue
- Your local brand awareness will increase
- You’ll transform your blog, website, or e-commerce business from the best-kept secret to the most sought after brand in your market
#2: Content Boosts User Engagement
When looking at social media, content is king.
Good content is easy to engage with.
There are multiple ways a reader can engage with a piece of content, including:
- Liking
- Commenting
- Sharing
- Subscribing
If your content is genuinely good, your readers will take time out of their day to engage if it resonates with what they are looking for.
How Does This Benefit Me?
With quality content and a boost in user engagement, you might see:
- An increase in pageviews
- An increase in new and returning visitors
- A decrease in your bounce rate
- An increase in time on site
- An increase in the number of conversions
All of these metrics could be a huge benefit to your website if you feature quality content.
#3: Content Is King For AdWords
Your paid ads and their landing pages are judged and scored based on a number of factors.
When you pay per click, you want your ad account to have a high-quality score.
A high-quality score for AdWords refers to an estimate of the current quality of the keywords in your ads.
The more relevant your ads and landing pages are to the reader, the more likely it is that you’ll have a higher quality score.
Ultimately, a lower quality score can cost you or your business more money because you’ll have to pay more per click.
Tools like…
- Google Analytics
- AdWords
- Wordtracker
…allow you to view and learn from metrics like:
- What people are searching for
- How they’re searching
- Which pages have a high bounce rate
- Which keywords get the most searches
To sum it up, your quality score is determined by the content on your website page. Quality content is likely to lead to a higher quality score.
How Does This Benefit Me?
A high-quality score for AdWords hugely benefits blog and business owners.
If you have a high-quality score, it can typically lead to lower costs and better ad positions.
#4: Web Content Generates New Leads And Sales
If you have a business on the web, content is king.
Quality content can help generate new leads for the business, as well as an increase in sales.
When content is relatable, it offers a solution to the reader’s problem.
It helps them see that they need:
- To make a purchase
- Opt-in
- Take action
- Subscribe
Let’s look at Tom’s experience:
Tom is doing some research and reading reviews for a few different tactical watches.
He goes to Google to type in some specs he’s looking for and comes across a blog post on a watch company’s website he hasn’t heard of before.
He clicks on the link and there’s an article comparing the watch he’s been looking for with another from a different brand.
Tom starts reading. He’s interested.
He learns a lot about both the tactical watch and the watch brand.
By the end of the article Tom is ready to buy the watch and subscribe to the company’s monthly emails.
How Does This Benefit Me?
Tom is the kind of shopper who does his research.
When he’s ready to purchase, he knows exactly what he’s getting and where he’s buying it from.
By utilizing SEO web content, you are giving yourself the best possible chance to get in front of potential new customer’s eyes and draw them in.
Content greets customers on search engines the way you would greet a customer if they walked into a store.
More leads and sales are of great value to a blog or business owner.
To put it simply, more leads = more potential sales.
More potential sales = more revenue for you.
#5: Content Adds Value To Your Product/Service
Quality content shouldn’t be entirely about pitching your service or products.
You can (and should) curate your content around adding value to your reader.
Think about:
- Tutorials
- Question and answer
- How-To blogs
These all can be optimized for SEO, but their main objective is to add value to the reader, and ultimately, your product or service.
How Does This Benefit Me?
If readers understand and can appreciate your products/services, they are more likely to buy.
This builds trust in your brand.
#6: Content Increases Traffic
When your content is optimized, readers can find your website on a search engine results page easier.
A higher search engine rank will give your brand more exposure to digital consumers searching for content in your industry.
That allows you to get more people to your site on a regular basis.
If the reader sees that your content is valuable, they’ll be more likely to revisit your site.
Quality content = a greater chance of a high rank
For example:
A website with only a homepage and contact page will receive:
- Higher bounce rates
- Limited page views
- Little engagement from the few viewers who stumble upon them
BUT
A website with an onsite blog with consistent, quality content:
- Leaves an impression on the user
- Encourages them to interact
- Visit multiple pages
How Does This Benefit Me
More traffic to your site means more opportunities for sales.
Do we really need to tell you how more sales benefit you?
Consistently publishing quality content can also help to create authority and help you build a strong backlink profile which can also increase the amount of traffic your website sees.
(When any other blog, business, or e-commerce site links to a piece of content on your website, it’s called a backlink.)
#7: Content Is King For Brand Recognition
If you deliver quality content every time and establish your brand’s voice, readers will recognize your:
- Content
- Products
- Services
- Brand
Think about the way you shop—do you have certain companies you think of first when you need certain products or services?
That is what quality content can do for you: establish brand loyalty.
How Does This Benefit Me?
If your brand is established and recognized, you’re able to get people to search for your brand specifically the next time they need your type of product or service.
At that point, they’ll be ready to buy right away.
Case Study: Chiavaye
Chiavaye is an e-commerce store and a client of Portland SEO Growth.
Before becoming a client, they, like many e-commerce stores, struggled to find a consistent audience and reel in organic customers.
This was happening for a few reasons:
- They were relying solely on paid advertising and then Google shut down their account, blocking the of any way to get sales
- They were only generating one blog post per week, and it wasn’t generating any organic traffic
- They had no strategic marketing plan and were taking things “week by week”
- They were frustrated spinning their wheels jumping from one marketing campaign to the next
So, what did we do?
- We did extensive keyword research and customer avatar creation to understand exactly how their target market was searching online
- We created dozens of SEO-focused content pieces that quickly began driving organic traffic
- We ensured that her website, on top of SEO best practices, was designed to convert customers
- We provided a transparent dashboard and worked with integrity and honesty to let them know exactly why we do what we do
Portland SEO Growth services Portland-based businesses and businesses across the United States. Click here to learn more.
