Learn about the many ways engaging content is replacing antiquated SEO practices and how utilizing engaging content can help your brand grow to new heights.

Are you a website owner or marketer looking for ways to skyrocket organic website traffic with engaging content? Chances are you’re already working on building a robust SEO strategy to boost your website’s search engine ranking. You’re busy selecting keywords, optimizing metadata, and improving the overall site architecture.

But here’s the thing—even all these techniques combined won’t pull in website visitors without a powerful content marketing strategy.

There’s a reason quality, original, and engaging content is considered superior to other marketing assets. Original quality content provides improved branding, audience engagement, lead generation, and—when judiciously implemented—even helps amplify conversion rates and revenue.

Search engine algorithms are also increasingly using content quality and engagement as a crucial ranking signal. Search engines, including Google, want to provide the best user experience to searchers. And the best way for search engines to do this is to filter for meaningful and well-researched content to appear on the first search engine results page (SERP).

With 82% of marketers actively using content marketing and 28% planning to invest in content marketing in 2021, it’s time for you to take action.

Here are eight significant ways engaging content must factor into your content marketing game plan to stay ahead of the curve for brand growth.

Connection to Your Audience

In today’s age of fast-paced lifestyles and fleeting attention spans, engaging audiences is challenging. Irrespective of your target demographic, your potential customers are already being bombarded with advertising. If you want to grab and retain their attention, you must create engaging content that resonates with them. When your content addresses their pain points and answers their queries, it helps your brand forge a connection with your consumers and starts building a relationship with them.

Consistently producing top-notch quality content compels your audience to keep returning to your website and social media profiles. This helps you solidify a long-term relationship and engagement with them at every stage of the buying journey.

Earn their trust and loyalty, and it becomes easier to convert them into customers.

Cost-Effectiveness

Many marketers and business owners don’t leverage content marketing because of its high upfront investment.

It takes time and effort to create content that will cut through the noise and reach your audience at the right time. It can also take several weeks or even months (or years for new blogs) before published content starts attracting website visitors, leads, and conversions.

However, the long-term results are invaluable. Research-driven long-form blog posts attract visitors for years and years. That makes the return on investment (ROI) of content marketing much higher than that of other digital marketing techniques. Content marketing costs nearly 62% less than traditional marketing techniques and generates three times more leads.

Direct Connection with Social Media

In today’s internet-savvy landscape, brands need to stay active on social media. Building a strong social media presence requires original, insightful, and engaging content. When your content provides value to your target audience, it helps you stand out from your competitors. It encourages your followers to check out your website and consider purchasing your products or services.

Social media platforms are a great channel for distributing and promoting your content. Once your engaging content starts to attract new website visitors, they’ll likely then start following your social media profiles. This, in turn, ensures traction for any content you publish in the future.

Content Syndication

Content syndication is particularly useful for new businesses trying to build authority and trust in their respective industry.

Instead of promoting your products or services and brand—you publish engaging content on third-party websites with a wider audience reach. This in turn expands and diversifies your audience, and can help you break into new markets.

The key is to choose a website with an audience matching your target demographic.

Lead Generation

Valuable content doesn’t just help you attract website traffic.

It’s also a great lead generation tool for your business. You can use targeted content to drive qualified website visitors to your site. And such consumers have higher chances of converting into leads and customers.

If you want to use content marketing for lead generation, focus on creating irresistible lead magnets, such as:

• E-books
• Whitepapers
• Case studies
• Industry reports
• Webinars
• Checklists

Brand Identity

The ultimate goal of every marketer and business owner is to create an authoritative and trustworthy brand.

Publishing an assortment of top-notch content, including blog posts, podcasts, videos, infographics, and white papers definitely makes this easier. When you provide accurate, unique, and meaningful content to your audience, it makes them feel valued. They start perceiving your brand as the go-to solution for all their pain points and queries.

This builds brand awareness, credibility, and reputation. Also, it helps you win the trust of your potential customers.

Industry Authority

Consistently publishing high-quality original content is instrumental in positioning your brand as a reliable industry authority.

Google is increasingly relying on the E-A-T framework as part of its search engine ranking algorithm, making content quality all the more crucial.

E-A-T stands for:

• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

If a website is perceived as a trusted industry authority and expert, it ranks higher in relevant search results. When you regularly publish engaging content on your website, it boosts E-A-T signals and helps attract authentic and authoritative backlinks.

This improves your website’s search engine ranking and further reinforces your reputation as an industry authority.

Outdated SEO Practices

Your SEO strategy needs to be about more than just creating a fast, secure, and easily navigable website. Even the most user-friendly and well-optimized site will fail to attract and retain traffic if you’re not hosting great engaging content.

The quality of your content is just as crucial for your audience as it is for search engine algorithms.

Meaningful engaging content optimized with the right keywords is the crux of building a strong brand identity and active online presence. If you want your SEO strategy to work, you must support it with excellent content that addresses your audience’s needs and pain points.

Final Thoughts

High-quality engaging content that strikes a chord with your audience offers numerous benefits. Instead of relying on antiquated SEO practices, marketers should focus on building their brand using valuable engaging content.

Original, engaging content establishes brand authority, skyrockets lead generation and improves your search engine ranking. It can also deliver a higher long-term ROI than other marketing tactics.

Ready to change the way you create content? Get in touch with WRITE FOR ME today to learn more about partnering with us for our content management services.