The internet has become a powerful tool, not only for getting information on academic topics, but also in doing business. In fact, the internet can now be considered a virtual marketplace with many websites catering to e-commerce. Businesses put up websites as part of their marketing strategy to promote their business and to draw in potential customers. To do this, they put information on their websites for potential buyers to see. This information is referred to as online content.
Ways for a Business to use Online Content
There are a lot of ways for a business to use online content on the internet. One is through blogging and another is by using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. All these methods have been known to help a lot of online business owners in one way or another. It is just unfortunate however that most of these e-commerce websites do not have a solid strategy on the type of content they publish online. In fact, according to Econsultancy and Outbrain, two of the most prolific e-commerce consultancy agencies, only a minority of the e-commerce sites have considered putting up a strategy to make their online content work for them. The reason why owners of e-commerce sites do not have a solid strategy for their online content is attributed mostly to the lack of awareness on the importance of online content.
Importance of Online Content
On the financial scale, one importance of online content is that it drives potential customers to part with their hard earned money on something they see online. A survey conducted by the Custom Content Council says that 60% of consumers feel secured with a company that has custom content and therefore are most likely to buy from these websites (1). Further, SocialMediaB2B says 75% of buyers are using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to buy something.
Another importance of online content is that it increases a company’s engagement with their customers. The fact is, “70% of the links search users use are organic”. This means that they click on links from blogs more than they click on ads placed strategically in some websites. In 2012, a survey conducted by EConsultancy and Outbrain yielded that 54% of brands said they increased customer engagement due to the quality of their site’s contents. This simply means that because of the quality of the content of their websites, potential customers are paying more attention to their products. Also, a good online content encourage customers to leave comments on the products sold by the site. This is very important because people buy products that are highly recommended by others who have bought the product. This is a very common occurrence with sites that use social media sites. According to Nielsen, “92% of potential customers buy a product that is recommended by people they know.” We Are Social also says that 28% of Asians buy products because their friends “liked” them on the social media sites that they are using.
A good online content is also very important to increase a website’s rating in searches using search engines. According to Outbrain, search engines are the main reasons why people get to your website and see your content. Landing the top spot in search engine searches is very crucial to businesses because people tend to look only at the first 5 to 10 results. Being on that spot guarantees more potential customers visiting your site which translates to more business for you. However, it takes so much more to get to the top of search engine searches. Google recently had the Panda update that makes the crawlers focus entirely on searching for user-friendly site contents when a searcher types in a keyword on Google. This means that the Google crawlers will first consider sites that have very good content placing them on top of the results first while sites with less interesting and engaging content are placed in the bottom. Therefore, if your site’s content is not as interesting right now, and you want to land on the top spot in Google searches then now is the right time to invest on improving your content.
Another importance of online content is that it is an online marketing strategy that brings you more links to your site. Be mindful that in the e-commerce game, it is important to bring in a lot of visitors to your site so that many people will become interested in what you can offer. Of the different ways to post content online, blogging is considered to be the most successful in driving leads to a website’s content. If you adopt blogging as your marketing strategy for instance, you use links that people click to bring them to your site. However, you need to make sure that the content is interesting enough to pique your reader’s interest to see what is in your link. This is the only way to get them to click the link on your blog so that they will get to see the extent of your products and services. Another strategy that you can adopt is through guest blogging where you volunteer to blog for another blogger who is promoting the same product and service that you offer. When you become a guest blog, the owner of the blogger allows you to write an author bio at the end of the blog. You can then make use of the author bio to put a link to your blog or your e-commerce site. This way, readers of that blogger can click your link and be directed to your own site and browse through your content. This is one good way of building your customer base, inviting potential customers and building backlinks to your blog or e-commerce site.
Generate more Leads using Blogging
In the survey conducted by Econsultancy and Outbrain, it was found that B2B companies who use blogging were able to generate 67% more leads compared to companies who do not blog (2). Also, companies that blog get indexed 434% more than companies who do not blog (3). This means that these companies get more leads than those companies who do not use blogging as a marketing strategy. These leads are very important for the success of the business. According to Hubspot.com, the close rate of SEO is at 14.6% when it comes to generating leads while the close rate of other marketing strategies is only at 1.7%. This means that more people visit sites who use SEO rather than those who use other marketing strategies like email or print advertising.
In sum, whether you are using blogging, guest blogging, the social media or ad postings on some sites as a marketing strategy, it is important that you review your current marketing strategy right now. Make sure that your website’s online content are informative to draw in your audience and invite more people to come and visit your site. After all, if you want a boost in revenue today, it is important that your site is visited by more and more people who will become interested in what you have to offer.
1. http://www.customcontentcouncil.com/news/roper-finds-majority-consumers-value-custom-media
2. http://www.insideview.com/social-selling?utm_source=infographic&utm_medium=howsocialisb2b&utm_campaign=social-selling
3. http://www.contentplus.co.uk/marketing-resources/infographics/anatomy-of-content-marketing/
Thomas is an expert content marketer that specializes in guest blogging; he runs GuestBloggingTactics.net and can be hired for your content and guest blogging needs. Contact Thomas here Hire Me
