Any experienced business owner knows that content is king. Almost 90% of the business-to-business industry uses content marketing and even more when it comes to business to consumer marketing. Content marketing not only helps your business build a strong online presence but also encourages engagement, trust, and most importantly, sales. Today we are going to discuss some changes in content marketing over the last few years.
But over the years content marketing has changed drastically. This is not only a result of the changes that Google has made when it comes to content guidelines and algorithms but also due to the fact that the way we use the internet has changed too. So, what are some of the biggest changes content marketing has seen over time?
The Focus Has Shifted
In the past, content marketing wasn’t really about the customers. In fact, the sole reason for content marketing was to get companies onto the first page of Google. Content marketing was all about producing content that may have had little to no value to the customer or didn’t really help the business in any other way than to improve their Google ranking.
Engagement or trust didn’t matter at all; content was aimed at simply building as many backlinks as possible – often by rewriting the same boring content over and over again. However, Google Panda changed all that. Websites that were at the top of Google lost 90% of their traffic overnight and never recovered as a result of these changes. Since then, companies have really had to think about the content that they produce and make sure that it actually offers value to the reader.
Google Changes
Since Panda, Google made even further changes through Penguin and Hummingbird to really crack down on poor quality content. Google made it quite clear that they don’t want companies to create content that is thin and not useful, but rather for their main focus to be targeting customers. Of course, content marketers should keep SEO in mind when creating content, as it’s the most important part of ranking the content. Marketers can’t forget that providing value to the customer and encouraging customers to interact should always be the main aim.
Social Media
The rise of social media has brought about perhaps the biggest change of all when it comes to the way that we do content marketing. It means that your website or Google is no longer the main marketing channel for many businesses as social media has taken over.
For the majority of companies, social media sites are where most of their target audience is on a consistent basis. Social media has made it possible for companies to talk to and engage with their target audience directly, which has only increased the importance of producing relevant, interesting content.
Different Content Mediums
A decade ago, written content was the most popular type of content online but today, that’s changing. Busy lifestyles have led to more ‘bite-size’ content in the form of short videos, slideshows, and infographics that are easier for users to consume compared to lengthy blog posts. While written content isn’t going anywhere, we’re certainly seeing more content mediums in the mix.
Content marketing is constantly evolving and changing – and we’re excited to see what the future brings.
