Why is content marketing important in 2020? You see content everywhere you go. When you scroll through your favorite social platform, turn on the TV, or read an article on the Internet, it’s right in front of you. You can’t seem to escape it, yet everyone is clamoring for more!
In 2020, a big buzzword being thrown around in conversation a lot is content. The truth is, everything you consume — whether it’s your weekend Netflix binge, catching up on Twitter, or watching the news — is just your way of consuming content.
While this may seem like it doesn’t change your day-to-day life much, you’re actively making a choice when it comes to the kind of content you deem useful or of quality to you with each decision you make.
While the Internet continues to be relied on more heavily each and every day, we broke down the top five content marketing trends, and why you should be implementing them.
1. Understanding Content Clusters
Maybe you’re in charge of your content marketing team and ask that each person carefully crafts each piece they write into a great literary piece. But does that work for your target audience? Do they want to spend that much time reading?
This is where content clusters come into play. For each topic — or subtopic — you assign to the brand you’re writing for, you want to write a cluster topic or blog.
To kick it off, you begin with the pillar topic. Within the pillar topic, you’ll provide a high-level overview of what you’ll be discussing. The pillar piece will be slightly longer — more than 1,250 words — and will highlight each cluster.
Within the pillar, you’ll link to each cluster blog by using its respective keyword. This allows your readers to branch off and read the subtopic that most pertains to their needs and interests.
This is an important tactic to use as the more content you have focused around one single topic, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results.
2. Remarketing for Lead Generation
If you thought display ads were nearing their end, the numbers are showing otherwise. Display ad spending is expected to grow by 6.5 percent in the United States in 2020.
The idea behind ad remarketing is simple. Your display ads appear to people who have visited your website as they browse the web. You’re simply trying to convert prospects into qualified leads.
Even if your click-through rates (CTR) go down over time, people who do ultimately end up clicking on your ad after seeing it multiple times are twice as likely to convert.
Yes, twice!
Remarketing can be a very simple — and digital — way to get those touches to convert that person to a qualified lead. By using different campaigns — and if you have existing user data — you can begin the remarketing campaign using multiple platforms.
For one campaign, you can use Google’s remarketing solution — Google Ads. In order to do this, you’ll need to create your ads, build your campaign, and add the remarketing tag to your website.
Facebook remarketing’s concept is similar, but you retarget the audience you want, whether it’s via app activity, website traffic, customer list, or engagement on Facebook.
3. Remember Omnichannel Distribution
While you might know who your target audience is, everyone interacts with your content differently. This is why you can’t ignore some of these biggest uses of other platforms in the market today.
While many people understand the importance of maintaining a social media presence for their brand, they might forget that some people simply prefer to consume their content differently.
Video content is already hot in the market and demand is expected to continue to increase. Per a study from 2018, 85 percent of Americans are watching online video content on some type of device.
This means that using video for content marketing purposes from YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and more is a great opportunity to expand your brand. And, just as a side note, audio is working its way up the ranks as well with the increasing popularity in podcasts.
4. Chatbots and AI Go Hand-in-Hand
The popularity and demand for chatbots are growing across the globe. Many consumers now expect to be able to connect to their favorite brands at all hours of the day to get the answers they need quickly and efficiently.
You can look at chatbots in one of two ways. They can either point your consumers to additional supplemental reading to help them solve their problems immediately. Or they can have the AI required to effectively sense when a human is needed.
Chatbots can empower the consumer to not only solve their own problems but also provide you with additional data and feedback to be reviewed by an actual person to better understand your audience’s demand.
5. SEO Is Here to Stay
Search engine optimization (SEO) is here to stay. In fact, SEO’s sole purpose is to help consumers avoid low-quality content in one of a few ways.
When you use best SEO practices, you’re backing your website with data-supported information from keyword optimization, meta descriptions, and more to show your consumers you truly have the answer they’re looking for.
Businesses that use SEO and avoid the use of thin content, spelling and grammatical errors, and keyword stuffing not only show the consumer you are a reliable source but also show Google, too. This helps your website rank higher on Google.
If Google detects your website provides high-quality content, as we all know it should, you’ll be rewarded. But, if your site is not properly optimized, and things like navigation, speed, and design are frustrating to the end-user, causing them to leave, Google may interpret this as your content having not provided information relevant to the consumer and as a result, you’ll drop you in the search rankings.
NgageContent Wants to Help You
If you believe your website or content marketing strategy is close but not quite up to par when it comes to best practices in the industry or following these top trends, our team is here to help you.
If you have any questions or would like to speak to someone about a website evaluation, please reach out. We’re here to help.
