Content Writing

What Is Content Marketing?

So what is content marketing?

Well, it's marketing with… content. Content refers to any piece of material that provides some value to users; typically, this value is informative, entertaining, practical, or some mix of these categories. The idea is to create high-quality pieces of content tied directly to your brand to improve its visibility, reputation, and ability to land more sales.

Content marketing is attractive to marketers in part because of its sheer versatility. Depending on how you optimize the content you write and what your goals are, you could use content primarily to improve your brand's reputation, attract more traffic to your site, or convert more visitors to becoming customers. You might even use content as a value-add to your existing customers to improve customer retention.

Most content marketing strategies have a two-pronged approach:

Onsite content

Onsite content is developed for your main site, including your core pages, your landing pages, your press/news page, and most importantly, your blog. Exact strategies vary, but this content serves to improve the perceived value of your site, optimize your site for more keywords, and improve the authority of your site—which is Google's way of measuring your site's trustworthiness (and a major factor in how your pages rank). Even better, onsite content can be used to provide and promote calls-to-action (CTA), which can direct goal user behavior on your site like making purchases or filling out contact forms.

Offsite content

Offsite content takes things a step further by featuring your content on external publications. Typically through the use of a guest author account, the goal is to promote the visibility of your brand by taking advantage of the existing reputation of other high-profile publishers. You'll get brand visibility, extra credibility, and if you include a link back to your site, you'll also earn referral traffic and a boost to your domain authority.

Content Marketing ROI

Let's talk about your return on investment (ROI) in the content marketing space, since it's one of the biggest appeals of the strategy.

The input costs are minimal and controllable. It's feasible to create content on your own—especially if your primary focus is written content and you're already an expert in the industry. However, for most brands, it's better to work with a content marketing agency; agencies have much more knowledge and experience on what makes a content marketing strategy effective, and they have access to writers and content creators who can do higher-quality work (and more efficiently). Even so, the costs of content marketing are much more reasonable than comparable paid advertising strategies.

The return is what really counts, and content marketing benefits from a variety of advantages here:

Versatility

Content marketing can be used for a variety of purposes, oftentimes all at once. You can use it to increase your inbound traffic, improve perceptions of your company, and boost conversion rates, all of which increase your total return.

Effects on other strategies

Content marketing has incredible synergy with other strategies in your arsenal, dramatically boosting the effectiveness of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, your social media marketing, and even your targeted ad strategies.

Infinite scalability

Content doesn't have an upper limit on scale. You can start small, working on your blog and with a few local publishers, and eventually work up to publishing new pieces on national-level publications on a regular basis, with virtually no loss of momentum. This makes it ideal for small and large businesses alike.

Permanence

Unless the information becomes outdated, your content will remain valuable indefinitely. Even if it does become obsolete, you can always update it. This permanence allows for an ongoing return on your investment long after your initial push for new content is over.

Content Marketing and Related Strategies

We mentioned how content marketing has the power to greatly increase the power of other marketing strategies, but how exactly does it do this?

Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO is all about improving your site’s visibility in search engines like Google, and content is essential to that process. Search engines rank pages based on relevance and authority—two areas where content makes a major impact. Onsite content lets you control the keywords your site is associated with, helping you rank for searches that matter to your brand. It also builds credibility by showcasing expertise. Offsite content, like backlinks from other sites, enhances your authority and drives more attention to your pages. Together, they form a powerful strategy for improving search rankings.

Link building

ChatGPT said:Link building is a key part of SEO, as links help search engines measure a site's authority. They also drive valuable referral traffic. However, links only work if they’re natural and purposeful—not spammy. Offsite content is ideal for placing these links, offering both context and value to readers while supporting your SEO strategy.

Conversion optimization

A solid content strategy can help you earn far more conversions. On a basic level, you can include more CTAs in your blog posts, but you can also use premium content as a form of exchange; for example, you might provide a free eBook download in exchange for a visitor's contact information.

Social media marketing

Content acts as fuel for your social media marketing. Users engage with brands that offer value—whether informative or entertaining. Sharing your onsite or offsite content helps attract attention, grow your audience, and encourage new followers to connect with your brand.

Advertising

Even a paid advertising campaign can be made more effective with a complementary content strategy. Using a strong piece of content as a landing page for your targeted ads can improve your final conversion rates. You can also build your reputation with content initially, so your ads are more recognizable and more valued by your targeted users.