If you browse through all of the various marketing blogs out there, you've probably seen a very
steady trend of the use of content on websites in order to boost advertising, sales, and customer engagement (among many other things). If you haven't, now you know that content marketing is starting to become a very real and serious way to ramp up your efforts for your business!
But, how exactly does it work and what happens when you create or get website content? Become a content know-it-all and be able to use it to bring in those sales, all through these simple steps below.
Online Content And Content Marketing
For a long time, "website content" has simply meant all of that filler content on a website that is meant to simply explain what your business is all about and how customers can get in contact with you. Now, a website has become a hub of authority content that can further along potential customers through your sales funnel, instead of having them stall and not complete the funnel at the last minute.
Most businesses put an emphasis on their business blog, which normally means posting daily with original, creative, and useful content that customers actually want to read. It can also mean using content as an incentive, such as offering free downloadable ebooks, case studies, and white papers. Or, it can be a mixture of multimedia content with video and images.
In order to get that sort of content, most businesses tend to outsource their efforts. There are tons of cost-effective and easy ways to do this, some of them being:
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Job bidding sites like oDesk and eLance.
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Web writing agencies such as Zerys, Media Piston, and Textbroker.
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Forums, Craigslist, and blog job boards.
All of this is part of the new content marketing movement, which is a type of marketing that uses content to generate revenue. It's becoming such a huge, integral part of many businesses marketing budgets that there are people becoming Chief Content Officers or full-time Content Managers. All just for some website content!
How Can You Use It?
So, the next thing and a question most business owners and professionals are asking is: how exactly can website content be used to make more sales? There are nearly limitless ways to utilize content on a website in order to help your business. Some of the most popular include:
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A highly focused, updated business blog that has content posted everyday. This type of content will have a focus on being authority content with calls-to-action somewhere within the piece.
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Above the fold or top banner incentives such as white papers and free ebooks which are related to your industry and can help the customer with a pain point in some way. A great example of a highly successful website content campaign like this is HubSpot.
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Online articles that are very informative and can be used throughout your website to ensure your authority in your industry. These types of articles will normally have a "news" slant and have data and researched information to back them up.
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Speaking of news worthy articles, press articles are another way to boost your sales and exposure. Post your press releases, news updates, and other news content right on your website (on top of press release archives).
Of course, it all depends on what exactly fits for your marketing budgets and focus. These are all very common, popular, and viable ways to use website content start seeing some serious results with website exposure and sales.
What have you been using your current website content for? Tell us about it!
