One question we hear a lot from prospective clients is just what, exactly, they're buying when they hire a bunch of website content providers.
It's a good question. Online businesses need to be extremely careful about how they invest their funds. Money is tight, and a lot of small businesses today are operating on small discretionary budgets. So why pay to have other people write your blogs and handle your other content needs?
Mostly, it just boils down to what specialists can do for you... which may not be within your ability to do for yourself.
Five Things You Get When You Hire Website Content Providers
Larger firms that specialize in SEO and content marketing have access to a larger pool of resources than most small businesses. For example:
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High-powered analytics: Great strategies without data behind them become risky ventures. A website that's going to succeed in Internet marketing has to be able to leverage the power of data. By hiring website content providers, you get full access to these tools along with the expertise needed to make the most of them. Get to know your customers in a whole new way, with hard numbers behind it all.
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Video production: Sure, anyone with a webcam or a smartphone can do basic video, but there's a limit to what you can throw together in iMovie. Online marketing firms have access to true video studios, and can produce professional-grade video and animation clips. Internet video marketing is becoming ever-more effective as time goes on, with over 4 billion hours of video watched every month on YouTube alone! To make the most of video marketing, you'll need more than clips of people talking into their Galaxy.
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Expert bloggers: Your blog is the heart of your website's lead conversion efforts, and still considered the single most effective driver of new leads among online marketing ventures. You get a team of specialists who understand how to write the blogs that your customers want to see. Likewise, the heart of any website content providers' work is their blogging and the ability of their blogs to generate new traffic. They are the key to reaching out to people just discovering your brand.
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Integrated optimization: Many folks never think of it this way, but your website should
always be written for two audiences at once: your human leads, and the search engine spiders, with each mostly unaware of the other's existence. Content marketing companies know how to tread the fine line and create a website that appeals to robots and humans alike. Not only that, but they do it so that each group doesn't even really notice the content solely meant for the other. -
A larger strategy: More than anything else, what you gain from hiring expert website content providers is a better look at the Big Picture. By combining the hard data produced from your server records with the insight of an advertising firm, you can gain a much better grasp on your customers' wants and needs. From there, you can set concrete, achievable goals that your strategies can point to, while remaining remembering the importance of your customers.
Website content providers give you a lot of return on your online advertising investment. They take your online tactics beyond simply having a blog and a couple social media accounts, giving them depth and dimension. The combination of data-savviness and customer focus keeps you grounded while still giving you the insights you need to grow your business effectively.
As long as taking a DIY approach to content marketing is working for you, by all means, keep it up. However, should the day come that you want to step up your online game, look for some website content providers to give your website a boost.
