Have you ever gone to a search engine result on something you were interested in, only to discover the landing page literally was filled with nothing but keywords that barely made sense? As far as I’m concerned, that’s got to be one of the most frustrating online experiences. Whenever I hit a page like that, I get out of there as quickly as possible. Pages that are obviously keyword stuffed usually provide very little useful information.

On the other hand, if I land on a page that was written by someone who obviously knows something about content marketing, I’ll usually stick around to see what information I can pick up. After all, the reason that I did a search in the first place was to find something out. If I hit a page that has the content I need, not only will I read the content itself, I’ll also bookmark the website for future reference.

Content Marketing, Doing it the Right Way

In the early days of the Internet, content marketing and keyword stuffing were one and the same. If I did a search on “lemon bar cookies,” I could land on a page that provided recipes for lemon bar cookies — or I could land on a page that used the words “lemon bar cookies” a dozen times on a website trying to get me to buy life insurance.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned in my business, it’s that people want to actually be given useful content. That means if I’ve got a website that highlights my plumbing business, instead of trying to get visitors to the site to use my business, I can put up an article or two detailing certain everyday plumbing problems people might have. Successful content marketing means that I have to provide information that my visitors can use.

Social media has made it imperative for content marketing to make changes. Using social media as a tool for my business means I’ve got to put content online that I can promote on the different social media sites — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. When I post a blog about a specific topic to my different social media nodes, I’m engaging in self-advertising that is superior to conventional advertising. Why? Because the people who follow me are actually interested in me and what I have to say — especially if what I’m posting falls into an area where I have a lot of experience.

At the same time, social media is a conversation. It’s all about give and take. When I post something, I pay close attention to who responds. Then, I’ll either follow them on Twitter or I’ll “like” them on Facebook. This gives me a glimpse into who my target audience is and what it is they’re looking for. After that, I’ll try to tailor my posts to reach the most people possible. For example, if I notice that a post about “organic flea treatments” is attracting a lot of notice, I can assume that I’ve got a lot of followers who have pets. Knowing that, I can incorporate the topic of “pets” into other posts. This way, even if a particular post doesn’t appeal to my audience, there’s almost a subconscious connection building between us. Why? Because the reader responds to the portion of the posting dealing with pets, even if there’s no connection on any other level.

At the same time, do everything possible to engage your target audience. Ask questions and respond to answers. Let the people following you see you as a three-dimensional entity, rather than just someone posting material. Let some of yourself sneak into each and every posting you do. The more of yourself you show, the more you’re letting the people following you see you as a compete person — even if you’re running a business.

Think about the number of people and businesses that you follow based on things other than business. For example, you might have seen someone post something amusing on Twitter and started to follow that person based on the one tweet posted. Why is that? Simple — a connection was made and even if you never actually found anything else amusing from that person, there’s actually a good chance that you haven’t unfollowed that person.

You see, the new currency online is information and expertise. The more that you post about genuine material, the more trust the online community places in you. The more trust placed in you, the higher in the rankings the search engines place you. In other words, search engines aren’t looking for just keywords. Now, search engines are looking for useful information. The more information you possess when you’re content marketing, the more attention you’ll receive.

And, I don’t know about you, but getting online attention for my business tends to be a good thing.