What You Need to Understand Before Planning Your Content Strategy

Before you even start thinking about your content strategy, you need to accept one fact: content marketing isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. In this blog, we’ll explain why it’s essential to manage your short-term expectations and why those who stay the course will be rewarded.

First, you need to understand what makes content marketing effective in the first place. This is because it combines technical marketing aspects of search engine optimisation (SEO) and traditional ones like brand identity and brand loyalty.

None of those factors is likely to change overnight. However, they all have in common that if you plan a good strategy and stick to it, you’ll eventually see long-term results.

Another factor at play here is trust. According to a recent Marketing Land article, building the trust of your followers requires patience:

“It’s important, to be frank, that content marketing is a long game. You rarely launch a content marketing program, and the leads start rolling in. It takes time to build an audience and gain their trust. However, it’s well worth it once you do.”

So why wouldn’t this characteristic of content marketing scare businesses away? If you knew beforehand how long it would take for the effects to kick in, why would you even start in the first place?

There are essentially two reasons. The first is that there’s no such thing as an online marketing practice that will build brand support and trust and increase your page rankings overnight. As a general rule of thumb, anything that sounds too good to be true probably is.

The other reason is that practising content marketing gives you an excellent chance to increase your page rank on Google and build a large audience. From a technical standpoint, Google will like the fact that you’re frequently posting fresh, quality content. Moreover, your content will demonstrate to your followers that you’re dedicated to your business, your industry, and providing others with value.

Are you making the most of your online strategy? Find out today with our Complimentary Online Marketing Audit.