We lived in Austin, Texas back in the early 2000s. After our social circles expanded significantly it was not uncommon to run into someone who had written a screenplay. I had written a screenplay (which I sold in 2013), my friends had all written screenplays, it turns out everyone in the city of Austin had written a screenplay.
The digital equivalent of the early 2000s Austin screenplay freakout would be the blog.
Everyone has a blog. You’re probably thinking about that awesome blog you were so committed to in 2005 to document your killer progress in your dedication to jogging. Remember? One gently used pair of shoes later and the blog became a ghost town. That’s fine. It’s tough to generate content on a frequent basis. Yet, it is absolutely necessary to do so for your website.
Here are five brief reasons why content is still king.
1. Google Ranking Factor
The Google algorithm, in some ways, is the most intriguing aspect of the internet. The company doesn’t publish the algorithm and only subtly hints that changes to the algorithm are either forthcoming or have already happened. The Google algorithm, itself, is an unknown. Its ranking factors, however, are not and fresh content is considered one of the most vital factors for your site to rank well in Google search. Content was even ranked number one in a Search Engine Journal article published earlier this year.
Just remember — when you publish new content to your site the Google web crawlers “see” the fresh content and that is a good thing.
2. Exhibit Authority
This point is pretty self-explanatory. If I’m listening to a mechanic and the guy has no idea what he is talking about or seems vague and shady, I’m going to move on to the next shop. Accordingly, your content is a direct line of communication between you and your customers. Impress the customer and bask in the glory of them clicking thru your site heading for a sweet conversion.
3. Good Content is Green
We’re all for thinking “Earth First” here at Seersucker Creative but this has nothing to do with recycling. This is about how to use, and reuse, your content — in a way, making it evergreen.
Like mentioned earlier, content creation is not for the meek. It’s tough and necessary work.
A lot of clients make the big mistake of thinking every bit of content is a “one-off.” As in, they create an awesome story, send it out into the social media landscape and…that’s it. Brutal error.
Think of your content as an item to sell. If it sells once why create a new wheel? Keep selling what the crowd wants, as in, on your social media channels, you can repackage and reuse the same bit of content. You should never batter your audience by repeatedly shoving the same content down their throat in a short period of time but you can put it on a nice rotation, perhaps seasonal. For example, why only share your delicious recipe for cookies once when you can share them on Christmas, Easter and as a mid-summer party snack option?
4. Your Social Media Channels Love Content
Your social media channels are your front door to getting people into your home (website). But if you don’t have good, fresh content when they walk into your home, potential clients will click out of your site which will lead to an ugly bounce rate that will raise a red flag with our Google overlords.
5. Digging for Gold
Whether you’re a marketing company or handling your digital advertising on your own one of your main jobs is to create content, get it out into the world and track what hits and misses. Through tools such as Google Analytics you can see and measure the response every bit of content you create receives.
But before you track the results you have to have the content to attract the customer. You can write the greatest tweets and Facebook posts of all time but if the audience knows there’s no fresh content on your site they will eventually stop clicking through to your site.
This isn’t your jogging blog, this is your business and to succeed you have to create content.
Seersucker Creative 