Hey, Katherine Griwert here, with your monthly content marketing recap from Brafton. Check out my video, or read the blog post below for some industry highlights that shed light on what we’re dealing with for content marketing in 2014.

So we’re a month into the New Year – and there are already some clear trends shaping up for the year in content. To start, link building as a practice is on its last legs. 

Editorial for SEO: Penguin cares about readability

The average web user is much savvier to what’s quality on the web and which links point to useful information or resources. The same is true for search algorithms. Case in point: There’s new evidence that Penguin draws on readability tests.

MathSites found that the lower the ratio of “rare” words to the total offsite linking pages, the more likely that those backlinks can hurt your SEO. In case you’re like some of our customers, who have found bad (unsolicted) links can still happen to good content, check out a recent blog on Brafton.com about how to do a thorough SEO audit on your content.

Guest blogging: If you’re doing it for links, you’re doing it wrong

 

This year, it’s all about link earning – don’t ask, just earn.

It’s important to find your money links – and only editorial ones from good sites are worth your search time. For a lot of people, the obvious solution has been guest blogging. But not so fast: Last month Matt Cutts came out to say that too many brands are using original, quality content as a thinly veiled attempt to get links. He went as far as to say that pervasive guest blog link strategies are why we can’t have nice things in SEO.

Before you throw away the good with the bad, take a minute to ask yourself why you want SEO: It’s a means to an end. The ultimate goal is generating exposure with new customers. Guest blogging can still be a way to achieve that if you do it right.

Let’s change the conversion: ‘Content for SEO’ to ‘Content for business goals’

So 2014 kicked off with a lot of warning signs about link building. This year, it’s all about link earning – don’t ask, just earn. And let’s stop saying content for SEO, and start saying content for business goals. A new Curata study found that 59% of companies are spending more on Content Marketing this year – and that money should be supporting the full spectrum of your corporate goals, from engaging new prospects to closing deals and building customer loyalty.

Thanks for tuning and check out more content marketing insights on Brafton.com.

Katherine Griwert is Brafton's Marketing Director. She's practiced content marketing, SEO and social marketing for over five years, and her enthusiasm for new media has even deeper roots. Katherine holds a degree in American Studies from Boston College, and her writing is featured in a number of web publications.