In April, web marketers were reminded there is no web without content – a poll from the Digital Advertising Alliance found 92 percent Americans agree that free news, blogs, emails and video content are critical to the overall value of the Internet.
There’s no successful digital strategy without investment in editorial media. Watch the video below (or read our full blog post) for Brafton’s take on the month’s biggest content marketing headlines – and how you can use them to update your strategy.
Video content marketing: Growing audiences, rising results
People turn to the web for content, and video is becoming more important for content marketing in any business vertical. An April report from Unruly shows the Entertainment sector still has the largest online video audience, but video sharing for consumer goods, tech and auto brands all experienced growth last quarter.
44% of consumers purchase more products after viewing a related video
Plus, 44 percent of consumers say they’ve purchased more products after viewing a related video. Companies are wising up, and new Nielsen data shows 64 percent will spend more on video content moving forward.
Investing in videos can have long-term effects; Unruly found the “half life” of video ROI is three weeks – compared to hours or days for many other formats. Social promotion can extend the shelf life of videos and other content, and it seems most brands are already stepping up their social marketing.
Social marketing: Smarter analytics needed
Nielsen reports 70 percent of brands plan to increase social media use, even as 49 percent of B2Bs still struggle to understand the return on social content. It’s a sign that businesses need to hold the people in charge of their social marketing accountable.
In-depth reports can measure networks and shared content performance against clearly defined goals for smarter strategies. At Brafton, we overcome this challenge with dedicated social strategists and an in-depth partnership with Sprinklr for reports and analytics.
Content for SEO: Better links and leads
One area where B2B and B2C companies see clear ROI is SEO content. According to Ascend2, 38 percent of businesses say SEO is effective and the same amount sing the praises of content marketing. It’s increasingly clear the two strategies go hand in hand.
Ongoing articles and key landing pages are essential to driving search traffic. Last month, we shared some Brafton insights on how a news content marketing strategy more than doubled non-branded organic traffic for one site. Visitors who arrived from longtail phrases drove a 10-fold increase in site leads.
We’ve also shared data showing even content that isn’t crawled can be good for SEO. White papers behind a download wall can still drive links – and one of our reports shows that about one-third of a clients’ highest-trust inbound links point to the various landing pages for its white papers.
New insights from Cutts: Is Penguin coming?
Organic link building is still on most content marketers’ minds. Earlier this year, Matt Cutts said the biggest algorithm of 2013 was coming in the form of a Penguin refresh. Still no Penguin updates, but in an April webmaster video, Cutts told marketers internal links wouldn’t likely draw the ire of algorithms. He also shared some content SEO tips about adding new web pages: If you’re moving a content archive, update your site gradually. Thousands of pages at once might raise eyebrows at Google and your site can undergo some manual scrutiny.
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