Every marketer has heard the adage “Content is King.” The idea behind is simple enough. If your content speaks for itself and helps people find the answers to what they’re looking for, then you’re set.
However, with the significant evolution that online marketing has gone through over the past decade or so, many now believe that perhaps content marketing isn’t as relevant in 2022 as it once was.
At first glance, this may appear to be true. Video is now the preferred medium of choice for both creators and audiences. Short-form video has seen explosive growth backed by the likes of TikTok and Instagram Reels.
With people accustomed to bite-sized videos providing them the information that they need, is the opportunity for doing content marketing with more substance gone for good?
That assumption couldn’t be further from the truth.
If people simply stopped searching for information online then Google, which is the world’s leading online search engine, would see a significant traffic decline.
That hasn’t materialized. In fact, searches continue to see rapid growth on the search engine, highlighting the fact that content marketing is far from over.
What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a broad term that includes all forms of content, not just blog content. People who post videos on YouTube and other platforms are also content marketers, it’s just that they have a different platform that they prefer to use. However, these are still fairly recent additions to this strategy.
Blogs are still considered to be the primary form of content marketing. That’s basically how this aspect of online marketing got its start. Marketers and brands would create relevant blogs, articles, lists, and more to bring in as many people as they could who were searching for relevant terms on Google.
Why is blog content marketing so powerful?
Google remains one of the biggest traffic sources on the planet. If you’re able to get your blog ranked for high-traffic keywords, the search engine will send highly qualified traffic your way. That traffic will turn into leads and a percentage of those visitors would convert into customers.
This is one of the reasons why marketers focus so much on SEO or search engine optimization. It’s more of an art than a science, taking a piece of content and optimizing it so that it outranks the competition on Google. That’s also what makes it so powerful.
Even though the Google search results page has transformed into much more than just 10 blue links on every page, video content still doesn’t get as much visibility on the results page. You can’t get a TikTok video ranked in Google. The company does show limited results from YouTube, only because its parent company Alphabet also owns YouTube. Similarly, videos from Facebook can’t be ranked in Google.
Consider this for a moment. One of the world’s top sources for highly qualified traffic is effectively closed off to video content. This allows blog content to shine through as Google’s aim is to send people to websites that provide the information most relevant to their query.
The barrier of entry is much lower
Blog content writing doesn’t really require much investment right off the bat. This is why it’s such a great option for small businesses that have a very limited marketing budget. They will most likely already have a website. What they need to do is create a blog to go along with that website and they can then start posting content based on the products and services that they provide.
It’s not the same with other forms of content marketing, particularly video. People are used to seeing high-quality and well-produced videos on the internet now. The higher the quality, the more it’s likely to gain traction on platforms like YouTube.
Small businesses often don’t have the budget to hire professional presenters, acquire high-end camera equipment, and invest in powerful computers for processing and editing. It makes the cost prohibitive from the get-go even before the business can figure out whether their content direction is even going to yield any favorable results.
The simplicity remains unmatched
Another reason why blog content marketing remains a preferred option for small businesses is because it’s relatively simple compared to the other formats. Even a small business that has just one employee can execute this strategy without requiring much in equipment. In fact, most small business owners who are just starting out rely on this marketing strategy for precisely this reason.
What it simply requires is a great understanding of how the product or service that the business is providing helps make customers’ lives easier. Then it’s just a matter of explaining that through a series of posts and helpful articles that make potential customers understand the benefits of buying from that business.
This is something that can be done entirely by a single person. It’s even better for those who may not be comfortable putting themselves out there by creating video content. With blog content marketing, they’re able to remain in their comfort zones while also ensuring that their business has a good chance of expanding its visibility online.
Content marketing will thrive in 2022 and beyond
All those who made predictions of doom for blog content marketing have already been proven wrong. The numbers don’t lie. People still search for information online more than ever before. They’re actively looking for content that can help solve a problem that they’re facing or answer a question that they have.
Some of the world’s leading brands continue to invest heavily in their content marketing efforts for precisely this reason. There’s no reason why small businesses should give up on it just because it seems that video is the sort of content that tends to do very well online.
Content marketing is here to stay. It will thrive in 2022 and beyond, and the only thing that’s left for small business owners is to take the plunge so that they can start extracting its full potential.
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Oct. 21st, 2023