Instead of focusing on content marketing for links, we all need to make writing to reach our target audiences more important. This is especially true if you sell products or services.
The point of content marketing must be RELEVANCE. Your goals are to find:
- potential customers who buy products
- new readers who become subscribers
- and only lastly for link value
So your very first task is to identify who your buyers are and where they hang out. While traditional SEO ignores many sites as being “too small”, they may be hurting their clients because the niche sites where your buyers tend to be are often NOT the high PR sites that SEOs prefer.
There is always a tradeoff between these three goals.
Sometimes you may place your content on a site that has high PageRank that is beneficial for PR, but whose readers are not your target audience. But what you really want to do is choose relevance over PageRank.
What is Relevant Content Marketing?
I am still seeing people wanting guest posts published on sites that are totally irrelevant to what they sell because they’re putting too much emphasis on the link value and not enough on reaching potential buyers.
Consider this a warning to all involved. Do not publish content on your site that your current readers aren’t interested. If you’re a small business, an SEO, or a blogger, stop publishing on sites that are not where your buyers already are.
It is often easiest to understand when you have examples, so I am going to share some tips I gave to Khalid Shaikh on how to do blog outreach wisely. Khalid works for Rediff.com, one of the largest blogs in India.
They have a shopping section at shopping.rediff.com. There is a major Hindu festival called Rahki coming up that is celebrated by their readers, so they have a special section for Rakhi Shopping. Khalid wants to make sure that many know about the Rakhi gifts Rediff.com allows retailers to sell through their site.
Instead of focusing on PageRank or publishing posts wherever they can get them, I recommended that Khalid find sites with a large readership of Hindu’s who would be interested in buying gifts for Rakhi. I wish we had a similar festival; perhaps our sibling relationships would be closer if we did.
“Raksha Bandhan, (the bond of protection) or Rakhi is a Hindu festival primarily observed in India, Mauritius and Nepal, which celebrates the relationship between brothers (shaurya), cousins and sisters (shreya). It is also called Rakhi Purnima in most of India.[1][2] It is also celebrated in some parts of Pakistan.[3] The festival is observed by Hindus, Jains, and some Sikhs. ” ~ Wikipedia ~
Examples of Relevant Sites for Product Sellers
Here are some examples of the types of sites Khalid could contact to offer content about the upcoming festival and what he should propose writing for each of them:
- Vogue.in is a major Indian fashion site. In years past they published a Rakhi beauty wishlist and a Rahki Gift Guide. Offering them similar content for 2013 is an obvious win for both writer and publisher.
- Tradus.com bills itself as India’s Largest Shopping Portal. They wrote about Rakshabandhan last year, so should be interested in similar content for this year.
- WhiteIndianHousewife.com has an Indian shopping section. Offering a post about shopping for Rahki would be a perfect fit for this blog.
Now that he knows what type of blogs to approach, he needs to understand how best to ask them to collaborate. The key is making it obvious that he knows what is important to that site’s readers and offers them content that benefits them.
Connecting first on social media (Twitter, G+, Facebook, etc.) can make this easier. You can also use their contact form or email, but if you do be sure to provide just enough information for them to want to respond to you.
Be direct. Tell them you are aware they publish content about what is specific to what you need:
- Mention a specific related post they’ve published.
- Explain that you want to provide them a post. Suggest several titles and provide 2-3 examples of your work.
- If your needs are time sensitive, let them know how soon you need to publish. (NOT making it a rush is likely to get a better response as everyone is very busy.)
Not every site will respond, so be prepared to contact far more than you need. And do follow up. I do not see most of the requests I receive because I am so busy and my email is overflowing.
I recently found an exceptional tool for managing every project and especially blog outreach. Watch for an upcoming post about Trello to find out more. In the meantime, be sure to read my interview on Content Marketing Solutions and Best Practices on Search Engine Journal (SEJ) for more content marketing strategies and tools.
If you have a site that would be interested in a post about Rakhi, leave a comment here for Khalid to see. If you are an Indian blogger who wants to collaborate, comment and we will contact you.
Gail Gardner
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Nice post, really content marketing plays a very important role in the growth of any business and helps the growth of any business.
I also agree now Content is the king in seo, google is giving more value to content rather then links.
Gail, you’ve hit the nail right on the head – go where your audience is hanging out. I too see so many people posting at locations that results either in low traffic or high bounce rates. This has to be the best and most practical article that I have read on Content Marketing strategies in a long time. Thanks for sharing with us.
I couldn’t agree more. Content marketing is more powerful and useful than ever before, everybody should use it well.
Guys I am Khalid here just wanted to say thanks a lot for all your comments and Thanks Gail who gave so much exposure Thanks Gail.
I think that specifically writing for products is a genius idea.
I think that specifically writing for products is a genius idea. Content writing draws people in from all the web and products need that kind of exposure just as businesses as a whole do.
quality and unique content can improve your business any where, quality and unique content is very useful in seo
thanks for share this valuable information
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I really enjoyed this post, associate degreed appreciated the linguistics distinction between a content selling *program* and an advertising *campaign*. I’ve been guilty of a number of those horrendous “content selling campaign” references, however you’ve got Pine Tree State thinking that that’s sloppy language on my half — if we tend to don’t set up automatic stop dates for different kinds of conversations or relationships, and relationship-building is genuinely what we tend to intend with content selling, we tend to do ourselves and our shoppers a ill turn once we decision that a campaign.
Thanks for nice info.
Regards,
Ken
Ken Smith would love you to read ..dymo 99014
I really enjoyed this post, and appreciated the semantic difference between a content marketing *program* and an advertising *campaign*. I’ve been guilty of some of those dreaded “content marketing campaign” references, but you’ve got me thinking that that’s sloppy language on my part — if we don’t plan automatic stop dates for other kinds of conversations or relationships, and relationship-building is genuinely what we intend with content marketing, we do ourselves and our clients a disservice when we call that a campaign.
Relevance got high points in factors that influence SERP , and its very important in Content marketing because its most favorite technique of current era.
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Good content marketing is another way of saying that you’re convincing your viewers/customers to purchase your products. Nicely done post!
Gail,Just ran across your blog and read this post. I am impressed. I have been looking for other sites similar to mine and have been promoting JV among those other business consultants I meet. This gives me a way to offer to help them instead of asking for a favor.I am even careful when retweeting. If it doesn’t have something to do with small business I will not RT. I’m not convinced anyone reads my tweets yet taking care of the “brand” is important.
I would think that the relevancy of an article or content will carry more weight over page rank. Hopefully you can place the right content on a high pr site that has the audience you are going after…but unfortunately that just doesn’t happen very often.
I think the content is the important thing by SEO
Thank you for your tipp
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Relevant content is most important for SEO. With new algorithms from Google relevancy of content is noted the most.
Best marketing pricipal is that yours is the best product. This is capitalism you need to demonstrate.
Thanks for the tips! Nice to see your content prioritisation ideas shared.
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well nice article over content marketing and I do appreciate the thoughts you have put up.
I have also get to know in an interview of Mr. Bruce Clay explaining about the importance of valuable and quality content and he also explained about the Google’s last penalties on behalf of the content only so its quite proven that content plays an important role for your site or blog
Nice post quite informative and learning one
Thanks for sharing
Keep posting
I agree, and I think that with the issue of relevance coming to the fore, it will have greater significance for SEO to post in blogs with readers who share your interests.
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Your advice is perfect …foreigners (non-Hindus)wont be interested to get a Rakhi …so there’s no point of promoting such stuff on a High PR site that mostly have western visitors …if they promote their products on a HIGH PR site with a lot of Hindu visitors …they’ll achieve their goals .
-Pramod
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