In 1732, Benjamin Franklin created Poor Richard’s Almanack, an annual publication filled with helpful weather and seasonal crops information, as well as amusing anecdotes, columns, and opinion pieces.

Want to know why he created the almanac? To promote his new printing press and print shop — the content itself was merely a vehicle to promote himself and his business.

This concept of content marketing hasn’t changed much over 300 years, except now it’s digital marketing agencies, not print shops, producing the content.

Why invest all this time in producing free content? Because content marketing is crucial for any lead generation strategy. 

People are searching for answers online, and websites that can provide answers will receive the leads.

In this article, I’m going to answer content marketing FAQs so you can have a clearer understanding of what content marketing is, how it works, and why you should up your content marketing efforts.

What are the goals of a content marketing strategy?

Content marketing efforts, like other forms of online marketing and advertising, aim to achieve many of these goals:

• Attract and direct visitors to the company’s website
• Promote a business
• Generate leads from qualified web traffic
• Improve a company’s position and authority online
• Improve web presence and visibility
• Improve customer retention
• Build email subscribe lists
• Make more sales
• Earn backlinks that will improve the website’s SEO and findability in Google searches

Is content marketing the same as blogging?

Content marketing and blogging are often used interchangeably, but blogging is only a subset of the overall content marketing umbrella.

In addition to blogging, there are numerous other forms of content marketing, including:

• Creating videos
• Designing infographics
• Posting on social media
• Answering questions on forums
• Sharing pictures

However, blogs are the most popular form of content marketing, which is why people automatically think of blogs as content marketing.

How much does content marketing cost?

A company should expect to spend anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 a month for content marketing services. 

If this seems like a lot, consider the price of hiring one or two full-time employees in-office. You’ll need to consider their salary and benefits and weigh that against their outcome. 

Marketing agencies are often the more cost-effective way to go since you’re getting an entire team to create content, perform SEO research, as well as manage all other components of a successful content marketing strategy. 

Are SEO and content marketing the same thing?

Search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing are two distinctly different fields in marketing. They work together to produce high-quality content marketing strategies.

The content creation process must start with SEO keyword research in order to find keywords and topics that have a high search volume.

Once the keywords have been chosen, topics can be created around those keywords.

Additional SEO work must be done to make the content as visible as possible, such as:

• Using the right keywords in the article’s title and headers
• Adding a detailed meta-description including the main keyword
• Including videos and images to blog posts to get higher engagement
• Finding old blog posts to update, so they’ll get new traffic again

Is content marketing and inbound marketing the same thing?

This is a very common content marketing FAQ, and essentially, yes, they’re the same. 

Some consider content marketing to be a subset of a larger inbound marketing umbrella. Inbound marketing is like the overarching strategy and content marketing is the way to implement it. 

What is considered content?

Content is simply information in a shareable form.

A picture is content. A blog is content. Even social media posts can be considered content.

The most common forms of content include:

• Blogs
• Videos
• Infographics
• Podcasts
• Social media posts
• Podcasts
• Commercials
• Case studies
• eBooks
• Lead magnets, or downloadable exclusive content
• Templates
• Cheatsheets

How often should I be blogging?

It depends on the size of your company and your goals, but it’s agreed that websites should publish at least one blog a week, if not more.

As a general rule, you should post at least four times a month. However, more is often better.

Did you know that many companies don’t even invest in PPC ads? 

They just invest in creating consistent content, because content lasts forever online. That’s why content marketing is a cost-effective strategy. Unlike ads that stop showing once the campaign’s budget has been spent.

What types of content are the most effective?

Content marketing is about meeting your audience where they’re at. It depends on who your target audience is, and where they spend their time online.

Trying to reach a younger crowd? Short TikTok videos are effective.

Trying to reach a professional crowd? LinkedIn posts are effective.

Want to reach just about anybody? Use Facebook or Instagram posts and promote them.

But investing time writing more blogs, lead magnets, eBooks, and videos, and posting them where your audience is likely to spend time will benefit your content goals.

How do I come up with topics that will get the most traffic?

Simple — spy on your competitors and see which of their blog topics gets the most traffic. Then rewrite better versions of their top blogs.

Because your competitors’ top blogs are already getting traffic, it’s proof that there’s already search demand.

Copy your competitors’ approach, at least at first. Then refine it to make it relevant to your unique brand and services.

Is longer content better? 

In the early 2000s when online content marketing was getting started, blogs were much shorter, around 500 words because there was less competition to get on Google’s SERP page.

Today, blogs are around 1,000 words. It’s recommended that the average blog post be around 2,000 words.

Do longer blog posts perform better? Yeah, usually they do as users have more to interact with.

How do I get more people to read my content?

This is where SEO comes in — you produced new content, and now you have to find ways for that content to become more visible.

First, create content based on keywords that receive a high amount of monthly searches. Otherwise, nobody will discover your content if there’s no real demand for it or if Google considers it low quality. 

Assuming you’re doing that, you can get more people to consume your content by repurposing your content and sharing it across many channels.

For example:

• Include blog posts in email newsletters
• Share new blog posts to social media
• Consider guest blogging on a popular website and referring readers back to your website
• Add more images and videos to your blogs
• Answer questions on forum sites, like Quora, and add a link to your website

Is copywriting and content marketing the same thing?

Copywriting is typically thought of as writing for advertisements, sales pages, or direct mail pieces, whereas content marketing writing is writing blogs, website pages, and emails.

Does content marketing improve SEO?

A million times yes — content marketing improves SEO. Valuable content will bring people to your website and boost your Google ranking. 

Here’s how:

• New blog posts attract backlinks, important for SEO rankings
• Publishing blogs regularly tells Google your website is current, improving its relevancy in search results
• More blog content means more opportunities to get discovered in Google searches
• More blog content adds more organic keywords to your website

How do I get started with content marketing?

Your company’s website is the most important aspect of content marketing, usually. The content that you upload to your website will be discovered in Google searches or will be shared online.

But ultimately, everything you produce online is intended to bring visitors back to your website, where you can generate a new lead.

If you want to seriously get started with content marketing, then you’ll need an optimized website. Then, simply produce content. 

Get started with Kaleidico — a content marketing agency

Kaleidico is a content marketing agency for law firms, mortgage professionals, and fintech companies.

Work with us to generate more traffic and create high-quality content that will meet your readers where they’re at online. 

You’ll be shocked at how many qualified leads we’ll produce for your company with our content marketing strategies.

Photo by Olya Kobruseva