Introduction
The past year was one where the Coronavirus Pandemic forced brands to alter their content marketing strategies in a major way. Brands turned to content marketing to educate, inform and engage with their audiences at a time when the world came together to address a humanitarian crisis.
The year 2021 draws on the learnings that thought leaders and industry experts have evolved in the sphere of content marketing strategies. In this article, we are going to look at the following-
- Content Marketing Best Practices
- The Hottest Content Marketing Trends of 2021
- Challenges that face Content Marketing in 2021
Without further ado, let us dive deep into everything you need to know about evolving the best content marketing strategy for your business.
The Hottest Content Marketing Trends of 2021
For the benefit of our readers, we have conveniently divided the hottest trends into the following points-
- Keyword Research, one of the most important aspects of content marketing is going to be replaced by a topical authority. Authority-oriented articles that are in-depth and offer users real value will overtake keyword research.
- Original Content that is 100% Unique should form the basis of your Content Marketing endeavors. Using tools like Copyscape and Quetext will come in handy. Plagiarized content is going to be dealt with seriously by Google.
- Understanding Google’s new updates including the eagerly awaited Web Vitals will allow SEOs to determine how effective an article is to rank on search engines. A content marketing strategy needs to be tailor-made basis the same.
- Long Format Articles that offer brevity and completeness are going to rule search engines and performance. For a user, a piece of content should have all the answers someone needs concerning a specific topic.
Content Marketing Best Practices for 2021
If you have been paying attention to the trends, you will have an idea about some of the best practices that we are going to mention in this section.
Brands that are looking to leverage content marketing need to invest in great quality content writers. This means investing in terms of creating a piece of content that keeps effectively performing for a long period.
To this end, support articles on the same brand blog page need to support the hero article. Great internal linking of the same will play a major role in keeping traffic on the main domain. This will help establish authority, raise metrics and encourage users to trust a brand.
Content Marketing strategists also need to pay a lot of attention to mobile browsing and interface. In other words, mobile optimization and responsiveness is another best practice that should be integrated into the strategy.
Challenges of Content Marketing according to Experts
With so much competition, the time frame for a ranking article is going to increase. SEOs that are at the top of their game can always look at strategies like tapping into trending topics for immediate traffic relief.
Most believe that brands are far too inclined towards strategies that offer immediate benefits. This is why they tend to prefer Adwords or SMM ads. However, a well-designed and robust content marketing strategy is great for long-term growth. It requires an investment, but the returns in terms of branding, sales, and credibility building cannot be equated with paid ads.
Using technology to create articles can be an attraction for many. This is primarily because it requires little effort and a paid software that does the work for you. However, over a period, Google will identify you and penalize your website with a manual action.
The Bottom Line
There is a reason why brands are investing in content marketing strategies. Of all the digital marketing strategies, content marketing is what contributes to the real success of a brand. With 2020 setting the tone for content marketing, 2021 is going to be the year where this strategy with the right SEO comes into its own. If you have any questions and queries on content marketing, do not hesitate to mention the same in the comments section below.