I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that at your fingertips lies the doorway to all of your dreams and business objectives. The great news is that with the right type of content, your business could be raking in millions in half the time it would have taken you a decade ago.

The bad news is that you’ve already got millions – of competitors that is. For in Google Land, all businesses both big and small are in your space right now, taking away the spotlight from you as we speak.

That’s why you need content marketing. You need strategies, you need tactics, and most of all you need content – that is unique enough to set you apart but conventional enough to steal the top spot on Google’s throne.

So what is content marketing?

Put simply, it is the creation, publishing and promotion of custom content which is original, interesting and solves problems.

It makes use of landing pages, catchy titles and keyword optimisation in order to keep visitors coming back to your site and builds your brand into a trusted authority on the web.

When you gain that trust with consumers, by publishing regular, relevant, accurate and engaging blogs, articles, whitepapers and stories, you are then able to build a permanent source of targeted leads and drive traffic to your site.

With the correct content marketing strategy, you put yourself into a position where you’ve gained such a high level of trust from the relationships that you’ve built with people online, that you are then in a position to sell your products with ease.

How does it work?

You write an article or a blog about a subject that you are knowledgeable about. It is an article based upon recent news topics and reports that are relevant to your industry.

This keeps it current and interesting.

You make it exclusive and optimise it by including lots of images, video links and relevant keywords. The Google Keyword Tool is an excellent way of discovering the most popular search terms that people use. It also tells you how many other businesses are using that keyword on their sites. Ideally, you want to select a keyword which is popular amongst consumers, but not so well-used among your rivals.

We would also suggest that you use guest bloggers and interviews from key spokespeople in your industry – to ensure that you really stand out from the crowd.

The title of your content should be short, snappy to the point and containing at least one of the keywords.

You then post the article to as many web 2.0 sites as you can and point bookmarkers to your site – which should also contain the content.

This helps to generate discussions on forums and over social media.

As a strategy, this works great and helps you to rank highly, but you need something more.

So what do you do? This is where PR and publicity meets marketing. Because then what you want to do is distribute it among media outlets and industry publications.

You can do this by pitching your story to interested media publications, using press releases and making use of online wire services (which distribute your material).

Here’s the problem:

Most people simply don’t have the time.

If you are a business owner or manager, do you really have the time to produce the type of daily or weekly website and blog content that is going to make you money in the long run, update your social media pages AND run a business at the same time?

Probably not. If you can, great, you’re already onto a winner. But the reality is, most people simply don’t have enough hours in the day.

It is also true that the face of online marketing has transformed completely over the past few years and hardly a day goes by when a snazzy new development fails to appear. Gone are the days when businesses would spend hundreds of pounds to get a top spot in the local newspaper or magazine, nowadays business has gone global with the internet being the machine that powers the engine.

That’s great right? Because now you can go viral within minutes in some cases and your brand could be in India before you know it.

This is all well and good but now you have two issues: Time and Competition.

What’s the solution?

Outsourcing. Outsourcing work to other providers is a great way of producing top quality professional content that really speaks to the audience you are trying to connect with.

And the great news is, you don’t have to spend a small fortune on outsourcing your work either.

Many content marketing companies and outsourcing sites will charge you a significant amount of money to produce content on your behalf and to update your social media pages.

Do you really want to spend over a thousand pounds a month for example, to get a qualified professional to write a few regular articles to promote your site?

Not all companies can afford this.

So it’s important to shop around for the best prices. Some content marketing sites such as Markateur.com for example, will produce top content at a shockingly low price, without skimping on quality either.

We can also do one-off articles/press releases for FREE for those who are interested in trialing our services first.

Top tips:

But whatever provider you decide to go with, here are our five top tips on what you should expect from any half-decent content marketing company to help you make the most out of your money:

Consistency

One fantastic article will not help your search ranking on Google. Content marketing is a little bit like a marriage. You’ve got to be in it for the long-term.

Low cost

Why pay thousands for regular, great content when you can have the same, top quality service for a lot less?

Flexibility

Do you really want to be tied into long-term complex contracts just to promote yourself online? I doubt it.

Creativity and distribution

Many companies out there will create the content for you and then charge you extra for promotion. Choose a service which creates and distributes your content for a relatively low cost.

Reliability 24/7

If you are using a global company with clients all over the world, their availability should really reflect this. For companies which are investing in a marketing strategy which will eventually make money and boost ROI, it’s no good if the service shuts down after 5pm. If you are paying a decent amount for your content and you have a problem that needs to be resolved quickly, you want to know that your service provider will be there when you need them the most. You also want a company that is reliable and has stood the test of time.

Janine Griffiths