It’s “survival of the fittest” or bust

Content marketing has changed a lot in the last few years. Like a toddler learning how to balance and walk for the first time, content marketing is still finding its balance—what works and what doesn’t. It has to keep up with many elements like a rapidly developing technology, plus changing practices and consumer behavior.

In the world of marketing, change is always a constant. As a marketer, as an entrepreneur, it helps to always be in the know. If you can’t evolve and keep up, you’ll find it hard to survive. Here are nuggets of wisdom to survive the constantly evolving landscape of marketing.

Publish content with purpose and value.

If you still find yourself publishing content because you should, stop right now. Content marketing has evolved to the point that it’s not formulaic anymore. It’s not a matter of publishing x amount of articles with x amount of keywords and links to show up in the top page of search engine results. That was the norm before. These days, it’s all about quality versus quantity. The right attitude is to ask yourself questions that could steer you in the right direction like, “Who is this helping?” or “What value does this add?” every time you publish content. The challenge is to create content that’s not only high-quality, but also consistent and relevant to your target audience. These qualities are what make your content valuable whether it’s a blog post, video, article, or infographic.

The right attitude is to ask yourself questions that could steer you in the right direction like, “Who is this helping?” or “What value does this add?” every time you publish content.

Write content for humans, not search engines.

Google also went through many major changes. It now advocates brands that publish content with humans in mind instead of search engines. Google punishes brands that resort to black-hat SEO tactics like planting backlinks left and right. Know that when your content is original and useful, you won’t need to create backlinks. They will come naturally. All you need to do is to create quality content, and always with your target audience’s needs in mind.    

Focus on your target audience.

You need to cut back on shameless self-promotion and get back to the one thing that matters most: your audience. Reality is: no one cares about your brand. Consumers want answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. Even if your products or services meet consumer needs, they won’t know to search for you right away. Consumers type queries that relate to their concerns like, “How do I clean my HVAC unit?”, and not “X Air Duct Cleaning”. Instead of aggressively pushing your product to them, create content that relates to their needs, so they could find you when they need you.