In the world of making money online (or even offline, for that matter), it’s important to have a strong grasp of your numbers. When partaking in affiliate marketing, you’ll want to engage in A/B split testing to see which campaigns are more successful, for example. And that’s why you want to make sure you have Google Analytics set up on your blog, so you can monitor your bounce rates, unique visitors, referral sources and so on.
But what about content marketing for business? I came across a useful infographic the other day that listed off several content marketing stats you may want to know. And it’s not enough to simply know about these numbers; you need to know how they impact your business and what you can do about them. So, let’s take a look at a few key take-home lessons here.
Content marketing is the top priority for 36% of marketers
Internet marketing is inherently a multi-faceted affair with so many different components for you to juggle. From social media to SEO, there’s a lot to deal with and you need to prioritize the aspects that provide the biggest impact. For more than a third of marketers surveyed, content marketing is that most critical component.
In an environment where social networks can shutter and Google can change its algorithm without notice, engaging with a real audience with your real content is what is going to persist through the ages. Good content was good ten years ago and it’ll still be good ten years from now.
93% of B2B marketers use content marketing
We shouldn’t necessarily take this little tidbit of information to mean that if everyone else is doing it, so you should you. However, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that so many people involved in business-to-business marketing would use content marketing to achieve their goals.
Some people may assume that content marketing is only effective in the B2C space, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. At the end of the day, it’s still people connecting with other people–you may have heard the term “H2H” or “human-to-human”–and people are still looking for information and insight on the Internet.
57% of marketers say quality content creation is the most effective SEO tactic
In many ways, this goes back to the first point about why content marketing is the top priority for so many marketers. Each time Google alters its algorithm, so many bloggers and content sites worry about whether they are aligning with the guidelines that Google lays out. Should you link to external sites? Should you have images? What about sidebars? What about being mobile-friendly? What about social signals?
What we’re really starting to see is that while some of these factors do have an impact–like ensuring your website is properly optimized and you’re getting valuable backlinks from high authority sites–they all take a back seat to quality content. Great content, even when it’s not perfectly optimized, trumps all.
90% of traffic comes from 15% of content
Some of you may be surprised to read this and some of you may not. As much as we would like to see all of our content suddenly go viral, that’s simply not going to be the case. Most of your content is going to be quickly forgotten and neglected, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep plugging away.
Eventually, you’ll have a blog post or an article that suddenly gets a lot more attention than all the others and this traffic can persist for a long time. In fact, just 0.5% of content is responsible for 50% of traffic. Don’t get discouraged if your first few attempts don’t get the numbers you desire; you just need to keep trying, keep improving, and keep optimizing until you get your first big hit. Then, get your next one. And the next one.
Content marketing needs to be a cornerstone of your overall marketing strategy, regardless of whether you’re in the B2B or B2C space. Guidelines for SEO and social media will change, but great content will always be king. Invest in it.