Last Updated on February 26, 2020 by Anthony
Web development and SEO experts have said for years that quality is king when it comes to content marketing. That’s certainly true. In fact, here at Connotations, ‘quality is king’ governs everything we do. However, could our SEO copywriting service be doing more?
The question must be asked in light of research released by the Content Marketing Institute; research that suggests online content need not have such a short shelf life. We’ll explain that in just a minute, but first let’s look at some of the numbers:
- 95% of B2B markers use content marketing
- 97% of B2C marketers use content marketing
- 90% of both groups concentrate online marketing on article writing and social media.
According to an analysis by E-Consultancy, the average UK website owner or developer will write a piece of content, publish it on a website, and promote it using social media for couple of weeks. After that, the content is relegated to the scrap heap of irrelevancy as the company in question moves on to the next article.
So the question is this: is this practice wise, or can we get more shelf life out of our content? It seems clear that increased shelf life is not only a real possibility but is also a worthwhile goal to pursue.
Recycling Old Material
I once wrote the following in an old piece about coming up with new ideas for blog posts:
Many bloggers worry about covering similar topics that they have covered in the past. This is far less of a problem than we suspect and revisiting old topics can be really rewarding – especially if our views on it have changed in any way. The good thing about revisiting these old topics is that we can also use it as an excuse to link to these other articles.
This is good advice on a number of fronts. However, if we take that thinking and modify it to increase the shelf life of online content, it brings back some very significant rewards. The first of those rewards comes by way of seasonal writing.
Christmas is just around the corner, as is seasonal writing. In fact, most SEO copywriters have already started writing seasonal content that their customers will use to increase holiday traffic. That’s a good practice. It always has been and always will be. Nevertheless, it’s not necessary to come up with brand-new seasonal content every year.
For example, if one of your writers wrote an exceptionally brilliant piece last November/December, you can break that piece out again for this holiday season. Either use it straight up, modify it slightly, or just grab some quotes to add to a new piece of content. The point is to make use of what you have already published.
Progressive Writing
Another reward of taking advantage of old material is to engage in what I call ‘progressive writing’. This is the practice of creating content that works effectively as both standalone material and something that can be built on in the future. This article is a great example.
Not too long ago I wrote a piece talking about seasonal writing for the Christmas holiday. You’ll notice that I just linked to the piece in the previous sentence. What I’ve done is created a stream of content that will be built upon in future months in order to link one article to the next. This type of content production allows SEO copywriters to increase reader loyalty by building one topic on the next.
There are plenty of other ways we can create online content with a longer shelf life. If you would like to know more about how we can help you, please make it a point of contacting Connotations at your earliest convenience. We would love the opportunity to show you how our SEO copywriters and their excellent work can benefit your website and your business.