Content Marketing Best Practices in 2021 and 2022

Content continues to be the crowning jewel for most online businesses when it comes to generating traffic, leads, and revenue.

If you do not have several content pieces lined up to assist potential customers on their sales funnel journey, you may lose out on those opportunities.

Considering the continuous growth of the content marketing sector and its influence on overall sales and revenue, more marketers are using content than ever. If you want to stay ahead of your competitors, you need to continue to leverage content as a channel for generating traffic and leads. However, make sure you are following the best content marketing practices, or else your content marketing campaigns may not be as successful.

In this blog post, you will find five content marketing best practices that would serve you well in 2021, 2022, and beyond.

1. Content Personalisation

Accenture conducted a study which revealed that 91 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with a brand that offers personalised recommendations and offers.

This is not just limited to personalised ads and email marketing offers segmented by audience groups. It also includes providing personalised content and content experiences to potential customers throughout their sales funnel journey. A few examples are:

• Creating specific content for different types of audience groups for each stage of the sales funnel
• Creating personalised content for different social media platforms
• Recommending personalised offers with URL-keyword targeting
• Giving first-time website visitors an exclusive offer
• Redirecting first-time visitors to a ‘Get Started’ page.

2. Semantics and User Experience

SEO has changed tremendously in the last few years. Now it has a lot to do with semantics, website speed, and user experience, rather than just keywords and keyword optimisation.

This trend has also been accentuated with the rise of voice search and mobile AI assistants. Even a misspelled, mispronounced word or phrase can get users to the relevant web page. That’s because search engines have gotten smarter and no longer rely on exact keyword matches.

Therefore, we recommend focusing on providing high-quality and informative content to your audience that does not solely rely on keywords. Creating well-structured, detailed, and interlinked content can do more in helping search engine crawlers find it.

In addition, make sure your website offers a great user experience. From website design to page loading speed to technical SEO: improvements on this front help improve user experience, which eventually helps with higher search visibility.

3. Video Content

How big of a role does video content play in your content marketing strategy?

93 percent of online marketers say that video is a crucial part of their content marketing strategy, and 84 percent of marketers claim that video content has helped them generate leads.

Make sure that you are well placed to leverage videos in 2022 and beyond.

4. Content Marketing for Generation Z

Does your content marketing strategy account for Generation Z and their content consumption habits?

If not, then you are likely making a big mistake.

In 2020, Generation Z was estimated to account for 40 percent of global consumers. If you do not have a content plan for them, then you are probably missing out on most of those sales.

To ensure Gen Z is included in your content plans, explore social media, user-generated video content, influencer marketing, and other similar channels.

5. Leveraging Data and Analytics

Last but not least, make sure your content marketing strategy is based on data, analytics, trends, and facts — not just intuitions and gut feelings.

Leverage tools like Google Analytics, Google Trends, Google Search Console, and Bombora to leverage the right data. Then combine data with human intelligence to make sense of it and utilise it to power your content marketing efforts in the right direction.

A Future Without Cookies

In 2022 and beyond, content marketing will become even more important — especially as Google moves towards a future without third-party cookies. This is likely to change how advertisements and data collection work.

The focus will shift towards zero-part data — the type of data that consumers willingly and directly share with a business. Content is one of the most effective mediums to have that kind of exchange.

Conclusion

By following the advice in this article, you can better position your business’s content marketing strategy to perform well throughout the remainder of this year and into the next one.