We could define the content marketing as the process of creating content with the idea of indirectly promote a service or product you have. This seems correct, but that is neither one of the two. Content marketing can focus on to advertise yourself or your abilities, that is, to build your personal brand.

So it seems that content marketing and blogging is the same, right? Not quite.

Those who are engaged in content marketing are only those bloggers who are active in producing content and, above all, spread it, promote it. In addition, to be a successful marketer, you need more than just some content. To work really need to be the right content, have the perfect material for your target.

With this in mind, I would like to focus your attention on four of the most important facts about content marketing you should understand very well to maximize your results.

Never obsess over the length of your items

There are many opinions about the length of a post. There are those who argue that a long post is proof that you are an expert in the field and, therefore, is the best strategy. On the other hand, some bloggers say that shorter posts engage more readers and make them more involved.

So long or short?

My advice is do not measure your content by the words you have. You could easily write a piece of 2000 words with lots of straw and rephrased the same conclusions. But you could also make a short article detailing a unique and effective strategy.

What I want to say is that you should not obsess on reaching a certain number of words. Do not be the goal of writing as many words a day, write a whole article, regardless of its length.

Not only articles are considered content

If you have a blog for over a couple of months ago and have just published articles and nothing else, you’re missing something. Remember … the word “content” does not just mean items.

Clearly, if you want to increase your natural search engine rankings need to items. Wordlessly, your blog will look totally empty in the eyes of search engines.

However, there is nothing wrong vary slightly from time to time. With the popularity of platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, the visual content is very important. Although this “boom” of computer graphics has passed, there are a lot of weight and draw little attention. In our blog, we usually use them as part of our content strategy and are being very well received.

The key to an infographic is that, as no words, you have to “photograph” the story rather than tell. That way, the reader takes less time to digest the information and usually that means that much more sharing through social networks.

You can also use SlideShare, with which you can publish presentations to your blog. Many companies are using it with great success, amassing many retweets and likes on social networks. Finally, you always have video blogging, very popular lately. The star, obviously, is YouTube.

The idea is not to boring your blog. Make it attractive, with different types of content, so you can convert all who enter it to a regular reader.

Material quality does not necessarily guarantee popularity in social networks

As much as I like to say that quality content is what determines to be shared or not, it does not always correspond to reality.

Having a great knowledge in a particular field is one thing. Being able to translate that knowledge into content that gives useful information is another. But turning that content into social networks magnet is totally different. Unfortunately, what often happens is that someone is really good in the first two parts of the process. The blogger in question dominates the subject and transmits the message excellently, but lacks the touch of marketing.

Although it is your niche, your content is the best, is not doing enough, if anything, to promote it. If that’s what you’re doing, you’re expecting a miracle. The first thing to do is get out there, get the attention of people and start promoting you.

Content marketing will not improve your SEO and your traffic immediately

One of the reasons why many companies create a blog for your business is because they have a static site that does not attract them much organic traffic. If you have a website that is only a couple of pages and a few hundred words, you will not have a good chance of high position yourself for keywords related to your business.

So if you add a blog as a subdomain to your site, you have new content each month or week home (better). Every article you write add a new page to your website, which is more a reason for the search engine robots will find and index your site. Each article also add words to your content, which helps your keywords and focus your page.

Or at least that’s the theory …

In fact, the new content is just the starting point. If you add just page after page to your site, does not mean you help your positioning. Perhaps even what interests you most about starting as a guest author on other blogs before throwing yours.

This strategy was that turned Buffer indispensable tool among community managers. Its marketing manager wrote hundreds of articles about social networking applications, among which included, of course, to Buffer. It was gradually attracting the attention of readers and now has more than 100,000 customers. And even they had a blog.

What I’m saying is that starting a blog is step in the right direction.However, you should not be alone in that because you will not get traffic and SEO benefits without approaching your niche.

In conclusion

I hope you have served what I shared above. Do not let the length control your items, use different types of content, working on social marketing and consider options like guest blogging. These four pillars are part of the key content marketing.

Now is your turn! What do you think about the length of posts? Have you tried the alternative content? Have you tried posting on other blogs?