Considering that "Content is King" on the web, it's important to gauge how wide of a net is being cast through your Content Marketing efforts. Is the content you are distributing of interest to the rest of the world? Does it have viral possibilities?

Perhaps your strategy is to circulate positive information about your company as a digital public relations tool. Or maybe you're working to promote specific products and services. Whatever your objective, the starting point is the same: research. Your research will help ensure your content is found under the right circumstances, as well as angled toward the areas in which people are most interested.

Your Products and Services Strategy

When beginning the keyword selection process for a web site, many of our clients initially gravitate to words which they personally associate with their business. Their first response tends to be, "we are currently ranked number one for this particular term or terms." As part of our early research, SmartFinds Internet Marketing identifies how many people are actually searching the term(s) - and more often than not, we find there are no searches - or not a very significant number of searches.

Of course, the more meaningful data comes from our identifying which types of term(s) are actually being searched relative to a client's products or services. The old days of guessing which keyword term(s) will bring results are gone. All three major search engines and many other resources can help you zero in on viable keyword choices. Terminologies, monthly search volumes and number of competing web pages are all data points that are available.

Use this research when developing your content for articles and news releases - as well as postings for social media marketing. The research is also valuable in determining how to strategically tag and describe your videos and photos. Furthermore, your analysis will assist you with terminologies for your web site and in developing landing pages.

One interesting situation which raises issues is when the world is seeking your business products and services in one way, yet you want to be known in another way. The business focus will need to lean towards bringing the traffic to your web site; and then, educate the visitors towards your focus. One good example of this is "dental benefits" versus "dental insurance." Most dental coverage is legally known as "dental benefits," but the consumer market seeks this information out as "dental insurance."

Using Content Marketing for Business Digital Public Relations

Business digital public relations are all about your company name and your company's domain name. There is less research required in this process since both items are easily located. The process begins by going to the major search engines and typing your company name in quotes to see what the results display.

The questions to ask and answer about these results are:

• Are they positive or negative about your company?
• How much of this information is on 3rd party web sites?
• Ideally we are not looking for those listings on your own web site, but on others. Prospects are typically more interested in what is on third party web sites than what is on your own web site. (Similar to how a magazine article about your business might be of more influence than your company brochure.)
• Does the information support your sales team when they drop off a proposal with a prospect?

You may find that there are other companies that have similar names; or there is other information unrelated to your business creating content noise that does not support your business. Inconsistent information about your business or neutral responses will not support your sales team.

Take the next step in this exercise by entering a search of your domain name in quotes. We find that companies may have more information on the web about their company name and significantly less with their domain name link. It is imperative that the two reach similar volume over time in order to build the story around your business.

The idea now is to develop content around articles, news releases, videos, photos, social media communities that is all about your business name and with your domain name as the link.

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