Around the country, football season is getting underway. The nation’s most popular sport takes center stage each fall, as athletes as young as 5 and 6 years old take to the gridiron—non-contact, of course—to experience the thrill of competition. At higher levels, including high school, college, and beyond, the game of football is a year-round endeavor requiring dedication, hard work, and constant attention to ever-changing rules and challenges. In many ways, a successful football program shares many similarities with an effective content marketing strategy. While, as a business owner, you may not risk physical injury on the field of play, a casual, unprepared approach to marketing can leave your brand bruised and beaten.

No Off-Season

The analogous comparison to football is not exact, of course, as your marketing efforts are not primarily focused on a single season. Your business and online presence requires your attention every month of the year. However, just as a football team continues to workout, study, improve, and prepare during the off-season, you and your marketing team should be doing the same, no matter what campaigns are currently ongoing.

Consider a business owner who is looking to build an entirely new location for his or her office. The land has been purchased and now it needs to be cleared, leveled, and excavated. The foundation must be laid, the structure built, various utilities installed, and countless other projects must be completed before the new building can open for business. Would you expect to see a well-rounded general contractor operating a bulldozer this week, pouring concrete next week, framing walls the week after, and wiring the building for electricity a month later? In construction, a single person, no matter how skilled, would rarely take on a number of such specialized roles; instead, the general contractor will bring in subcontractors to handle each area with precision and specific expertise. The same principles can apply to increasing your company’s online visibility, as a team of niche SEO professionals with individual areas of strength can be much more efficient and successful than a single, SEO “general contractor.”

What’s the Difference?

For many business owners, their understanding of search engine optimization, or SEO, is rather limited. They may realize that it has something to do with making their website better, but are not quite sure how or why it does so. The reality is, however, that SEO can be very complicated and is constantly evolving, as search engines such as Google and Bing continue to tweak their search algorithms.

There are countless internet resources available to help business professionals create engaging websites to tap into the digital marketplace. A web developer with rudimentary skills can create a webpage with a sleek and modern look that provides your prospective customers with the information they want. A visually appealing website, however, is just the beginning; prospective customers must be able to find you. Enter the concept of search engine optimization, or SEO. SEO lets you harness the power of the internet and massive search engines to increase your online presence. While you may have heard of SEO, and possibly have incorporated some if its techniques into your website, off-page SEO is a major factor in generating traffic to your company’s site.

On-Page vs. Off-Page SEO

For the sake of comparison, think of your website like it was a physical business—say, a retail electronics store. Keeping your store competitive and profitable requires a number of elements. Your store must be clean and organized, offer the latest in television, stereo, Blu-Ray, and computer technology, and provide world class customer service and support. You realize that every person that walks in your door is a potential client, and your store is designed to help them become a satisfied customer. The experience within the store itself is comparable to the application of on-page, or on-site, SEO. Search engines provide your page with a higher ranking based on the quality of your site, fresh and engaging content, loading rate, titles and descriptions and many other components.

At the risk of overusing an already ubiquitous cliché, pleasing everyone all the time is simply not possible. As a business professional, you undoubtedly have seen this principle in action in your own company. You may have a customer-satisfaction rate nearing 98 percent, but the remaining two percent will frequently be very vocal about their displeasure. Those unhappy clients are also much more likely to take to the internet with their frustrations by leaving negative reviews on Google or Yelp. While such reviews may seem like an obstacle for your business to overcome, research indicates that your disgruntled customers may actually be doing you a service.

Over the last few years, several studies have found that there is little to fear from occasional negative online reviews. In fact, many businesses may even realize a variety of benefits from such opinions, when properly handled and addressed. It may be surprising, but it is true: negative reviews can actually increase trust in your company which, in turn, may increase your bottom line.

Name Recognition

If you own or run a business, you understand the necessity of continued growth. You cannot afford to remain stagnant in the modern marketplace, as, for many companies, that equates to falling behind the competition. The dilemma, of course, is determining the best way to more forward and how to take advantage of the resources available in today’s commercial landscape. Development of a strong content marketing campaign can present your company with opportunities for growth like you may have never thought possible.

Understanding Content Marketing

Content marketing is a fast-growing marketing technique that is focused on the creation and distribution of valuable, relevant, and consistent media and content aimed a particular audience with the goal of attracting and retaining customers. This type of marketing directly employs the resources and capabilities of the internet and its unlimited reach, allowing companies to share articles, blogs, images, videos, and other information to strengthen their brand and message. Most importantly, content marketing is completely customizable, as the published content is developed with your goals in mind and designed to meet the needs of your prospective customers.