Improving the quality of content and implementing SEO are two of the three top tactics that are helping content marketers to succeed, according to a new report from Semrush.
The latest annual State of Content Marketing study for 2022 surveyed 1,500 marketers and analysed hundreds of thousands of blogs, articles and social media posts to find the most relevant insights and offer “practical advice” for those in the industry.
During the last 12 months, marketers have focused on using content to become “more human”, with personalisation and targeting a priority when attempting to engage audiences in both B2C and B2B environments.
SEO services have also become a bedrock of content strategies as optimisation is both increasing visibility in search and delivering better user experiences, which is good news for marketers following the rollout of Google’s page experience update.
Semrush also offered some advice about SEO best practices, which include adding internal and external links, using informative titles and improving overall readability.
The list of top content marketing goals is familiar but not surprising, with brands using articles and videos to increase brand awareness (45%) first and foremost, in addition to driving traffic (37%) and generating leads (36%).
The study noted: “Because people have different learning styles, it’s important to create content that appeals to different audiences and their needs and fit in various stages of the content funnel”.
Looking ahead to the rest of 2022, 41% of respondents said they are planning to use their content budgets to build larger communities on social media, while 40% will focus on creating more high-quality written content.
The study also found that the most searched queries related to content have changed slightly, with “content marketing examples” topping the list ahead of “content marketing strategy”.
