One of the questions Pilar & I are often asked when we talk about Content Marketing is “What can I blog about? Are people really interested in van rental in Harrow” (or whatever it is that you do). I guess the answer is possibly, no, but there are 2 reasons why you should ignore that negative voice in your head & these are:

1) Your competitors are probably thinking that too, but they probably haven’t read our book “The Lazy Website Syndrome” so they are not as well informed
2) Google is interested in your content. I explain why below.

Why Content Marketing?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has changed forever. The way that the internet is moving, SEO is all about Content Marketing. That is to say that rather than the old school link building which is a bit spammy & which Google has caught up with, they are looking for authority websites & they confer authority by what you write & how people respond to what you write, especially in social media. This is why Content Marketing is increasingly important because it is harder to fake.

Some Examples of Content Marketing

The trick is to try to become the “goto” person in your field. That might sound a bit strange, but someone needs to fulfil that role & it might as well be you.

Let’s use the example of car rental in Harrow. Start in your outbox with your FAQs & create a blog post for each one. In the case of car/van rental you can create reviews & even short videos of the vans & the cars you hire maybe when you get a new model in stock. No need for a film crew, just pull out the iPhone & get filming & upload to YouTube with a little commentary & embed the video in the blog.

Also, you have a focus on a particular geographical area in North London. You can create a what’s on guide in Harrow, Pinner, Ruislip, etc.. Maybe subscribe to some RSS feeds from local news providers to get ideas from them. That will all help to make sure that Google understands you are in these areas.

Don’t forget the competition & other car/van rental firms. Search on “Car Rental Blogs” or “Van Rental Blogs” to get inspiration. OK, much of it will not be very good & it will be a bit spammy, but there will be some genuine ideas you can pursue.

For example, why do people need to hire vans? Are they moving house/office? Create checklists & put these into blog posts. You can write “7 things to make your office move go smoothly”, then re-use the content & re-write it & create a “Checklist for Office Moves”.

Optimization is Vital for Content Marketing to be Effective

One thing is really important though if you want your content marketing strategy to work. For EVERY single blog post you write, you MUST optimise it. You must try to get a title that has a keyword in it that is related to what you do & that ideally gets traffic. You must ensure that each blog post has the metatags so that Google can identify it & categorise it. You must use the H1 & H2 html tags & include your keyword in that (see our Resources Page for more on these).

There is a great tool which works with WordPress which gives you a percentage score for each item above so you can see if your blog posts are optimised. You can check it out here.

I know it sounds exhausting but I also know that most of your competitors will just not “get” Content Marketing. They would rather spend hundreds of pounds or dollars or euros each month on Pay Per Click. But the real action in Google is in the natural listings (80% of clicks vs 20% for Pay Per Click) so if you devote your time to getting good natural listings you can clean up.

So, focus on Content Marketing to take your business forward & as always, we welcome your comments below.