Eleven ways content marketing grows a business

Each item below is a mechanism with a condition attached. The condition is the part usually left out, and it is why the same tactic works for one business and produces nothing for another.

1. Answer the questions asked on sales calls

Works when your sales conversations repeat. Write the full answer, including what will not work. It shortens calls and it ranks, because the question is being searched by people who have not called yet.

2. Publish the data you already have

Works when you operate something that generates numbers nobody outside can see. Aggregate it, anonymise it, publish the analysis. This is the single hardest piece of content to copy and the easiest to get referenced.

3. Build a tool instead of writing about the task

Works when the reader has a calculation or a check they perform repeatedly. A tool gets used, bookmarked and linked, which an article about the same task rarely does.

4. Write the comparison your buyers are already making

Works when there are two or three obvious alternatives to you. Someone is searching your name against a competitor’s right now, and the page they find is either yours or theirs. Be honest about where the other option is better, which is what makes the rest credible.

5. Document the process publicly

Works when your process is a differentiator and you are not afraid of it being copied. Showing how the work is done converts the readers who were unsure whether you know what you are doing.

6. Turn support tickets into pages

Works when the same question arrives repeatedly. The ticket already contains the question in the customer’s words and the answer in yours. Deflection saves support time and the page earns search traffic.

7. Write for the person who has to justify the purchase internally

Works in B2B with a committee. Your champion needs something to forward. A page that states the cost, the risk and the implementation effort plainly is more useful to them than a page about benefits.

8. Go deep on one narrow subject nobody covers well

Works when your field has a technical corner that generalist publishers get wrong. Being the best page on a narrow subject is achievable. Being the best page on a broad one is a multi-year project.

9. Keep the good pages current

Works always, and is the highest return per hour available in content. A page already ranking that gets genuinely updated recovers position faster than a new page earns it.

10. Build an email list off the useful pages

Works when you have something worth sending. Search and social both change under you. Email is the only audience you keep.

11. Retire what is not working

Works on any site with an archive. Weak pages dilute the topical picture and bury the strong ones. Consolidating five thin posts into one good page usually improves all the metrics the five were failing at.

The condition behind all eleven

Someone has to be searching for, or asking about, the thing you publish. If nobody is asking, the best-written page in your category gets read by your colleagues.

Check that first, for every idea on this list, before writing anything.

If you want the check done against real query data, it is the first phase of search visibility work.