Search | Weareunity

Why it is crucial to have a content marketing strategy for your business?

So, what is blogging and content marketing?

Within this blog, we will be explaining the two above terms, providing you with a clear understanding and giving you food for thought on what you can implement within your own company.

Did you know: Businesses that contribute to the art of blogging produce 73% more leads than companies that have decided not to go down this route.

Interested? Read on.

Explain blogging to me

You have most likely heard the term blogging and even read some blogs yourself across the Internet. This term comes from “weblog”. This refers to the act of publishing informative content onto a website platform.

Blogs can take many shapes and forms however and can pursue a variety of backgrounds – from educational to personal and corporate content. The possibilities of blog writing are truly endless!

If you’re new to blogging or looking to have a blog section for your company website, you can find more information right here.

Okay. so, what’s content marketing?

When it comes to company productivity, creating blogs is simply not enough to make a mark in society. Blogging is a fantastic tool, but in order for blogging to be truly effective for a business, it needs to be placed within a strategic marketing plan – blogging then becomes a valuable asset to drive results and produce potential conversions.

This is what makes content marketing. Having the attributes to create and publish strategic, valuable and consistent content in order to educate and attract an audience.

At Unity, we use buyer personas.

Now, a buyer persona is where we produce research and create a semi-fictional customer that would be the ideal fit for a companies target audience.

This allows us to build customer loyalty and deliver core value to these personas, attracting the right target audience who are marketed with the relevant content and attracting those conversions to take place.

That is the difference between blogging and content marketing – content marketing is all about driving customers through the purchase funnel and proceed with a conversion in order to drive those results home.

At the end of the day, it is so important to make sure that you don’t treat your consumers as a sale, treat them as your neighbour. Communication is key and in order to create that C2B relationship, you need to acquire the customer’s trust, create engaging high-quality content and provide something new so your customer will directly come back to you and not your competitors.

Content marketing can promote itself in an array of forms – not just the form of blogging.

Below is a list of just a few possibilities that you could pursue to align with your blog:

Social Media
Infographics
Video Content
Animation

With the variety of channels, you can undergo in order to create those conversions, the possibilities are endless.

Brilliant. What should I do now?

So, when it comes to what the differentiations are between blogging and content marketing, you should have a deeper understanding.

We always produce a variety of strategies and tests when it comes to producing engaging content for all our clients, so it is very important that you undergo the exact same process.

A few key aspects to remember:

Create a content marketing strategy for your blogs. If there is no strategy, you will have a much lower chance of creating value and converting those leads.
If you are not providing core value to your customers, then this is not content marketing. Fact.
Blogging is a tool for your business. Content marketing is the toolbox.
Remember, it is important to align your content projects with that of other marketing directions such as email marketing and social media, in order to enhance your content’s success rates and build a stronger brand personality online.

What are your thoughts?

At Unity, we are passionate about content marketing. Let’s face it, it is all around us and will continue to be a presence in the future of the marketing world.

It enables you to bring value, trust, the generating of leads and finally convert customers to purchase your services and products.

To find out more about effective content marketing, speak to our team today who will be happy to have a chat about your content marketing opportunities

Why you should write a blog for your small business – right now

“I’m writing a blog”. A sentence we have heard on the rise for a number of years, but did you know that blogs have been around a lot longer than you think?

Blogs began their ascent into popularity with the term ‘weblog’ in 1997 which was created by John Barger. From the very early beginning, ‘blogging’ has always been a pathway of communication and expression about a chosen topic.

With an increase in usage of popular search engines and social media platforms, blogging has now become a golden opportunity for small businesses to promote and engage with their audience via long content. In addition, blogging is used by many to enhance and bolster content strategies to support ongoing SEO campaigns.

So, with this in mind, we thought it would be a good opportunity to share some of our insight and tips on how you can leverage a blog and ensure your content is helping you grow your business.

Blogging assists your SEO

Blogging assists SEO in many ways and can provide a higher ranking position and overall website performance in search engines.

We have all entered a site where we know straight away it is old. We know this from the font to the images used and the information itself on the page.

So, what do we do? We click straight off it of course.

Google doesn’t want to guide you to these types of websites, they direct you to websites that regularly update their content, giving you a fresh and interesting experience. In terms of search engines, algorithms would be used to index your website on a regular basis, making sure that your site is on their radar.

Another aspect as to why blogging assists your SEO is that it provides you with access to targeting long-tail keywords.

For example: You are a company who sells “cars”. now, naturally, you would want to appear on a high page that ranks “cars”.

While this would be fantastic to rank on the number 1 page for cars, unless you’re the biggest brand of cars sales, it will be very difficult to land the golden spot in terms of search.

SEO is extremely competitive and the best direction for companies to go is to proceed with long-tail keywords that are relevant to your company.

When you are writing a blog, long-tail keywords are a fantastic choice of SEO as they are usually more than four words which would fit well into a blog. A car company who produces blogs can provide key information to their audience like “cars for beginners” or “cars for sale near me”.

With long tail keyword searches, you may not receive as much traffic as our original search “cars” but they will attract users who are searching these long-tail keywords who are clearly your target audience. By generating this choice, you will be able to receive more traffic than you would of if you were on higher pages. Trust us, long-tail keywords are the way to go!

With blog writing, you can also make use of links, both internal and external. This will provide you with the ‘trust factor’ of Google and also other websites, informing them that you are a trustworthy site and have connections within your field.

When you write a blog, and your audience loves it, they will be more inclined to share and comment on it, which will drive traffic to your website, generating new and returning visitors who are expecting brand new content and possibly an opportunity to sign up to your email newsletter.

There are a vast amount of directions you could go with SEO in order to create influence over your targeted audience and you can bet publishing blogs for your small business is one of them.

Shake out your leadership skills

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in – the sky is the limit!

Whether you own a corporate training consultancy or a car dealership, a blog can really help your business, allowing you to shout out about your experience and expertise.

There are many routes you can go down when considering topics to cover for your blog – from “how-to” guides through to your thoughts and opinions on your industries. Not only will this help support and reinforce your company expertise, but it will also aid search efforts. will boost your company further up the pages on Google as they will see you as a leader of your industry with, of course, the attribute of boosting your business’s awareness through search engines and social media platforms.

While touching on social media, you could also promote your blogs with the ‘share’ button. This will allow your readers to share your content across social media to their friends and family, generating an increase in awareness and will produce a higher rate of traffic to your website. Great stuff, right?

Content Marketing is a fantastic opportunity for you and your business as it is said that many readers would rather gain insight from a blog than an advert. So get typing!

Connect with your fellow bloggers and Unite!

In today’s society, blogger outreach is a key mechanism you should implement within your development plan for success, especially if you are a small business.

Creating a list of companies and bloggers that have a core voice within your industry and who you would wish to exchange blog content with will have a fantastic effect on your company. It may surprise you the response you receive from these companies and you know the saying – you don’t know until you try!

The simplistic charm of blogger outreach is that there are endless possibilities for you to expand and create awareness and engagement for your readers and potential clients.

When you proceed with outreach, you create a community with other companies, sharing core values and supporting one another, such as social media platforms where you can like and share each other’s content to build your audience nest and ignite a community within your industry.

What are your thoughts?

Found this article interesting? Then Contact Us today on 0116 473 5923 and lets’ work together to create the ultimate blogs for your audience.

Brighton SEO from a Non-SEO person

Last week, an army of individuals wearing checked shirts and big-rimmed specs (stereotype I know) travelled to Brighton for the second Brighton SEO conference this year.

Having never been to this conference, I was sent along with our very own SEO experts to attend, network and of course, expand my own understanding on SEO best practice.

Having experienced first-hand what this conference is all about; I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon and write up my thoughts.

Disclaimer, there are absolutely no key takeaways here that will add any value to your SEO knowledge.

The amazing location

First and foremost, I love Brighton. So any excuse to visit my favourite place is lapped up. Brighton, with its laid back vibe and alternative attitude feels like the right place to be if you want to be amongst likeminded people, all soaking up the atmosphere in a quirky digital bubble.

With so much to offer, the conference was located on the beachfront with amazing offers to go visit local bars and restaurants. The whole ‘work hard, play hard’ motto was strongly reinforced throughout the conference with many of the exhibitors providing tools and vouchers to either enjoy Brighton or recover from Brighton. My fave – the White Digital goody bag that provided sunglasses and a can of Lucozade. Says it all eh?

Networking opportunities

With 1000’s of industry experts in one place, it is easy to meet others and network. The event attracts diehard SEO techs through to marketing automation experts and digital PR strategists. Hey, it attracted me and I like to classify myself as a ‘generalist’ i.e. digital marketer.

From the pub on Thursday night, through to Smokeys BBQ for lunch, we were surrounded by Brighton SEO’ers.

It was great to meet new people and build strong connections in the industry. Who knows when you may need that one contact right?

The lectures

Brighton SEO is structured in such a way that it helps attendees navigate the day based on their preferred topics.

I chose to attend IDM Academy in the morning session, with the focus on data collection and legal implications to brands and businesses alike. Not only was the session delivered in an engaging and thought provoking way but I genuinely walked away thinking about the various clients I manage and how we need to start considering data collection legalities post Brexit!

I also attended the content session – which, unsurprisingly was at full capacity. Covering topics such as email marketing and content frameworks, there were some gems that I came across – check out my live tweeting from the day by following me on @sarrahahmed01 for some incredibly insightful tweets.

My fave snippets:

1) Data collection post Brexit is tightening up- check your opt in and privacy policies!

2) Content isn’t king. UGC is. Hallelujah!

3) For every £1 spent, email marketing generates £20 on revenue

4) 31% of customers are likely to spend 31% more on a business with excellent reviews (gasp)

5) Pick your platform first and then create the video. One size really doesn’t fit all

Cue shameless plug to follow me on Twitter if you want more snippets ….

So is it worth it?

Without a doubt, it’s the place to be and to be seen if you are an inspiring, mid-weight or established SEO expert. Whilst I am sympathetic to SEO and the importance of it, I am by no means an expert.

As a Digital Marketer, there is value in attending the conference. You’ll be exposed to new content methods but most importantly; you’ll be amongst some of the greatest SEO experts in the UK.