In 1895, the John Deere company published “The Furrow,” a magazine designed to help farmers do their jobs and be more profitable. This was the birth of content marketing and the notion that brands would do well by genuinely helping their audiences. It did extremely well for John Deere, but the concept of content marketing didn’t really catch on with other brands.
Instead, a different, more intrusive advertising tactic took off and dominated the industry for the next 100 years or so — until the Internet came along.
How advertising tactics evolved
From around 1900 to the mid-1990s, companies bought space in public media and used that space to sell directly to consumers. At first, these ads placed in newspapers, magazines and radio weren’t all that annoying because people were genuinely curious about the products and services available to them.
But after a while company messages slowly started to permeate every nook and cranny where people got their information or entertainment: TV commercials, radio ads, print ads, cold calling, billboards, outdoor posters, and direct mail. As time went on and money flowed, there was an exponential increase in the number of ads the average person saw per day. By 1990, the average person was hit with around 4,000 ad messages on the daily. And those ads were (mostly) annoying because they hijacked your eyes, ears, and brain while you were trying to read, listen, and think. This is appropriately called “interruption marketing.” It was… annoying.
Interruption marketing goes digital
By the mid-90s, with the popularization of the Internet, the number of places people were informed and entertained exploded. In 1994, a New York-based agency ran the very first banner ad. Then they were everywhere all the time. So, in addition to the traditional interruption advertising they got on TV, radio, and so on, people were now inundated when they went online with banners, pop-ups, social ads, ad landing pages, et cetera ad nauseum.This strategy included a new thing called search engine marketing (SEM), also known as paid search marketing. They were those pesky, but highly-targeted faux search results you typically see before legitimate listings. Once again, interruptive and annoying. Early search engine optimization (SEO) also hit the scene, with brands learning that practices like keyword stuffing and buying backlinks drove traffic. Thankfully, Google has come a long way, and these spam tactics no longer result in positive outcomes (quite the opposite in fact!).
Google takes action against Internet spam
With the boom of digital marketing, new inventions like the ad blocker, subscription entertainment, and TiVo, gave people the power to skip, block, and avoid interruptive ads altogether. Honestly, it was genuinely refreshing.
Suddenly, the all-powerful online banner ad was less effective than running a blank rectangle and hoping people clicked on it by accident. In fact, statistical evidence at the time showed that a person was more likely to survive a plane crash than to click on a banner ad. In 2000, Google became the Internet search engine of choice, and started improving how information showed up. While search results were less “spammy” and even more localized, consumers were still being inundated with unwanted content. Things got so bad that somewhere in 2008, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the “Internet was becoming a cesspool.” Google decided to clean it up by cracking down on the so-called ‘black hat SEO’ tactics used to game the algorithm. It’s (still) not perfect, but users started being served higher-quality content from recognizable and trusted brands.
Google holds brands to an even higher standard
To make Google Search a place consumers could go for truly trustworthy information, the search engine’s famed algorithm began to put even greater weight on trusted, well-established brands. Content from big brands started to dominate Google’s page one, making it easier for companies to stand out in the sea of spam that was organic search. This meant they didn’t have to rely entirely on interruptive marketing anymore. Now, brands could meet consumers in their moment of need (searching on Google) with valuable and accurate information, guidance, and education. Everyone wins.
This dynamic was especially true for Google’s “Your Money, Your Life” (YMYL) category of content, which covers brands in finance, legal, health, wellness, and the like. Due to its elevated importance in the average person’s life, and the importance that Google places on maintaining the public trust, YMYL editorial content is held to a higher standard of quality and accuracy (as it should be). So when you visit Experian online for information on building credit or the Johns Hopkins Medicine site to learn about a health condition, you know the information is from a trusted source. To ensure the cream rises to the top, Google also employs real people to cross-check sites against its rigorous Search Quality Rater Guidelines. These search raters evaluate content (and websites as a whole) for E-E-A-T – AKA Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness. While E-E-A-T doesn’t directly affect search rankings (so Google claims), brands that demonstrate E-E-A-T seem to be rewarded with higher visibility in search.
Move over, interruptive marketing. Make way for content marketing.
The original John Deere strategy from 100 years ago has now come full circle. Not only with the rise of brands on Google, but also with content marketing across all digital platforms. As the Content Marketing Institute describes content marketing, “(It) provides relevant and useful content to prospects and customers to help them solve issues in their work (B2B content) or personal lives (B2C content).”
Brands started pushing out billions of search engine-optimized editorial blogs, how-to’s, eBooks, and guides. Some brands even created entire editorial departments — staffed with industry experts, ex-journalists, and other trusted sources — to fuel this ongoing need for more and more helpful content. They also turn to freelance writers, many of whom are well-published experts. This not only boosts the quality of the content, but expert bylines and bios tend to improve E-E-A-T signals, too.By 2014, Forbes claimed that the use of content marketing by corporations had jumped from 60% a year to 93% as part of their overall marketing strategy. But it wasn’t just blogs. With the help of social media, email marketing, and landing pages, brands also started publishing other kinds of digital and printed content, including white papers, playbooks, newsletters, videos, Reddit AMAs, webinars and the like — all with no hard sell. Brands had essentially become media companies.
How brands can use Google Search
More than 15 years since Google decided brands would be the ones to “clean up” the Internet, the search giant continues to hone its algorithm to deliver relevant, accurate, and trusted search engine results (SERPs). And its latest major update is no different, putting heavy emphasis on “helpful content.” To succeed, brands not only need to be trustworthy experts, but also genuinely helpful to searchers.
For example, Google rewards a sealant brand that publishes step-by-step video instructions, delivered by an independent expert, on how to fix a roof leak. Or a credit monitoring service that provides easy-to-understand advice on how to fix or build your credit. When this type of brand-generated content is genuinely helpful (and comes from a website Google deems reputable), it typically gets rewarded with a top spot in search engine results pages (SERP). This tends to lead to more traffic, online engagement, conversions, and revenue.
The race to rank
Today, people turn to Google with the intent to have a specific need met more than ever before. With 99,000 search queries every second, 8.5 billion searches per day, and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year, Google Search is a uniquely powerful and wonderfully efficient way for companies to reach their target audience at all stages of their buying journey.
According to Conductor, a leading SEO tool, organic search contributes 36% of all website traffic to brand websites in six key industries: finance, healthcare, retail, technology, travel & hospitality, and professional services. In fact, one Pinwheel client that has leaned heavily into content has seen a 140X ROI.
So how can your brand earn and maintain organic visibility in Google’s most coveted real estate? The answer: editorial content. Also known as SEO content.
We’re not talking about a few blogs here and there, unless you’re a local business or small brand. If you want to rank with the best of them, it helps to have a fully stocked “Knowledge Center” or “Resource Hub” on your website with a variety of content types — all designed to serve up your brand’s expertise when consumers go searching on Google.
Then, to stay on top, you’ll need to refresh all of your existing content often and constantly be adding new content, too. Oh, and we don’t recommend you use AI content generation programs to make this magic happen. More on that later.
Editorial content boosts brands
While creating (and sustaining) a successful editorial program is a good amount of work, the right kind of editorial content has tremendous power. Whether your brand’s editorial program has been cranking since 2009 or is just getting started, having human-focused content helps your brand build trust and establish credibility with both your current customers and new prospects. It’s always running, has a very long tail and has built in relevance to the audience.
Pinwheel Content Engine client, Experian, for example, sees over 50% of their non-logged-in (often prospect) traffic from the 5,000 expert-written articles we helped them publish and optimize. If the reader has an immediate need, they may even buy your product after reading your content — driving conversions and sales.
How editorial programs work
Today’s Google algorithm attempts to get in sync with the human algorithm, so it all boils down to this question: “What’s the best way to help the Google-searching audience with the thing that they are trying to do, learn, or discover?”
To illustrate how to meet a real person’s search query with genuinely useful content, let’s take a look at how a simple editorial program would come together at a company that sells charcoal grills. Let’s call them Grilltastic.
- Research. With the hope of getting customers to run head on into useful content about grilling (and their grills) Grilltastic conducts audience research to find out what topics people are searching for in Google-land using tools like Ahrefs, Conductor, or SemRush.
- Planning. They then create and implement a targeted content strategy based on search intent, keywords, and relevant topic areas that demonstrate their grilling mastery.
- Content creation. Grilltastic then hires experts to create the content, the bulk of which is blog style articles (and other digital content, like short videos) about charcoal grilling. Think how-to’s, guides to having the best summer ever, grilling recipes, BBQ playlists, demos and reviews from real customers, and more.
- Consumer engagement. A searcher, let’s call her Heidi Smith, is thinking about switching from gas to charcoal this summer and searches Google for the “benefits of charcoal grilling.” Up comes a slew of interesting articles, videos, and infographics from Grilltastic.
- Conversion. Grilltastic’s helpful content sends Heidi deep into the world of charcoal grilling. She learns a lot and, along the way, takes a peek at Grilltastic’s grills and accessories.
Rev up your own editorial content engine
To generate the right kind of editorial content you’ll need a well-oiled machine that can put out new articles on a regular basis. This may mean 15, 20, or even 100 articles a month — the cadence varies widely. Once published, you’ll need to keep that content optimized and updated to ensure it continues to perform.
To do this well, it takes an editorial team of experienced content strategists, SEO strategists, writers, editors, and producers. It’s not unlike running a small newsroom. You’ll also need to have a tried-and-true process for consistently creating that high quality content. And if you’re a YMYL brand, you’ll need a compliance process, too. Sound overwhelming? Pinwheel can help. Reach out for a free assessment to find out how a Pinwheel Content Engine can help you win the battle of helpfulness and drive exponential growth.
