What is content?
Content is text or visual media found on a website. Text, photos, videos, quizzes, infographics, charts, and tables are all forms of content.
Creators distribute content to a specific online audience via a channel, such as a social media platform, business website, or personal blog. Content can entertain, inform, persuade, or explain.
Content creation software helps businesses develop content for campaigns and initiatives. Marketing teams use these tools to make content calendars for planning purposes or to create the content itself.
Types of content
Endless types of content exist on the internet. Companies typically choose the kind that conveys information in the best way for their audience. A broad range of content is explained below.
- Web content: Without content, web pages would be blank. Copywriters produce compelling text to fill these pages and make readers take a desired action. Graphic designers and photographers contribute visual media as additional content.
- Blogs and articles: Individuals and companies often use blogs to share content with site visitors consistently; news and magazine sites post daily articles to keep readers informed or entertained. Blogs and articles range from around 300 words to more than 2,000.
- Case studies: Businesses that sell products or services often post case studies or customer success stories to convince on-the-fence visitors to convert. These case studies detail concrete facts and statistics to demonstrate the company’s value to the customer.
- Infographics, charts, and tables: Content can consist of numbers without words. Businesses and scientific organizations publish data in graphs or tables. With a graphic designer's help, they can turn information into an impressive infographic.
- Photos, illustrations, and videos: Websites, blogs, articles, and social media users rely on visual content to keep readers engaged. User-generated content often falls under this category since creators post photos or videos of themselves enjoying a product.
- Podcasts: People maintain podcasts to draw traffic to their site, engage audiences, or earn advertising revenue. This audio content usually consists of speakers who talk about a topic they know well and host guests who contribute additional insights.
- Webinars: Often, businesses host webinars and presentations with audio and visual components as part of the launch of their products or services. This content presents the hosting organization as an authority and convinces attendees to make a purchase.
- Whitepapers and eBooks: Long-form content provides in-depth information on a topic. Whitepapers use facts and statistics to offer solutions to an issue, and eBooks are the electronic version of physical books. Users typically download both types of content in a PDF version.
Basic elements of content
Diverse content still has basic elements in common and essential features.
- A topic. Companies and individuals usually start their content creation process by brainstorming a list of relevant topics. They then strategically choose from this list to fill their content calendar.
- Format. Once a creator selects a topic, they have to determine what format that topic should take. For instance, they may decide that the subject works best as a sales page or an instructional video.
- Keywords. Web content uses intentionally placed keywords to attract the attention of search engines and help the content rank. Even visual content, such as images or charts, can use keywords in their headings, captions, and metadata.
- Channel. All types of content need a distribution strategy, including a plan for the various platforms where it can be published.
Benefits of content
A popular adage states that “content is king”. In other words, content presents various advantages for companies seeking visibility and revenue. Content creation may be able to:
- Boost brand awareness. Publishing content across various channels puts a company’s brand in front of new audiences, increasing brand awareness, brand recognition, and loyalty.
- Increase a company’s authority. Organizations can turn to content creation to establish themselves as leaders in their field. If a company consistently posts expert demand generation content on its blog, readers will seek that company for its knowledge and refer others to the site.
- Rank on search engines. By producing optimized content, companies have a better chance of ranking higher on search engines. That way, users conducting organic searches can find them more easily.
- Increase leads and conversions. Organizations can create and distribute interesting content on social media to pique curiosity and lead readers back to their sites. Web content can also take users down the company’s funnel and get them to sign up for an email list, opt-in for a free demo, or purchase a product.
Content best practices
With so many types and options for distribution, businesses can quickly become overwhelmed with content creation. Many companies outsource this work to freelancers or hire in-house content managers, strategists, or writers. Regardless of who is creating the content, best practices involve:
- Starting with strategy. Many companies create content because they know they should but don’t have a real plan. For better outcomes, they should consider their financial or marketing goals and create a strategy that helps achieve those goals.
- Doing keyword research. Companies can use keyword research tools to find relevant keywords with a high monthly traffic volume. These platforms also indicate how easy it is to rank for keywords in search engines.
- Creating briefs. To ensure that written content meets the company’s goals, team leads should develop creative briefs that let the writer or creator know the length, keywords, target audience, and objectives. Often these briefs contain a “what to include” or an outline.
- Repurposing. Content doesn’t have to be “one and done”. Organizations that invest in an eBook might repurpose sections as blogs or social media posts. They can also adapt a LinkedIn post to use on Twitter, for example.
- Updating regularly. Older content can continue to generate leads for companies if creators conduct periodic “refreshes". Companies should refresh web content or blog posts to ensure factual accuracy, update links, or apply new search engine optimization (SEO) practices.
Help your company’s writers create better blogs and articles by creating stronger content briefs.
Kelly Fiorini
Kelly Fiorini is a freelance writer for G2. After ten years as a teacher, Kelly now creates content for mostly B2B SaaS clients. In her free time, she’s usually reading, spilling coffee, walking her dogs, and trying to keep her plants alive. Kelly received her Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Notre Dame and her Master of Arts in Teaching from the University of Louisville.
