You might have a business that attracts clients in a totally new way. People might come to you through word of mouth and rarely do your leads come from organically searching you. Which means that improving SEO might not actually be a priority for your marketing plan. Although rare, there are a few businesses that I can think of where this might be the case.
But does that mean that you shouldn’t worry about content writing at all? Absolutely not! Because you’re forgetting about a really core part of marketing: establishing credibility.
Now, before I start talking about content marketing as a credibility builder, let me just clarify on what credibility building is. In the most simple terms: it’s making people trust you (and your product or service) enough to do business with you.
Do you build credibility by churning out content without any SEO?
It’s a good question, and it really depends on your audience. If you have an audience that is very vocal about the content they crave, then yes – you can build all kinds of credibility by creating lots of good stuff for them to read (even if nobody else finds it). But this requires having a highly engaged niche community around the internet. And even if people do talk about it, social media buzz might not be enough to convince one particular client to hire you on the spot or tell their friends/colleagues to hire you as well (which is usually how actual hiring happens nowadays)
What is brand credibility?
Credibility is how much people build trust in a brand.
It can be done through content writing as well as content marketing which includes written, visual, audio or video media and this is effective even if you don’t build it to attract new clients via SEO.
The written word acts as the framework for all other content formats.
Content writing will build credibility with your existing customers or clients by giving them something of value that they want to share with others. But even more importantly, it makes you look like an expert because it takes expertise to create valuable content. Even if you are not trying to build your business using search engine optimisation (SEO), there’s still a lot of reasons why you should consider writing high quality and well thought out articles.
Why do potential clients need to see you as credible?
It is important for your potential customers to build trust in you as a professional before they are ready to pay you money. This takes time and effort.
People build trust in their computer, tablet or smartphone by using it every day, but not so much with real people yet. They build it over years of working with someone, not because they read an article about that person on the internet. It takes a lot more than just an online presence, like Facebook or Twitter accounts for example. You have to build rapport and establish a long term relationship between the client and yourself. That means written content geared specifically towards them from you (not generic stuff copied from another site) posted regularly for months or even years if possible while nurturing them along the way. The more you build trust in them, the more likely they will become ready to work with you.
Interesting content writing is valuable for its own sake. It’s not something that only works as a way to build credibility so you can get new clients. Content helps build your brand and potential clients build trust in you over time through repeated exposure to your ideas and offerings. People build bonds through repetitive exposure to positive information like this, especially if it is what they are looking for in the first place (referred by word of mouth from someone else they trusted). They form an emotional bond with both the information itself and who presented it to them.
The more content you build, the faster and stronger they build this bond
How does content writing build credibility?
There is a different type of trust involved in working with someone versus reading an article about them or visiting their website. This is called personal brand trust because people build it through repeated exposure to your personality, point of view and offerings (whatever they may be).
It takes time for clients to build any level of personal brand trust in you so don’t expect it to happen overnight. It’s not like they read one article from you and are ready to start doing business with you right away. The more content articles they read that resonates with them emotionally and helps solve their problems the more likely they will see value in working with you in the future. And you will be top of mind whenever someone is considering what you offer.
There are two ways to build credibility with articles: build it externally by making your website more popular, and build it internally by trying to appear as an authority within your niche. But of course a lot of people don’t build their credibility externally anymore because the whole SEO thing has become so difficult that they’ve given up on external links entirely. It’s not just the rise in competition for gaining backlinks from quality sites; creating and controlling enough content is also harder than ever before. You have to create top-quality content if you want to be able to link out (and who wants to link out crappy stuff?), but at the same time you need links built in order to build up your overall authority within a field. This makes sense, right?
Content articles the establish credibility contain the following:
- Statistics and studies.
- Quotes from other credible people.
- Case studies/personal stories from clients.
- Proof that you know what you are talking about.
You can build your credibility with content articles by using SEO techniques
Even if your business is not interested in attracting new clients via search engines, you can build credibility with the right kind of content. You may have heard that keyword stuffing won’t build credibility because it will hurt your site’s ranking when Google updates their algorithm. However, this doesn’t mean you should never build credibility. In fact, there are ways to build a good reputation for your website by using SEO strategies without keyword stuffing and while staying within Google’s guidelines.
By focusing on building credibility instead of just attracting new clients, you build trust with potential clients by giving them useful information they need to know about your industry or product .
This does not mean that you should overlook promoting yourself as a credible source, too. You don’t have to build a reputation as the top expert in your field or even build one based on quality information alone. You can build credibility, attract new clients, and build trust all at once by following these tips:
1. Put your content writing efforts into building credibility instead of SEO
When you build your website’s reputation with content articles that are not only well written but also useful, hardworking people will find out about them through social media and via other websites’ links to the original article. These days there are lots of ways to get the word out about your online presence without having to pay for advertising. Use this free publicity and build business relationships with potential clients over time by providing good information worth linking to.
2. Build your credibility by making sure your content articles build trust with potential clients
When you build credibility, you build up the trust that comes with it when visitors to your website read or hear about your company’s positive experiences in their community. Potential clients will keep coming back to check on new content from a reliable source even if they aren’t ready to buy right away. This gives you time to build the relationship further before they do decide to reach out and find out more about doing business with you .
3. Build more credibility by promoting your content articles effectively
By following the steps on how to build credibility in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines , you can build up the trust that comes with being an authority site and attract new clients as a result . It is all about building up your reputation over time instead of trying to build a quick buck from throwing around keywords. No one does keyword stuffing anymore anyway, so if you have been doing this for years, it’s time to stop now because no one will take you seriously. Instead, build up your website’s credibility with good content articles that build trust through providing useful information .
4. Promote your content effectively
You can build a lot of trust for yourself in a short amount of time when you build your content articles effectively. By writing about what people are searching for in the related searches section at the bottom of each article, you can build credibility without keyword stuffing and build authority much faster than by waiting for things to happen naturally over time .
When you build your results well with good articles and links from other sources, it will stand out among your competitors’ websites that may be less relevant to a potential client’s needs. This is how to build credibility and trust instead of having low rankings due to bad SEO usage and keyword stuffing.
5. Promoting yourself as the top expert through building up a strong reputation
If you want to build up a reputation as the authoritative source for whatever topic you are covering, then marketing should not be the focus of your efforts. Instead, build up your website’s reputation with good content articles worth linking to and building trust instead . As you build credibility with good articles, people will link to them naturally over time as a result (and so will you if the information is valuable enough).