What is informational content? 

Informational content is any content you create for your business that is designed to educate, inform or engage with your potential customers. When you create this content you should think about customer’s pain points and how your business can solve them as well as answer any questions they might have about your business or industry. 

Blog posts, whitepapers, ebooks, videos and infographics are all examples of informational content. These should all form part of your SEO and content marketing strategy.

Why should informational content form part of your SEO strategy? 

People search online because they want to know something, do something or go somewhere. In fact, 86% of consumers say that a search engine is the best way to get information. 

By answering the questions your customers are searching for and optimising it for the right keywords, you increase your chances of appearing in the search engine results pages when your potential customers are searching online. 

When conducting keyword research for informational content, always check the intent of the keywords you’re using. Informational keywords indicate a searcher’s intent to learn more about a specific topic. These keywords provide you with a great opportunity to educate potential customers about your products or services and drive them towards a purchase. 

Where does informational content sit in the user journey? 

Informational content often sits across the marketing and provides you with a way to drive users to your website, educate them about what you do and gently lead them towards a purchase. 

We follow the RACE model when it comes to digital marketing strategies for our clients. This model documents the stages a customer moves through before they make a purchase from you. You should also look to ensure your digital marketing activities fit into these stages too. 

Informational content should be used at each stage of this funnel and will serve different purposes as you guide your customers towards a purchase. 

Here’s how you can use informational content in each stage: 

• Reach - blog posts optimised for informational keywords, infographics and explainer videos. This stage is all about educating your audience about who you are and what you do. 
• Act - ebooks, whitepapers and other free resources will work well here. These people already have an awareness of your business and are likely to be willing to part with their contact information in exchange for useful information. 
• Convert - utilise case studies, reviews and product or service demo videos here. These customers are just about to make a purchase so you can push them over the line by providing them with extra information that your competitors might be lacking. 
• Engage - provide how-to videos or detailed product guides at this stage. These customers have already converted but, by keeping them engaged, you can turn them into repeat customers. Offering additional value post-purchase is one of the best ways to do this. 

For more information on the marketing funnel, read our blog: Marketing through the funnel: Making your digital marketing strategy more effective.

Top 5 benefits of utilising informational content within your digital marketing strategy  

Informational content should always be used within your digital marketing strategy. Let’s have a look at the key benefits: 

1. Builds trust and credibility 

Content such as blog posts or videos that answer customer’s key questions is perfect for building trust, credibility and authority in your industry. If you can keep providing helpful and informative content, you will help to position your website as a go-to resource in your industry.  

By providing valuable information to your audience, you build trust with them and lead them further towards making a purchase from you, rather than your competitors who may not provide the same information. This trust is key to building long-term relationships with your customers and driving repeat purchases. 

In addition, informational content that’s focused around the keywords your audience is using will help search engines such as Google to understand your business and your areas of expertise. 

Why does this matter? It bolsters your SEO efforts by aligning your website with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines and improves the chances of your website ranking for other related keywords which boosts your visibility in the search engines. 

2. Supports your SEO strategy 

We have already touched on this but there’s no doubt about the importance of informational content within your SEO strategy. Creating content optimised for relevant keywords and phrases to your business and audience, you dramatically increase the chances of improving your search engine rankings. 

Once you’re appearing in the top positions for highly relevant keywords, you’re going to be driving organic traffic to your website which gives you the opportunity to drive even more leads or conversions. 

Plus, by following a topic cluster approach to creating content, you can build authority with the search engines AND build a solid internal linking strategy for your website (something else that’s essential for a successful SEO strategy!). 

A topic cluster approach involves grouping pieces of content together around one theme or topic. Build a pillar page to provide an overview of a particular topic and then link out to cluster pages which cover they key questions or information around that topic in detail. As you build out topic clusters, your website will start to perform better in the search engines. 

Hubspot 

3. Drives traffic and engagement 

One of the key objectives of a successful SEO strategy is to drive more traffic to your website. However, there’s a difference between just traffic and qualified traffic - and this is where informational content comes in. By optimising content for keywords that are relevant to your business, only people who are searching for these keywords and the content related to it are going to visit your website. This means they actually have an interest in what you do and are more likely to buy from you in the future. 

In addition, having helpful content on your website will help to keep visitors engaged for longer, giving you more opportunity to help them convert. Once your audience realises you’re a reliable source of information, they will keep coming back time and time again. 

4. Facilitates lead generation and conversion 

By educating your potential customers about your products or services, you have the chance to nurture them with informative content at every stage of their journey. 

Once you’ve driven someone to your website through a search engine, you can gather their contact details and keep them engaged and informed until they’re ready to make a purchase. Not only does this answer their questions and provide your business as a solution to their problems, it also keeps your brand top of mind when they’re ready to make a purchase. 

Plus, if you can answer your customer’s questions and solve their problems at every stage of their journey, you’re going to be miles ahead of your competitors who may not be providing informational content. By drip feeding this information, you’re in a much better position to convert traffic and leads into customers. 

5. Enhances customer retention 

By providing ongoing value to your customers throughout their journey, you build long-lasting relationships with them. And, if you continue to provide informative content after they have converted you can strengthen these relationships further by addressing their needs and concerns. It’s much more cost-effective to drive repeat purchases than it is to continuously drive leads at the top of the funnel so it’s essential to use informative content even once your customers have converted. 

Whether it’s providing content on your website or sending them a monthly email newsletter, this is the best way to encourage repeat purchases and foster brand loyalty.  

Key takeaways 

There’s no doubt about the power of including informational content within your digital marketing strategy. Not only should it form a large part of your SEO strategy, it should be considered throughout the full customer journey too.

We highly recommend dedicating resources to finding out EXACTLY what your customers want to know and creating content that answers these questions. Creating content might require internal resources or input from a third party but the investment is worth it to nurture those customer relationships and drive leads and conversions for your business. 

If you’d like to know more about creating an effective digital marketing strategy, get in touch with our team. 

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