Content marketing is just one element of a strong marketing strategy; it wields the content your business puts out to promote success.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing utilises the content your business creates to attract and retain an audience, to encourage profitable actions, typically purchasing your product or service. You achieve this by producing content that offers value to the reader, whether through education or entertainment.

Is content marketing important to business strategy?

Absolutely. Content marketing is a vital element of a well-rounded marketing strategy. Creating content without purpose is ineffective—it should always serve a clear objective aligned with your business goals. Here are some key benefits of content marketing:

• Improve your online authority
• Expand your audience
• Build trust with your audience
• Increase website traffic
• Boost leads and sales
• Support your SEO efforts

Does content marketing overlap with SEO?

Yes, particularly with on-page SEO. While technical SEO ensures your website functions properly and offers a positive user experience, on-page SEO involves optimising the structure and content of individual pages to help them rank in search results.

Content that is well-optimised not only performs better in search engines but is also more structured, digestible, and valuable for your audience. For instance, keyword research—a core SEO task—can guide the topics and language used in your content to ensure it ranks for terms your audience is searching for.

How to set goals and create a content strategy?

You can build an effective content strategy by breaking the process into manageable steps:

1. Identify your target audience.
2. Outline your goals. Use SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound).
3. Set key performance indicators (KPIs). These help you track and measure your success.
4. Determine content formats and types. Use competitor research and testing to see what resonates.
5. Choose content distribution channels. Think beyond blogs—can your content be adapted for TikTok or Instagram?
6. Set your budget. Factor in both time and financial resources.
7. Create a content plan. Schedule content, plan types, and structure it to support performance analysis.
8. Create and publish. Ensure content quality through thorough checks before going live.
9. Incorporate content analysis into your long-term strategy. Use insights to refine and evolve your approach.

How do I analyse my content performance?

Performance analysis begins with your KPIs and goals. Use tools like Google Analytics 4 to track metrics such as:

• Page views
• Engagement rate (time spent, comments, likes, shares)
• Conversions or sign-ups

Compare each piece of content against your KPIs. Identify what performed well and what didn’t. Then, evaluate why: was it the format, the message, or the platform? Use this insight to guide future content creation and continually improve your strategy.

Do I need to research when copywriting?

Research is a critical step in the process of content creation, whether it’s finding inspiration whilst ideating or gathering statistics that will inform your discussion. Having research materials can majorly benefit you and the quality of your content.

Research is so important. Eugene Schwartz famously said that effective copywriting is 80% research and 20% writing, showing just how much groundwork goes into crafting the perfect message.

What does research help with?

It ensures you can understand a subject, create well-informed and factual content, and gain insight into how others approach the same topic. You’ll start to notice how others structure similar content and where gaps exist, giving you the chance to identify niches or perspectives that make your own content stand out.

The bottom line: why research is critical

Research transforms assumptions into intelligence, helping you understand who you’re speaking to, what they care about, and how they think. It’s the difference between shotgun messaging and sniper‐targeted persuasion. Skipping it risks wasting resources—and worse, selling nothing.

Are there different types of research?

Yes. There are three core types of research that support content creation:

Primary Research is the process of collecting data for yourself. It allows you to directly ask the audience for their response, usually through polls, interviews, or focus groups. It’s useful when you want tailored, specific insights to shape your message.

Secondary Research can be internal or external. Internal research involves analysing historic data or reports your business already holds, while external research draws from sources like studies, quotes, statistics, infographics, or reputable articles. These materials help reinforce your message with context and credibility.

Tertiary Research summarises information from both primary and secondary sources. While it doesn’t offer deep analysis, it’s useful for quick referencing or to confirm key terms. Examples include encyclopedias, dictionaries, and thesauruses.

What is the best approach to researching?

As you begin the process of ideating, this is the perfect moment to start exploring. Your topic—and your eventual content—can end up being strongly shaped by what you discover during this phase.

If you’re unsure whether a subject will resonate with your audience, this is the time to dig into audience research and validate its relevance. Once you feel confident in your idea, widen your scope. Look beyond search engines—use books, research journals, industry publications, and competitor content. Diversifying your sources strengthens your perspective and helps you avoid generic or outdated information.

When your topic is set, you can move into keyword research. At this point, your focus shifts to identifying core and supporting keywords, along with long-tail variations that help optimise your content for searchability and audience intent.

Final Thoughts

Good copy doesn’t begin with writing—it begins with listening, observing, and investigating. Research is what turns creative instincts into strategic decisions. By building your process around it, you’re not just producing content—you’re crafting content with purpose.

So before you write, take time to explore. You might just uncover the insight that transforms your next piece from ordinary to unforgettable.

Your website isn’t just a brochure

We recognise the common misconception that a website is that it doesn’t need to be frequently updated with content in order to deliver for the audience. However, that’s just untrue. Yes, a business’s website should absolutely include information regarding the services or products they sell, but it also needs to offer value beyond that.

A website needs to serve its users but also evolve with them in order to retain them. This can be through taking part in trends, creating content optimised for search engines, to add additional value and keep customers returning.

Fresh Content Signals to Google That Your Site Is Active

Search engines tend to favour websites that are regularly updated with fresh and valuable content. Google, for instance, will actually have a preference in how ‘fresh’ content is, depending on how timely the subject matter being handled is. A few examples of timely content include news articles, studies and trends.

This is a consideration that needs to be made when creating content. Having an appreciation for Google’s tendency to favour fresher content for its results, allows you to better strategies how to keep content fresh. If your competitor updates their blog monthly and you haven’t touched your site in 2 years, guess whose site gets crawled more often?

Updated Content Builds Trust with Visitors

It’s apparent when content is dated, whether that’s due to price changes that aren’t reflected in the content, or specific times are included in the content that date it.

Fresh content reinforces the impression that the reader gets, which is that it’s professional, demonstrating an attention to detail, and that your content is relevant. This is especially important in industries like beauty, healthcare, and dentistry, where trust and credibility are key.

Your customer’s questions and concerns will always evolve, which creates an opportunity to constantly make new, useful and fresh content that builds trust with the audience. So even if your services stay the same, your customers’ needs and search habits shift.

There are a handful of instances where content will need to be updated, some examples of this include changing regulations in various industries, any aftercare advice, or seasonal new treatments and industry trends.

Blogging Isn’t Just for SEO — It Shows You’re an Expert

Whilst blogging does serve your business’s SEO needs, it should also showcase your business’s understanding and expertise. Tap into this, create content that demonstrates that level of expertise, whether that’s giving a behind-the-scenes look into a process, sharing case studies, or partaking in client interviews.

Having an active website can do a lot of work for your business; having a dormant site can negatively impact performance and your audience’s trust. Need help identifying where your site content could use a refresh? Let’s review it together!

Quality content doesn’t have to be mystified to those who aren’t writers or marketers; the aspects of what makes quality content can make assessing ‘great’ content simpler.

Here are the key aspects of writing strong copy:

Tone: Is how you choose to represent your brand’s point of view or attitude towards a subject. This can be done through the choice of language, the style used, or the way the sentences are structured.

Clarity: The content needs to be clear for the reader to understand, so make it clear and concise.

Brand Alignment: The Content you create should always align with your brand, and make sure the content is relevant to your business. The best way to make sure the content is aligned is to create content that pertains to the subject or service you offer.

The Perfect Content Checklist

1.      Purpose: Does This Content Serve a Clear Goal?

Any content you produce needs to have an objective to it, whether that’s to increase traffic, convert, educate, inspire, or reassure (this would be relevant to medical copy, for instance).

Ensure the call to action you use is aligned with the content’s purpose, so, for example, you’re creating a blog about the effects of a specific product or treatment, you’ll then want to use the call to action promoting the product to encourage sales.

2.      Audience Fit: Is It Written with the Right Reader in Mind?

You need to write to your audience’s needs, fix their problems and answer their questions. Formatting your content with the search queries in mind allows you to better target keywords.

Write to the level of your customer’s awareness around the subject matter, which includes cutting out jargon or any overly complex language.

3.      Clarity: Is the Message Easy to Understand?

Keep the content easy to read through short sentences and use language that isn’t complicated. Keep the formatting clear with headings, bullet points where needed, and utilising paragraphs to create a readable structure.

Pro tip: Can someone skim and still understand the key points?

4.      Structure: Is It Easy to Navigate and Digest?

Any copy needs to have a clear structure to it, and start with your introduction to the subject, introducing the problem or subject. The body will then contain the value, so any solutions or information around a particular subject will be covered in this section. In the conclusion, you’ll summarise the discussion with a CTA. The call to action should have purpose and help you achieve the objective of the content, whether that’s to convert leads or to encourage engagement. 

Make sure that your content is clearly labelled too, utilising sub-headings to section out content. Subheadings are particularly important for making your content easy to scan when reading.

5.      Value: Does It Say Something Useful or New?

Your content needs to provide some value to the reader, whether that’s introducing a new perspective or offering more insight. You can provide more insight utilising data, graphics, video assets or by utilising a different format type, like using audio instead.

6.      Accuracy & Trust: Can This Content Be Taken Seriously?

Make sure the information you provide is factual; the last thing you want is to be creating content containing misleading information. Inaccurate content is not only penalised by Google, but it also demonstrates a lack of understanding to the reader.

Authority is built on the foundation of assurance that the information your website provides is accurate and authentic. Make sure any old statistics are kept up to date to keep your content continuously relevant.

Another aspect of building trust is by garnering a portfolio of positive reviews, quotes, testimonials, case studies and awards.

7.      SEO Essentials: Is It Findable Online?

Another way to assess if content is ‘good’ is whether it includes the keywords that are going to help you rank for a specific subject. Optimising your page title, meta description, and H1 tag will be particularly useful for ranking on the search engine.

Incorporate any internal links where you can, whether that’s leading to a product/ service page or redirecting to other similar content.

Having a checklist can help you, a non-copywriter, sign off on content with ease, by being able to understand the direction and intent of the content produced. Want content that ticks every box? We’ll help you build a library you’re proud of.

Leveraging your commonly asked questions from patients into rich SEO-friendly posts can help funnel in new patients to your practice. One thing we know about ourselves is as patients, we almost always turn to Google to answer our medical/ dental queries.

Whilst yes, your content is there to provide your reader with valuable and accurate information, it also creates a wider opportunity for your business to create content. This applies to long-term content creation, as each question can be made into its own piece of content.

Why FAQ’s are a brilliant marketing asset

FAQ’s can add value to your website, for instance, they’re crafted around your patients’ real concerns, so you can rest assured knowing the information has value for the reader.

This type of content, in particular, contributes towards the trust you build with your audience. This then impacts the level of authority your dental practice has, which impacts rankings on the search engine results page.

This type of content works particularly well for incorporating long-tailed search queries, allowing you to target both primary and secondary keywords. This has an overall positive impact on your SEO efforts, as you’ll be creating content that is more likely to be relevant to what your audience is looking for.

How to source real dental FAQ’s

You can gather material for your FAQ’s using a few different methods. We recommend:

• Using patient interactions (in-person or phone).
• Reception staff’s most commonly asked questions.
• Utilising your social channels, if people ask questions in the comments or in direct messages.
• Google autocomplete can be a handy tool for finding new FAQ’s
• Competitor sites
• Online reviews

The process of creating content from an FAQ

 Structure a Simple Outline

Write your introduction to the topic first, you can do this by acknowledging any concerns the question might address. This typically includes a section defining the issue. You can do this by titling your sub-heading ‘What is *Insert your FAQ topic here*?’.

Then, in your main body of text, you can include information that provides value to the reader. This might include how to treat/fix the issue, as well as what might cause the issue in the first place.

Add value to your content by linking back to treatment pages, or your book a consultation page. Link building will also positively contribute to your search engine optimisation efforts.

Complete your content with a call to action, whether that’s encouraging potential patients to join your dental practice or spurring the patient to book an immediate appointment. Your content should always look to generate leads and nurture the existing audience you have.

Top tip – Avoid using jargon in your copy, stick to using terminology that most people would know. Utilise patient-friendly language too, don’t fear-monger or exaggerate, medical copy should always be factual.

Why email lists still matter in the age of social media… Email lists give us a direct line of communication with our audience, allowing our message to directly hit their inbox.

Why Email Lists Are So Valuable

Utilising your mailing list can offer many benefits for a business, particularly when aiming to get higher levels of engagement and increased conversion rates.

Email campaigns, when done right, can help with long-term audience relationship building. Maintaining communication through email can serve many purposes; it can help you update, inform, or brief your audience.

1.     Start with the Right Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a method used by providing a free resource, service or product in return for contact information from their audience, in this instance, it would be their email address. Some examples of lead magnets include PDF resources, checklists, courses, e-books or templates.

Consider putting lead magnets in places where they will resolve a question or provide value to the audience. For instance, having a downloadable template that is accessed by providing their email.

2.     Use Strategic Content Types for List Building

Blog Posts: Naturally embed opt-ins in high-traffic articles.

Embedding opt-in buttons allows your audience to choose to follow your email campaigns, and placing these in high-traffic pieces of content will allow you to capitalise on capturing the information from interested readers.

Utilising gated content, for example, industry reports, will give you other opportunities to garner your audience’s contact details.

Don’t forget to use your calls to action, imploring your audience to sign up for your mailing list. Include a link to a sign-up page to make the process smoother for them, making each step as simple as possible.

3.    Placement Matters: Where to Add Signup Opportunities

Making sure you position it in the right spot on your social content or blog posts is just as important as including the information capture. Consider positioning it in places where it feels natural, or is necessary, such as on a navigation bar, with a widget, on your landing pages, and at the end of videos.

4.     Optimise Your Signup Forms

Making sure your signup forms are easy to use will ensure the process is quick and easy, which in turn reduces the potential frustration and leads to abandonments. To keep it simple, you’ll just need their name and email.

In this process, test the user experience with A/B testing, which allows you to trial what colour button works best, the size of the text on the button, the CTA, as well as the placement on the content or page.

5.     Deliver Value by being prepared.

Once you’ve captured the emails of your audience, you need to make sure you make a positive impression, set up a confirmation page to let them know the information they’ve provided has been retained.

The next step is to create a welcome email, which is the first impression in a sense- it needs to positively impact the reader. Adopt a warm and welcoming tone, be authentic and make sure to give a better introduction to your brand’s communication channel.

Top Tips for your Email Strategy

Creating the perfect campaign is about striking a balance between the visual elements, the content itself, the frequency of campaigns, how they’re targeted and so on. Email campaigns must be tracked, analysed and adapted in order to garner the leads and clicks within your business KPI.

Make sure the content you continue to push in your email campaigns works to draw in your reader, drive clicks and ultimately enhance the engagement metrics seen across your channels and website.

What are AI overviews?

AI Overviews is a feature utilised by search engines like Google. The AI collates a plethora of content across the internet to provide a robust answer, filled with detail and links to the original sources.

AI Overviews can be particularly advantageous to those who are ranking lower organically on the search engine results page. Consider the AI Overview ranking 0; the gathered sources will likely be collected from across the rankings, so it gives lower-ranking websites an opportunity for their content to be discovered.

Google currently suggests there’s no bias in place for what content is pulled by its AI, instead advising people to follow its Google Search Essentials guidance.

Do I need to create content for AI Overviews?

Your content writing strategy should already look to incorporate techniques that are conducive to content being useful and successful. You can find some of our favourite copywriting hacks in our ‘How to create and write content for blogs’ article.

You can optimise your content for the best opportunity to rank both organically and to be identified as valuable content to be displayed in an AI Overview. Just try out these tricks:

1. Utilise your SEO strategy, it will always put you in the best position to succeed. This means utilising primary and secondary keywords within your content, as well as properly tagging, titling and structuring the content.
2. Keep it unique; this is a given, but Google won’t pick you if you aren’t standing out from the crowd. This just means keep content original, provide a unique perspective, and make sure you aren’t copying other content!
3. Identify the search intent, once you’ve pinpointed the search terms you need to cater for. Shape your content to the subject matter.  
4. Fact check, make sure the information you put into your content is factual. Displaying non-factual content will not only harm your credibility with Google, but also with your reader.
5. Refresh and update, make sure you revitalise old content and keep it up to date – this will increase the chances of old content being displayed on the SERP.
6.  Consider the writing style, for instance, write in a way that is easily broken down into smaller contextualised snippets.

What is evergreen content?

Evergreen content is a name given to content that isn’t confined to time-relevant news, entertainment or information. Evergreen content provides the reader value at any point of reading, rather than needing to be read in a timely fashion.

A great example of evergreen content would be something like an encyclopedia. An encyclopedia is a great resource – it contains information which will be applicable for an extended period of time.

What benefits does creating evergreen content have?

Evergreen content is essential for long-term success within your content strategy, especially if you’re not in the business of reporting news. Evergreen content provides the opportunity to boost engagement over a longer period, rather than a short burst of traffic, which is more consistent with time-sensitive content.

Evergreen content allows you to demonstrate your authority across a subject matter, which can help propel you to success in your field! When Google recognises that you’re educated in your area of expertise, it’s more likely to rank you higher when the relevant search queries come in.

This type of content requires less work to be done in future, you’re less likely to need to refresh the content as quickly, which can save time and budget later down the line too.

How to ideate for evergreen content

1. Research

As with any content you create, you need to make sure your understanding is fully formed before trying to write content about it- after all, you need to be confident in the information you provide your audience with.

Research also creates the opportunity to find new sources of inspiration. That doesn’t mean just copy what the other content says; find your own unique spin on it to provide unique and valuable evergreen content.

• Create a tracking document for your content.

Ideating is an informed process, creating a content calendar and content audit document ensures you can track existing and potential content. This foresight is a practical method for monitoring and diversifying content accordingly. You’re able to forge a stronger network in your work by finding relevant ways to link to previous content.

• Start a conversation with your peers.

Sometimes the best ideation sessions come from the input of multiple voices. Think of it like the ‘six thinking hats’ approach, each person provides a unique perspective, allowing you to tap into new ideas which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.

• Start with the obvious and work backwards.

Let’s say you’ve never created a piece of evergreen content before, you’ll need to pinpoint your industry-relevant topics and use them as the building blocks to your content plan.

Let’s say your subject matter is ‘TV Sales’, you can find topics that pertain to TVS – for instance, ‘What are the pixels on a TV?’. This type of question opens up the opportunity to create everlasting content that will always have relevance to your specific subject matter.

• Make sure to do keyword research.

Keyword research is a critical aspect of any content production- you need to make sure you’re incorporating them into your copy in order to rank for the relevant search terms.

Types of evergreen content

Comprehensive Guides are an extensive document on a specific topic, it covers all the important information and questions a person might have on a subject matter. Take our Beginners Guide to crawl depth as an example.

‘What is’ articles are as they sound; they cover the basic information about a subject, including what it is, why it is, and who might use it. It’s not as complex as a comprehensive guide, making it better suited to people doing a quick search on something.

Listicles are straightforward, easy-to-digest list list-formatted information. This is particularly useful for the audience type that wants to skim and get only the essential information.

A How-To article explains the process of something to the reader, it will contain information and facts relevant to teaching a process to the audience.

What is the trend?

OpenAI has recently rolled out a new version of ChatGPT with significantly enhanced AI capabilities, particularly in image generation. This upgrade has sparked a viral trend where users upload their personal images and prompt the AI to “animate this like Studio Ghibli.”

What’s caused this prompt on ChatGPT’s latest version to trend?

Users quickly flooded X (formerly Twitter) with their AI-generated Studio Ghibli-style images, showcasing everything from personal photos to iconic movie scenes and internet memes. The accessibility and improved quality of ChatGPT’s image-generation tools have encouraged widespread participation.

Beyond Studio Ghibli, users have experimented with other animation styles, including The Simpsons and South Park, further fuelling the trend.

What works so well about the trend?

Studio Ghibli has a devoted following, with millions of fans appreciating its distinctive animation style. The Japanese studio is renowned for its hand-drawn artistry, whimsical storytelling, and deep emotional resonance. The ability of ChatGPT to closely replicate this aesthetic has driven its widespread appeal.

Several factors contribute to the trend’s success:

• Ease of Use – OpenAI’s generative features are free and accessible to all users, making it easy for anyone to create AI-generated art in various styles.
• Engagement & Virality – The instantly recognizable Studio Ghibli aesthetic has encouraged users to share their results online, prompting others to try it for themselves and contribute to the trend.

Does this raise issues around copyright?

This trend touches on an ongoing debate about AI-generated art and intellectual property. Studio Ghibli co-founder Hayao Miyazaki has long been critical of AI in animation, famously stating, “I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself.” His ethos prioritizes authenticity and meticulous craftsmanship, which contrasts sharply with AI-generated imitations.

While AI-generated art does not technically infringe on copyright, it raises ethical concerns about replicating the hard work of illustrators without their consent. The trend serves as a reminder of the growing challenges surrounding AI and artistic originality.

How are brands and accounts using the trend?

While independent creators have embraced the trend, brands have been slower to adopt it. A few exceptions include major brands like Airbus, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who changed his X profile picture to an AI-generated Studio Ghibli-style version of himself.

As AI art generation continues to evolve, it will be interesting to see how brands, artists, and audiences navigate the balance between creativity, authenticity, and ethical considerations.

What is content fatigue?

Content fatigue is a term used to describe an overall negative sentiment or a lack of engagement from an audience towards a brand’s content.

Content fatigue can occur for several reasons, including:

• Overproduction of content – Posting too frequently (e.g., multiple times per day) can overwhelm your audience, making your content feel repetitive and less valuable.
• Content misalignment – If the content doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t drive engagement and can ultimately hurt your traffic.
• Lack of variety – Repetitive content formats can lead to boredom. If your audience constantly sees the same type of content, their interest may decline.

Can content fatigue be fixed?

Yes, content fatigue can be remedied by following a structured approach:

1. Understand your audience – Develop audience profiles to gain deeper insights into their content consumption habits. This allows you to tailor your content to their preferences.
2. Conduct a content audit – Identify which types of content perform well and which don’t. If a particular format isn’t engaging your audience, experiment with alternatives—if written content isn’t working, try video or interactive formats.
3. Refine your content strategy – Based on your audit findings, focus on producing content types that resonate with your audience. This enables you to build on successful formats while minimizing ineffective ones.

Solutions to content fatigue

Creating new content: trying new formats.

Instead of exhausting a single topic, explore multiple topics that align with your brand and audience. Create varied content that takes different formats and provides fresh, engaging, and valuable insights.

For example, if written content isn’t capturing attention, experiment with different mediums—try new topics, incorporate visual content, or use storytelling techniques. Your audience may respond better to video content, infographics, or interactive posts instead of large text-heavy articles. Testing different formats will help you discover what resonates best with your audience.

Slow down your approach.

Rather than churning out content for the sake of posting, focus on producing high-quality content that truly connects with your audience. The frequency of posting matters less than the impact—content with measurable success will yield better results than high-volume, repetitive content.

Create a long-term content strategy.

Instead of creating content reactively, setting out a long-term content strategy can offer multiple benefits:

• Enables tracking of past content to avoid redundancy.
• Helps establish an optimal posting schedule for audience engagement.
• Provides a structured plan that allows teams to collaborate effectively rather than relying on ad-hoc communication.

Creating strong content isn’t just about immediate engagement—it’s also about demonstrating expertise in your niche. By consistently producing valuable content, you build trust and authenticity with your audience, ensuring they stay engaged with your brand.