Quality is paramount to the success of content marketing; as opposed to older and more traditional forms of marketing, successful content marketing is entirely dependent on good ideas, true originality, and most importantly, giving something of value to your audience. Fantastic content grows organically, gaining exposure and momentum through coverage on blogs, websites, and social media platforms, meaning that companies don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to reach huge numbers of potential customers.
As a result, content marketing represents a sort of level playing field for marketers; small businesses and large companies can compete head-to-head regardless of their budgets, because good ideas are free and the only factor that counts is the quality of what you have to say.
- As shady webmasters and bloggers have begun charging for links, they’ve essentially become a road block which is slowly restricting the channels through which good content gets shared. By charging for links, mentions, and content placement, these webmasters are disrupting the way good content should be shared – organically, purely on the merits of its quality.
- If this trend continues, the deciding factor in how much exposure a brand gets will, once again, be the advertising budget attached to it, effectively putting the power back into the hands of larger companies, because smaller businesses can no longer compete purely on the merits of their work. Everything content marketing is dependent on – value, originality, and ingenuity – will no longer be the crucial factor for success, as anything with a big budget attached, no matter how mediocre, will gain more exposure.
- As existing websites start to change their business model and chase this sort of revenue, legitimate content creators will have fewer and fewer platforms from which they can gain exposure and build links. Crucially, the customers – the sole reason why this whole industry exists – will stop caring, because the kind of content which made them care in the first place will stop getting through to them.
Top tier sites will never change, as their success is dependent on publishing and sharing the best of the best.
However, as more low and mid-tier sites start selling links, it means that the lower rungs of the content marketing ladder are being kicked out for anyone who doesn’t want to risk the wrath of Google by buying links.
Via http://www.econtentmag.com/Articles/Editorial/Commentary/Why-Paid-Links-Will-Destroy-Good-Content-and-How-To-Stop-It-100157.htm
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