In the early days of the Internet, when search engines were a new concept, programmers came up with algorithms that allowed web surfers to search for content that was relevant to their initial query, comparing the search terms entered against the content on any given page. Early Internet searches threw up relevant pages, which had been created almost in a vacuum as content for content’s sake, before terms such as “search engine optimization” had been invented.
   
Inevitably, of course, the marketers quickly caught on and working from their knowledge of the importance of keywording began to tailor their Internet content to be search engine friendly, in the hopes of pushing their client’s pages up the results pages of giants such as Google and Yahoo – thus content marketing was born.

What is Digital Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the practice of using web content as a tool to attract Internet users to pages offering information on products and services. Using carefully crafted copy, web content marketing can help to improve the visibility of your website and, in turn raise the profile of your business.
The term digital content marketing covers a wide range of SEO practices including:

• On site optimisation using relevant keywords and quality content.
• Backlink creation – through the use of article marketing, guest blogging and social media.
• Paid for PPC (Pay Per Click)advertsing campaigns targeting relevant keywords.

How Does Web Content Marketing Impact on Natural Search?
In the early years of SEO two distinct camps of content marketers emerged – the ethical, or “white hat” SEO practitioners and the more edgy “black hat” operations. Both urged their clients to pay heed to the demands of the search engines.

However, black hat operations such as keyword stuffing, disguising non-contextual keywords against identically coloured backgrounds and the such like soon resulted in a skewing of the quality of the search results returned by engines, while a number of sites also began to emerge whose success was based almost entirely on their SEO efforts, rather than on the quality of their content.

That is until 2011 when Google hit back with the mighty Panda – an algorithm update that shook the Internet community to its core – knocking previously high ranked sites off the top pages of search results and emphasising the importance of high quality web content.

Why Should You Worry About Digital Content Marketing?
Post-Panda, web content marketing is more important as ever, with more and more companies who had previously been able to hit the top of search results with little effort now turning to professional marketing services to create cohesive content marketing strategies that will stand the test of time. In the age of quality content, web content marketing is about more than just a few well placed keywords on a landing page – it is the careful craft of creating and placing copy not only on the target site but also across the web on reputable and relevant sites in order to create a big picture reputation that is recognised by search engines such as Google and rewarded with first page search results for the company in question.