The importance of content marketing

A website has mere seconds from when it first loads to interest and engage with the customer before the potential customer will close the page.

Research verified by the Associated Press shows that the consumer has an online attention span of eight seconds, similar to that of a goldfish.

Keep their attention

Content marketing also benefits a websites SEO. Google, for example, looks at the content on your website and picks out keywords and their relevance to what the potential customer is searching for. There are 4 billion searches every day on Google, 90% of the search results clicked on are those on the first page presented by that Google. 60% of the clicks are on the top three results so if your search result is on page two onwards there is little chance of your link being looked at.

Due to the customer's low 'goldfish' attention span, infographics are a powerful way to market and communicate your brand message. The infographic gets the desired message across in fewer words. Infographics are fun and more eye-catching than printed words. They usually combine images, colours and content that naturally draw the eye. A well-designed and aesthetically pleasing infographic will drive people to your site since they are more likely to "share" and "click" on it. This can also help with Google's "Page Rank" algorithm, which is important for SEO.

A staggering statistic is that 87% of consumers say that online content has a major or moderate impact on vendor preference and selection, meaning that a potential customer's buying decision is significantly influenced by online content, including social media.

Adding customer reviews and testimonials are powerful. The majority of consumers make their purchasing decisions on reviews and customer testimonials, including critic reviews.

The psychology of the potential customer

• The prospect will read peer reviews
  
• Google search services, find blogs covering various competitors (SEO, PR, content marketing, content syndication)
  
• Looks at display ads (Google Adwords, Facebook, Twitter Ads)

Before making an online purchase decision, a customer may engage with your brand through many different media channels over several days. Marketing channels (such as email, display ads, paid search ads, social media and direct visits to your website) influence the customer at different points in the path to purchase. The modern day customer wants to be able to engage with the brand.

It is important for sellers to focus on creating compelling content that is informative yet pleasantly consumable for the average users. Focus on writing content for the average web user. They are often impatient, juggling between tabs, and are keen on small chunks of information.

If need be, study the browsing patterns of your demographic and see what eye-tracking analysis says about the allocation of their attention in the first 8 seconds or so. Do they scan the headline first and shift their gaze to the big yellow button on the right? Do they ever look at the third column on the right where most of your ads are slotted neatly?

Webpages with 111 words or less have 49% of its text being read, while webpages with 593 words have only 28% of the text being read. This is helpful in determining the level of brevity in your delivery and the presentation of information in respect to the visitor's increasingly shortened attention span.

Use Google's Pagespeed checker: http://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/

References

http://www.statisticbrain.com/attention-span-statistics/