6 Major Changes To Content Marketing In 2022 [Report Recap] via @sejournal, @semrush

The content marketing landscape of 2022 continues to become more complex, focusing on customer experience and strategy.

To navigate this space, your organization must prioritize content strategy and optimization of your content processes.

In this article, we will share key insights from Semrush's State of Content Marketing 2022 Global Report.

New In 2022: Top 3 Content Marketing Trends For This Year

One of the top trends in content marketing for 2022 is a focus on getting more human. 

It's essential to optimize your content for both search engines and reader experience.

Improving your content's overall quality and personalizing the experience for readers is key.

Another trend in content for 2022 is targeting.

Content marketers should focus on making decisions about what content to create based on research of their target audience.

As you research your target audience, discover their wants and needs, especially around search intent and content consumption.

B2B and B2C brands should experiment with more content types to target specific audiences.

Expand beyond blog posts and look into short-form video content to see increased traffic from search and engagement from viewers.

It's also important to set measurable goals that can be reviewed on a regular basis.

This will ensure that your brand's content strategy delivers desired results.

The brands that achieve their goals approach content marketing strategically.

Strategy and planning go into every decision in the content marketing process, from ideation to promotion.

New In 2022: Tactics To Make Your Content Marketing Strategy Successful

Do you know what efforts will lead to the best results?

According to our report, the following are the top tactics that led to content marketing successes:

• Improving the quality of our content (55%).
• Search engine optimization (46%).
• Creating more video and visual content (41%).

Here are some tips on how to optimize your content for increased visibility in search engines results and improved reader experience:

• Create a title that tells readers what to expect.
• Tell a story with your heading tags.
• Add links to relevant content on your website.
• Add links to relevant external resources that help the reader navigate between your advice and taking action.
• Maintain a consistent and relevant tone of voice.
• Improve overall readability using tools like the SEO Writing Assistant.
• Focus on providing useful content and original research. This is the only way to differentiate yourself from the growing competition.

New In 2022: This Year's Key Content Marketing Goals

Creating goals for your marketing campaigns is an essential step in ensuring their success.

The top three key content marketing goals measured by content marketers include:

• Increasing brand awareness (45%).
• Attracting more traffic to our website (37%).
• Generating leads (36%).

Some ways to increase brand awareness through content marketing include the following:

• Create non-branded, searchable content to capture the attention of people who are not familiar with your brand but are seeking more information about a relevant topic.
• Publish on other websites in your industry that already have a large readership that matches your target audience.
• Diversify your content across blog posts, videos, podcasts, webinars, whitepapers, case studies, etc. This will allow you to capture audiences at all stages of the buyers' journey.

New In 2022: Key Areas Of Content Marketing Investment For This Year

How do businesses plan to invest in content marketing?

Content marketing budgets for 2022 will be used for the following areas of the content process:

• Building community on social media (41%).
• Increasing the quality of written content (40%).
• Increasing content promotion and distribution (40%).

To increase the quality of your written content, be sure that:

• Your content is original.
• Your content answers a question that your target audience frequently asks.
• Your content was created with a specific intention or goal.
• Your content has strong headlines.

New In 2022: Top Google Searches On Content Marketing

The following were the top five searches on Google related to content marketing:

• Content marketing examples.
• Content marketing strategy.
• Content marketing institute.
• Content marketing definition.
• Content marketing manager.

You can see that the importance of content marketing is increasing. This means that your competitors are likely advancing their content marketing strategies.

Use these searches as inspiration to learn more about content marketing and see – first hand – how search should play a role in your 2022 content strategy.

Within these SERPs, you'll begin to understand how people, including yourself, consume content on Google.

You'll also be able to see the wide range of content types used to help teach people who are interested in learning about content marketing.

Both SEJ and Semrush have a variety of content marketing examples that you can use as inspiration for your own content strategy. They include blog posts, ebooks, podcasts, webinars, and videos.