More than likely you’ve heard the catch phrase, “Content is king”.. and indeed it is. When it comes to driving traffic, gaining new subscribers, and ranking high with search engines, the quality of your content is the most important factor.

But it’s not enough just to create good content. Once it’s live, you have to let others know about its existence. Let’s look at a few simple ways to go about content marketing.

Social Bookmarking

Social bookmarking sites are a great place to begin marketing your content. The process is simple. You open an account at sites such as Digg, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon or Furl. Each time you create a new blog post, submit the information to each of these social bookmarking sites. Write a short, but compelling description and include a link to the URL.

Tip: The more you use your account and interact with others, the better chances of the social bookmark linked to your content will spread virally and be recommended.

Guest Blogging

Find a blog that is similar to your own, but is not competitive. Contact the owner and offer to write a guest post. Make sure that you are allowed to post a link to your site. Every time you do this, you are reaching out to new prospects, as well as cross-linking (post a notice on your own site of where you’ll be guest posting in upcoming days, driving your subscribers to the partner site).

Article Directories

One of the most popular forms of content marketing, is to write articles for a high quality aggregation sites such as EzineArticles. If you can make the time to write up a good quantity of articles and submit them regularly, you will gain further recognition.

The link to your website comes from your author resource box. Stay on topic and visitors who read your articles are likely to visit your site for further information.

Newsletters

Newsletters are a great way to stay in contact with your database, as well as drive traffic to your online content. Commit to writing a weekly or monthly newsletter. It doesn’t have to be long, but it does need to be informative. Tease online content and drive subscribers to your site to finish reading the entire blog post.

You can also use newsletters to advertise special promotions or discounts available only to subscribers. Encourage your list to share the newsletter with their friends and you are sure to gain new opt-ins.

Content marketing can be very beneficial to your overall internet marketing strategy. For one, you become known as an authority on a particular subject. Secondly, it drives traffic which might result in a sale. And lastly, it creates a connection with your database and prospective customers. All it takes is a bit of time and a commitment to producing high quality content in order to achieve success in your business through content marketing.