What Is Organic Content? (Plus Benefits, Qualities and Tips)

Marketers can create various types of content to build relationships with customers, educate them about a company's products or services and generate revenue. These professionals often use organic content, which refers to unpaid content, to provide information or offer entertainment to new or existing customers. If you're a marketing professional, you may want to learn more about organic content. In this article, we explain what organic content is, describe its benefits and qualities, compare organic and paid content and offer tips to help you develop organic content effectively.

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What is organic content?

Organic content is any unpaid marketing content that potential and existing customers can find naturally. Rather than paying for advertisements, marketers can create organic content at no cost to reach customers. Examples of organic content include a blog post on a company's website or an infographic posted on a company's social media pages. Any customer who searches for related content online or follows a company on social media may find this type of content. Marketers can expand the reach of organic content by encouraging customers to share it with others, such as their own social media followers.

Benefits of organic content

Marketers can use organic content as a low-cost way to educate customers about their companies' products or services. This type of content can have many benefits for marketers. Specifically, it can help these professionals:

• Establish a brand: This content can help marketers establish a brand by providing informative and engaging content about topics related to the company or industry.

• Save money: Organic content allows marketers to share information with customers at no cost, which can help them save money and use their marketing budgets in other ways.

• Improve search engine rankings: Marketers often research keywords to create organic content, which can help them improve search engine rankings to reach a wider audience.

• Build relationships: This type of content can help marketers build relationships with potential or existing customers, who may view organic content as authentic because it's typically relevant and helpful to them.

Related: What Branding Is and Why It's Important

Qualities of good organic content

While organic content can vary based on how marketers choose to use it, this type of content often has some common characteristics to distinguish it from other types of marketing content. Here are some qualities of good organic content:

Informative

While organic content can have various purposes, it's often informative and useful to the person viewing it. This type of content typically seeks to answer common questions or educate customers about a specific topic. For example, a marketing professional at a furniture company may write an organic blog post about how to determine the placement of furniture in a living room. This type of informative, evergreen content can help marketers reach prospective customers by anticipating their questions and providing answers.

Credible

Organic content typically establishes a company as a credible source of information about a topic. It draws on a company's expertise in a specific area to offer knowledge to current or potential customers. For example, a gym may have a Q&A section on its website where trainers answer commonly asked questions about healthy eating and exercise. Creating credible organic content can convey a company's confidence in its products or services and help marketers build trust with potential customers.

Engaging

Many marketers strive to create engaging organic content so they can interact with customers. For example, a social media marketer at a restaurant may create posts encouraging visitors to share photos of their meals in the comments. Engaging content often attracts the attention of existing or potential customers and encourages them to continue reading or follow a company on social media. Engaging content helps marketers create connections with customers and reach a wider audience.

Related: 16 Types of Marketing Content To Engage Your Audience

Customer-focused

Organic content is typically customer-focused. It strives to inform or entertain customers to create a positive experience for them. This type of content often provides value to customers by offering a solution to a problem or answering their questions about a topic. Marketers can create customer-focused organic content to outline the reasons a company's products or services can benefit customers. Good organic content can help marketers develop relationships with new or existing customers by providing valuable, relevant information.

Organic content vs. paid content

While organic content share some similarities with paid content, these two types of marketing content have some key differences that distinguish them from each other. Understanding these differences can help you determine what type of content to use for your marketing efforts. Here's a comparison of organic content vs. paid content to help you choose the right strategy for your marketing campaign:

Definition

While organic content is any unpaid marketing content, paid content refers to content marketers pay other platforms to promote. They pay money to have this content distributed to targeted audiences who may have an interest in a company's products or services. For example, paid content on social media refers to a sponsored post, which allows marketers to choose a specific demographic they want to target so they can reach a wider audience. The cost of paid content can vary by platform. For example, website ads typically have a cost-per-click model, where companies pay for each click on the ad.

Goals

Marketers typically have different goals when they develop organic or paid content. Marketers may create organic content to educate potential customers and establish a company's credibility. This content often helps marketers build long-term relationships with customers who view the company as reputable. In contrast, marketers typically use paid content to reach customers more quickly. This type of marketing content aims to increase a company's return on investment in a short time frame by targeting specific audiences. Marketers may use paid content to attract new customers and help a company meet its sales goals.

Related: 3 Benefits of Using Paid Search in Your Digital Marketing Strategy

Types

There are many types of both organic and paid marketing content. When developing organic content, marketers typically use blog posts, landing pages on websites, infographics and how-to videos. This content often ranks high in search engine results when customers search for information about a topic. Marketers creating paid content typically use advertisements or social media. They can promote these types of content to expand a company's reach. Sometimes, the types of organic and paid content may intersect. For example, a marketer may create a sponsored post on social media linking to an evergreen article on the company's website.

Budget

Paid content requires marketers to create a budget so they can promote the content. They pay platforms to display their content to specific audiences. The cost of paid content can vary widely based on the platform, so it's important for marketers to choose platforms carefully to stay within their budgets. While organic content involves no cost to promote the content, it's still helpful for marketers to budget for this type of content. A budget for organic content may include the time it takes for a marketer to create the content, distribute it and monitor its results.

Tips for developing organic content

Here are some tips to help you develop organic content for your marketing campaign:

Research platforms

When creating organic content, it's important to research platforms so you can place your content where customers are likely to see it. Consider the company's target audience and determine how they find content. Use this information to research different platforms to help you decide where to market your organic content. For example, if your company has an e-newsletter with a high open rate, you may choose to include links to a website page to encourage customers to view this organic content.

Focus on quality content

Marketing campaigns with quality organic content can help you create positive impressions on existing or potential customers. Focus on creating content that answers questions, provides solutions and informs customers about specific topics. Use keywords effectively to ensure your content appears in search engine rankings. Make organic content easy for customers to view and share by simplifying complex topics or providing visuals to enhance their understanding. Quality organic content can help you reach customers and encourage them to share this content with others.

Measure results

It's important to measure the results of your organic content so you can determine its effectiveness. Use resources such as web or social media analytics tools to help you evaluate this content. For example, you can review the online traffic to a blog post over a one-month period. Identify any areas where you can improve this content to expand its reach, such as using different keywords. Measuring the results can help you continue to improve this content to reach your marketing goals.