Did you know content marketing has actually been around for thousands of years? No joke! The very first examples of this actually existed in the form of (admittedly confusing) cave paintings, with the first human beings writing “content” in an attempt to convey their message.

More recently, dated forms of content include magazine articles, physical paper newsletters (think investing newsletters), and newspapers. If you look back at these, many even reflect many of the same topics you see today:

• “How to Get Your House Ready for Spring”
• “5 Tips for Buying New Blinds”
• “7 Home Buying Mistakes Young Couples Make”

Why Did Content Marketing Get So Big?

Simply put—because Google said so. Amazingly (or perhaps not, given its ubiquity), Google holds more than two-thirds of the entire search market share in its grasp.

In the early days of search (say, between 2000–2005), Google didn’t care about content one bit. In fact, ranking in search was amazingly easy. The average search marketer, agency, or even newbie of today could have easily become wealthy back then. All you had to do was spam keywords all over web pages to rise to the top.

Google’s leadership, as it turns out, was incredibly smart. They knew their ability to return the best search results would lead to long-term search engine success and thus decided to change the game with dedicated strategies and tactics in pursuit of the same.

Google Released Two Algorithm Updates that Changed Search Forever

On February 23, 2011, Google released the Panda Update and thus forever altered the search landscape—affecting 12% of all search results (an additional update, Panda 4.1, was released on September 23, 2014).

Then along came Penguin on April 24, 2012. This didn’t hit content as directly as Panda, but it did force websites to stop spamming keywords. Then, Penguin Everflux meant this algorithm change would update continuously.

These two updates gave preference to websites with quality content. These days, Google doesn’t just prefer pages with good content. Instead, it wants massive websites with great content—sites with 50, 75, and 100 pages or more. “Websites” are slowly ceasing to exist. Now, Google basically wants an “online magazine,” if you will. But how’s a small business supposed to keep up with all that?

Google, unfortunately, isn’t all that concerned with helping out small businesses. They make the rules, they know it, and you have to deal with it. So, it’s crucial to have one of these in this seemingly frustrating environment:

• A big budget
• A seasoned search marketing agency that efficiently markets your content

Strategize, accordingly.