What Is Integrated Content Marketing?
Integrated Content Marketing combines content clustering and content waterfall strategy, improving both on-page and off-page SEO. In addition to that, it improves brand visibility and helps more people find you no matter where they search, social media, AI search or Google.
Google isn’t the only game in town anymore. More and more, people are searching on their favorite social media platforms and AI search tools or chatbots. And that doesn’t even address the near future where you need your brand mentioned on more smart devices and wearables.
Integrated Content Marketing Infographic
What Are The Benefits Of Creating A Content Cluster?
Content clusters help search engines understand topic relationships, boost topical authority, improve internal linking, and increase the chances of ranking for a wide range of related keywords. It’s like building a small knowledge base that shows your authoritativeness in a specific area.
At Chris McElroy SEO, we help you turn your knowledge into a content cluster that is optimized for the search engines, for AI search and for conversions to turn readers into customers. Set up a free consultation and tell us what you want to build.
What Do You Mean By Topical Content?
It’s the central piece of content for your integrated content marketing strategy.
That initial piece of content, whether it’s a web page or a blog post has to be very informative, thoroughly covering your topic. It should be evergreen content so that it won’t become obsolete any time soon. It should be segmented for each subtopic it covers. It should be optimized for both SEO and higher conversion rates.
You could create it yourself, however, you may want to hire a professional copywriter that understands how to create a page that will be the hub of a content cluster. Planning the central page of the cluster is the most important part of both your on-site content cluster and your waterfall content strategy off-site.
Remember, the hub for your content cluster can be a web page or a blog post. It works the same way.
What's The Next Step In Creating My Content Cluster?
If you did it correctly, your Topical Content contained sections that broke down the overall topic into pieces.
Now, section-by-section we’re going to build a new page that expands on the information in each section. So, let’s say this blog post was the centerpiece of a content cluster. I would take the section you are reading right now and create a more comprehensive page on writing part of a content cluster based on that original cornerstone or topical content piece. That original piece would also link from the related section to your new page.
Now, Lather, Rinse & Repeat for each section and you have a content cluster.
Okay, I Built My Content Cluster, Now What?
You’ve built your content cluster or at least cornerstone content and made sure it has authority, builds trust and shows your experience and expertise on the topic. Now it’s time to pick the platforms you’re going to use to distribute or repurpose that content. Identifying your target audience and finding out where they spend their time is the first step because you can’t focus on every possible platform or social media website and the good news is, you don’t have to.
My business is B2B so here are some examples I use:
- Medium: You can create a publication and even invite other writers to add content there. My publication is titled Search Everywhere Optimization
- Substack: Another place where you can start a publication, post notes and even hold chats with your subscribers. My Substack Profile
- LinkedIn Publisher: You may already have a profile on LinkedIn. Do you lurk, comment, post or have you actually written articles on LinkedIn Publisher? My LinkedIn Profile & My Articles on LinkedIn Publisher
- Reddit: You may have noticed that Google shows a lot of content from Reddit in search results. But sharing or repurposing content on Reddit can be tricky. Some subreddits don’t even allow links or any type of self-promotion, so tread carefully. My Reddit Profile & The Subreddit I created about AI-SearchOptimization
Google tends to rank articles written on all of these platforms very well. My target audience is on these platforms. Your target audience may be different and we can help you choose the right platforms for repurposing your content. Contact us to learn more.
So, I Just Re-Publish My Content On Other Platforms?
No. Repurposing is more than just copying and pasting your web page or blog posts on another platform or just linking to them on social media. It’s about leveraging multiple channels to get your content in front of more potential customers. You want people to find them when they search their favorite social media platforms and you want Google to index these new pieces of content as well.
Here are some ways to reuse your content without creating duplicates or copies.
- Infographics: Create an infographic that sums up your original content and include embedded links back to the original, use alt tags and captions where possible.
- Short-Form Video: Make a short video explaining what your original page or post is about. Tell them the basics and send them to the original content to learn more. (No, you do not need professional video crews. Use your phone.)
- Presentations: Turn your content into a slideshow, a PowerPoint, a pitch deck or something easy to digest even if you don’t put everything from the original into it. Get them to want to read more.
- Simple Text Repurposing: Take a compelling section of your original content and copy it. Go to one of the publishing platforms. Write a 250-word introduction to your content. Blockquote the part you took from the original and link back to your content. Then write a 250-word summary below that with another call to action at the bottom. Google will consider this as a new piece of content to index.
Be creative. Change the format. Find more places to share your content. It takes work, but it’s well worth the effort.
The original Integrated Content Marketing strategy started around 2010. We’ve expanded on it and updated it for 2025 and beyond. Learn more here.
At Chris McElroy SEO Agency, we don’t call it Search Engine Optimization anymore. It’s Search EVERYWHERE Optimization. Your brand needs to be visible no matter where or how people search for the products or services you sell. The infographic below barely scratches the surface of what you can do with Integrated Content Marketing.
