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Content marketing predates the internet. John Deere has published The Furrow, a magazine of farming advice that barely mentions tractors, since 1895. The principle has not changed: whoever answers the buyer's question becomes the first name they know when they are ready to buy. What changed is where the question gets asked. Today it is typed into Google or put to an AI assistant, and the answer comes from whoever explains it best.
For a company entering a new market, that matters more than for a local one. Nobody knows your name there yet, and paid ads only reach people while you pay. Pages that answer local questions, in the local language, with local prices and rules, build the recognition that ads rent.
Five weeks of figures from one client
For Business Centrum, a payroll bureau in Ghent, we wrote more than 130 guides, articles and comparisons in four languages, pay scale pages for 113 joint committees, 41 yes-or-no questions employers ask, and pages for thirteen towns, with every figure checked against an official source. In five weeks the site went from 220 to 10,200 impressions a day in Google, and from 3 to 228 clicks a day. Non-brand search terms on page one went from 13 to 1,593.
Daily impressions in Google, week by week
220impressions per day
10,20046 times as many in five weeks
Average per day, per week, from Search Console. The last bar covers two days.
What drove it is instructive. The pay scale pages alone earn 22 percent of the impressions and 37 percent of the clicks. They are not blog posts but pages answering one concrete question with a table an employer needs. Content marketing works best where the reader has to decide or calculate something.
Formats that bring buyers, not just readers
| Format | Example | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| Price guide | What a kitchen renovation costs | People looking up prices are close to buying |
| Calculator | A cost estimator or eligibility check | A personal answer, shared and linked to |
| Question and answer | Do I need a cookie banner? | Short question, clear answer, fits AI answers |
| Comparison | Odoo or Teamleader | Whoever compares two options is close to deciding |
| Case study | How a client digitised its planning | Proof for buyers who doubt you |
| Video | A day on site, a process explained | Shows how you work and who you are |
The cost calculator we built for SN Group, a construction firm, is the page that draws the most impressions outside the brand name: people pricing a renovation find a tool that gives them a number. What every format shares is a complete answer to a real question, with figures that hold up. Finding those questions is keyword research; writing the answer is copywriting; making sure AI assistants pick it up is generative engine optimisation.
Localise, do not translate
If you sell into several countries, one guide translated five times is not five guides. Prices, rules, examples and even the questions differ: a German buyer asks about the Impressum and invoicing rules, a Dutch buyer about something else entirely. Start with the questions in each market, then write for them. Our page on multilingual websites explains how we set that up.
What it costs and when it pays
Mostly time. A 2,000-word guide with checked figures, a table and images is one to two days of work; a calculator many times that, but it keeps drawing visitors for years. What outsourcing costs per month is set out in what SEO costs. Content does not pay in the first week like an ad, but it does not stop when the budget does. Expect weeks to months for the first results; how long SEO takes explains why.
Before you commit to content
How is it different from inbound marketing?
Content marketing is making the useful content. Inbound marketing is the wider approach: drawing buyers in with that content, then following up with email and a CRM until they buy.
How many pages do we need?
Enough to answer your buyers' questions completely. For a smaller company that is usually dozens of pages, not hundreds. Ten strong pages beat a hundred thin ones.
Can we use AI to write it?
For a first draft, yes. What makes a page rank is what AI does not have: your prices, your projects, your figures and your judgement. Without them it is the same text your competitor publishes.