Historically, small businesses have been slower in adapting to content marketing methods and / or strategies that are utilized by corporate marketers. However, as (SEO) Search Engine Optimization practices have evolved notably in the last couple of years – it's becoming more than obvious that small businesses need to add eBooks, comparison guides and how-tos, as well as other content strategies to remain in competitive rankings.
It does not matter if content is outsourced to an agency that offers content management services or done in house – ideas for creative, informative and engaging content more than often becomes scarce.
Regardless of that fact, we have 4 amazing tips on Content Marketing for small businesses. Check them out below:
1. Develop a Calendar for Content Marketing. Developing a calendar for content marketing will allow you to document content strategies and methods. Also, it's an awesome way to ensure that content creation is done in a timely fashion and remains on schedule. This amazing method for content creation is often overlooked and overlooked by many small businesses.
Approximately, 61 percent of content marketers have said that their greatest issue when creating content is that it's too time consuming. Only 44% of marketers have reported to keep a calendar with documented content marketing methods and strategies.
Developing and putting together a calendar that's designed for content scheduling for the month is the 1st step in setting aside time to brainstorm, strategize, create and eventually publish content.
2. You Need to Find Out What Works For You! Before you go on a scavenger hunt for inspiration on other websites you need to have a good understanding of the features and components of past content that has been beneficial to you and your small business.
We advise you to utilize Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to check on the leading, trafficked web pages and queries, so that you're able to identify what content has worked the best and which keywords have been used to find your content. Furthermore, it is recommended to use Social Statistics, as they can also, give you insight on content that has done really well.
You can check out Social Media performances by using services, such as – Add This, which embed buttons to share on blogs and also, have tracking info. These are user friendly dashboards, which offer information on an array of click backs and shares.
3. Comprehending Social Media Trends for Topics. Social Media networks and / or platforms are extremely helpful in getting new idea topics. Creating content revolving around trending topics will give you valuable content ideas, which people are actively searching for on real time.
For instance, Twitter has now had trending topics accessible for quite some time. Earlier this year – Facebook introduced trending topics as well … If you need or want to view trending topics on a more local scale, then you can utilize Trendsmap, which offers users close and intimate look on trending topics and news that's over laid on a map with information from Twitter's social media platform.
Amplify content by covering different aspects of a story. Take a stance that's controversial in nature or supplement it by using an array of media options, such as – infographics or videos.
4. Use Content That's Visual. Although, the majority of SEO practices tend to focus on text that will be digested by different search engines – now, visual content has become a lot more appealing and interesting for your fellow, human readers. People seem to be typically wired to be more attracted and more likely to engage with visual content. Ninety percent of the info that enters the human brain is admitted visually.
With that being said, content that uses images receives an estimated 94% more views than content without any visuals.
A recent survey on marketers from Marketing Sherpa observed that visuals were the simplest form of content to create. Develop infographics utilizing research that's been done already for content or you can outsource image and / or visual creation to add to your blog posts. You can easily keep your users and visitors engaged and scrolling through your website pages by simply adding interesting and eye catching GIFs and still images to your written content.
If you're running a small operation or business it is still essential that you remain in the loop. As always, content is vital to the success of your SEO campaign. Start incorporating these tips to your current and future content and you'll notice that you'll experience less difficulties coming up with new topic ideas and / or interesting content for your users and visitors.