Content marketing for small business success is guaranteeable! Your audience wants to know that you’re on-top-of-your-game! After all, they’re coming to your website, blog, or Linkedin page to find out more about you. They’re searching with the eventual and very real possibility of spending some of their hard-earned money on your products and/or services! Make it worth their time.
Update Frequently
An easy way of demonstrating to your customers that you are indeed on top of your small business content marketing game is by frequently updating your web content.
Your current and potential customers alike want to know that you’re paying attention to your website, putting effort into content marketing projects, and are involved in the world inside and outside of your small business. Updating out of date content, writing about relevant current events, and sending out an informative email or newsletter lets your audience know that you’re dedicated, you care about your work and your customers’ business, and your interested in what’s happening in your industry.
I do realize that not all small businesses are big enough to have a specific content marketing “department” or specific on-staff writers. We’re all busy and our days are full with meetings, phone calls, emails, travel, and much more. Balancing it all is challenging enough without adding yet another plate to spin. But some people have recognized the importance and impact content marketing has and have deemed it worthy enough of a trade off. This is where the internet separates the wheat from the chaff.
So many sites on the web today are nothing more than glorified sales literature. Don’t get caught in this trap. Give your prospects and customers excellent content, always. If you don’t, be assured that your competitors will.
Industry leaders don’t just happen. They rise to that chief position because they’re dedicated and go the extra mile. They research, publish, discuss, and continue that process over the years. Influencers get their name out there and demonstrate their competency through a variety of informative publications, guest appearances, and maybe some risk endeavors as well.
You want to be the name that comes to mind when a person thinks of a particular product or idea, whether that’s on a local, national, or global level. In part, that’s achieved by superior content marketing.
Old Content is Costing You Leads
If your publishing comprehensive, informative, current content, you’re going to have more leads and sales. Your business will grow and you’ll see measurable success. If you’re not publishing quality content, you’re business will get pushed so far back into obscurity that even Google won’t be able to find you.
People need something to search for on the web and they’re only going to read and trust the sources with the most recent published or updated dates on them. Because of how fast technology changes how the internet, and also our business industries, function, information can become outdated relativity quickly. A post from 2017 on a new piece of technology that hit the market may no longer be practical or a law put into place in 2010 for manufacturing requirements may have been altered.
The world around us is always changing. Our webpage content needs to reflect those alterations.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve visited websites only to bailout immediately and go to the next one in line when I read this telltale sign at the bottom or top of the page: “Last Updated — October 2001”. See Ya!
If you’re using such an update notice on any one of the pages in your website, make sure that you keep it current to avoid viewers rapidly bouncing off.
Tracking your content production will help you see popular topics, if you have any old content you need to update, and where you’ve shared you’re content previously. By using a tracking document, all your content marketing information is in one place where you can easy monitor and change it.
Keep in Contact
Your content is no good unless someone actually reads it. But, customers might not find your updated content on their own, so you may have to expedite the process the little.
Once you update or publish interesting content, you should send an chat message or email to your followers and subscribers that new information is available. Give them the headline and a one line summary of what the updated article is about. Let them know how that article is relevant to them and their business to peak their interest to visit it and click through.
As long as you’re not pestering your customers and leads with emails and messages every day, they might appreciate a more personalized message about the content your business is producing. A personal touch like how your content discusses solutions to some of your customers’ specific pain points is a great way to keep your customers interested and gain views and shares. Even small actions like these communicates your dedication to customer satisfaction and success.
Evergreen Content
Business owners have limited to no “free time” during their work days. Sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day or even the week to thoroughly edit and update webpage content. But, you still don’t want to have old content laying around on your webpage, so how do you solve this problem?
Invest in writing and publishing evergreen content!
Evergreen content is content on topics which will always been relevant to content marketing for small business. These topics tend to be a bit more generalized, but on the other hand you don’t have to worry about them negatively impacting your web presence either. Evergreen content is also a great option when you’ve hit a creative writing blockade or when you have nothing queued up to publish for the week.
General Evergreen Content Topics To Get You Started
1. How-to articles
2. FAQ response articles
3. Available resources article
4. Event summary articles
5. Review articles
Evergreen topics will vary between industries, so you’ll need to do a little digging to figure out what topics are specifically available to you. But, as an example, this article you’re reading qualifies as evergreen content. The importance of current content on the web will always be a relevant topic in the internet marketing industry, and just about every other industry as well. If you have a good grasp on the inner-workings of your field and the issues and topics in it, you shouldn’t have trouble drawing out contestants for evergreen topics.
Hire Out for Your Content
If you want to start posting articles and developing a blog of your own, but are finding you don’t have the time, there are options available! In our day and age, there are several sites where you have access to a wide variety of freelance writers.
Here at Cazbah, we write much of our own content, but we also use a site called Textbroker to hire content writers to write specific articles as well.
With a Textbroker account you create an “order” where you list the article title, keywords you want included, article layout and requirements, word count, ect. You’re also able to list is as an “open order” where it becomes available to all possible writers until the order is picked up, a “team order” where a group of writers can work on your article, or you can place a “direct order” to a specific author you like. Once you purchase your completed order on Textbroker, the article becomes your property and you can list yourself as the author.
Freelance Writer Websites
1. Upwork.com
2. Guru.com
Many times these hosting sites have specific costs per word which vary depending on the writer or difficulty of the requested order. You can read writer’s profiles to get a better feel for them and many provide their contact info if you need to get in contact with them. The list above is free of charge to post a a writing request, though there are some sites out there that do charge businesses to post “writing ad requests”.
In Conclusion
Current content marketing for small business requires a lot of investment, but it’s worth it in the return you’ll get. Your current customers will remain satisfied and you’ll be gaining quality leads left and right. If you’re worried about the time or skill level required to produce or update an article, try writing on evergreen topics or hiring a freelance writer. There are several options available so your business can have lead-producing content. Take advantage of them!
Blog
Case Studies
Infographics
Free Comprehensive Analysis