There are billions of websites online, connecting over three billion people who have internet access. This massive online presence makes it harder to attract clients. The increasing competition on the internet has led to the rise of online marketing strategies, collectively known as digital marketing. One of the most effective strategies within this realm is content marketing.
Content marketing involves creating audio files, videos, blog posts, graphics, and more for online promotional purposes. If your business is thinking about jumping into content marketing or has attempted it before with little success, we’re here to help. Our team has gathered seven tips to help you enhance your content marketing efforts for small businesses.
1. Know What You Want:
Content marketing for small businesses can help you achieve a variety of goals. However, just because it can tick many boxes doesn’t mean it should. The more focused you are on what you want specifically from a content marketing plan, the more likely you are to achieve tangible results. Ask yourself, “What would be the best possible outcome for my marketing campaign?” Do you want to increase brand awareness through engagement? Are you trying to boost sales for a specific product? Whatever your best-case scenario, ensure that your content is consistently steering customers toward your desired outcome.
2. Set Goals:
Your content marketing shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. You should track your progress against well-defined, specific content marketing goals. This will help you understand if you’re making real progress or if you need to adjust your approach. If your ultimate goal is brand awareness, set sub-goals like shares, comments, and traffic. If your goals focus on sales, set product goals that track how many sales result directly from your marketing content using an analytics tool.
3. Publish Consistently:
All marketing efforts require consistency to build traffic. Many small businesses are inspired by the quick success of viral campaigns they hear about and become discouraged when their efforts don’t achieve the same results. Going viral shouldn’t be your primary goal unless you already have a massive audience. Consistently building content that has the potential to go viral isn’t a sustainable business strategy. Steady growth, however, can be achieved by publishing content across various channels in different formats consistently. Put your best content out there and keep producing it until you see the traction you desire.
4. Don’t Ignore SEO:
SEO should always be a cornerstone of any digital marketing strategy you pursue. Targeting the words and phrases that matter most to users online ensures that you have some audience interest before you even publish your piece. If you just create the content you want in your preferred style, you’ll be relying on luck to attract traffic. To determine which keywords and phrases you should base your content on, consider working with a marketing agency. Agencies like SEO Clerks or others you have a relationship with can help you with this.
5. Chase Backlinks:
Google processes over four billion searches globally every day. When deciding which content to connect searchers with, it considers several factors, including the number of backlinks to your content. Backlinks are links from other websites that direct to your content. The more backlinks you have, the more significant Google considers your content, which helps it rank higher in search results.
6. Keep It Simple:
Depending on your audience, your content should be crafted to an optimal length. For most online readers, that ideal length is shorter than many content creators realize. Online attention spans are shorter than ever, and a 4000-word piece might turn off many potential readers. Make your content valuable but aim to keep it as concise and to the point as possible.
7. Recycle Content:
When you publish a blog post as a content marketing piece for a small business, its lifespan shouldn’t end there. Transform that blog post into a video that shares the same information to reach a new audience segment. Recycling content is a great way to expand your content marketing reach with minimal effort. Never let a piece fade away after being created in just one format for one platform.
Wrapping Up Content Marketing Tips for Small Businesses:
If you’re using content marketing to boost your organization, you’ll find that it offers many benefits in terms of results and return on investment. To fully reap these advantages, we recommend using the tips mentioned above. With a little patience, you’ll gradually start to see your content gain more traction, and your business goals will move closer to completion.
