5 keys to easy small business content marketing
Guest Author, Courtney Ramirez
Publishing quality content can help your small business get new leads, develop a bigger presence online and convert more prospects into clients. But the process of planning, creating and distributing content can be a tall order for many small businesses who have limited resources.
An outstanding content marketing plan doesn’t have to be out of your reach! By following these keys you can put content marketing to work for your small business.
1. Get clear on your content budget.
There are literally dozens of different content pieces that you can use to market your business online – and that doesn’t count all of the distribution methods you can use to get your content out there. It’s a bit like going shopping at Costco. Before you know it, you’ve turned a short trip for ice, bulk candy bars and a new Magnum flashlight set into a $200 excursion.
Setting a clear budget for content will help you spend your marketing budget wisely and narrow in on the techniques that will be most effective for your business.
How much should you spend on content marketing? According to a recent survey from the Content Marketing Institute, 27% percent of businesses spent 15 to 30% of their marketing budget on content development. Small business marketing budgets are typically 8% of revenue. So for a small business with yearly revenue of $250,000, a monthly content marketing budget would be around $550.
Of course you may need to invest more initially for new content marketing plans and development. But having a clear figure in mind before you start developing content in house or looking to outside providers can help you stay focused and spend wisely.
2. Know your customer.
Your content marketing has to be customer-centered to be effective. Content marketing isn’t a promotional brochure. It’s a way to connect with your audience and help them solve problems with information. You can’t create content that is all about you and you alone.
Your job with content is to provide the information that your customers are looking for in a way that is attractive to them. For example, your customer does a search for “fax machines” and you have a high ranking article titled “5 Things to Look For in New Fax Machines.” They read your article and are impressed with your small office supply store’s insight into buying a fax machine. They explore the rest of your site and sign up for your weekly newsletter with more informative articles and regular deals. Then they become a customer.
Apply the same strategy to your own business. Figure out what your customers need to know and create content that responds to those needs.
3. Repurpose wherever you can.
One of the biggest challenges that small businesses face in content development is time. They don’t have enough time to actively create multiple content pieces each month. An effective content marketing strategy requires consistency – but repurposing can help you bridge the gap between what you should be publishing and what you can spend on content development.
Repurposing isn’t about copying someone else or repeating yourself endlessly. With repurposing, you can take one piece of content and make it stretch. Just like you’d make spaghetti sauce and then use it with several different meals, you can create an ebook and then draw several blog posts out of the content. You can then turn those blog posts into fodder for your email newsletter and use tips from the blog posts for your social media updates. It’s less work for you and you’ll get more content to keep your marketing machine going.
4. Don’t be afraid to curate!
Although it’s important to create your own content for your small business, you can also supplement your marketing with strategic curation. Curation is sharing helpful content created by other people.
Curation can be as simple as highlighting blog posts from other companies on social media or as complex as creating a blog post or white paper that reviews content from others. Not only does curation help round out your content schedule but it helps “spread the love” around. If you’re sharing content from related companies, they’ll be more likely to share your content with their fans and followers.
There are several different tools and platforms that can help you become a content curator. Google Alerts is a good way to start. Once you’ve started to see what is out there, you can use more sophisticated tools like Paper.li, Scoop.It or Storify to easily capture and share relevant content.
5. Support content with social media.
If a great article is published online and nobody read it, is it really that great? Content marketing and social media go hand in hand. You need to support your content marketing plan with regular social media usage.
Develop a following on Twitter and Facebook, at a minimum (LinkedIn if it’s appropriate) and then update your fans and followers when you post new content. Look for opportunities to post your content on additional sites or guest post with related businesses.
Small business content marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming if you follow these five keys. Take time to map out your content budget, get clear on what your customer wants to know and then use repurposing, curation and sharing to make content marketing work for you.
Courtney Ramirez is a certified SEO copywriter and content marketing consultant. As a student of search engine marketing, web usability and social media, she’s been able to craft a writing style that is both inviting to readers and ranking factors. After dabbling in print journalism, she’s written exclusively online since 2005 and manages a small team of excellent writers at Six Degrees Content.
Ramp up your SEO copywriting career! Sign up for the SuccessWorks’ Content Into Cash Business Bootcamp to learn everything you need to know to run a profitable copywriting business.
Does your Website copy suck the life out of your conversions?
October 27, 2011 • written by Heather Lloyd-Martin
Bad sales copy that sucks the life out of your conversions.
You may say, “Well, our sales copy is performing OK – I check our analytics.” And that’s good. But I want to teach you how to transform your “good” sale copy into “great” – and turn your sales up to a Spinal Tap 11.
And all it’s going to take is a little bit of time.
It’s easy to develop a blind spot around our Websites. Although we may see it every day, we probably aren’t looking at it very closely. Spending some time reviewing your site can uncover a huge list of opportunities – and help you decide what to tweak.
So let’s get started!
For the purposes of this initial review, focus on your top sales pages first. Then, you can repeat the exercise around other site sections (for instance, your blog or resource pages.)
First, you’ll want to read your copy as if you were a prospect. Ask yourself:
Next, you’ll want to go through the ordering process as if you were a prospect. Here are some things to consider:
Finally, it’s time to look at your page from an SEO perspective:
If you’re feeling stuck, see if another team member can review your content and make suggestions. Or, if your internal team is “too close” to the content, consider hiring an expert consultant to help. An SEO content consultant can quickly point out your successes and challenges – and then your team can make all the necessary tweaks. It may cost your company a little bit of cash, but the results (and the improved sales) will be well, well worth it!
Photo gratitude goes to mollystevens
Filed under B2B SEO copywriting,Catalog/retailer,In-house Content Marketing,Small business,Tips and techniques
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3 cash-free ways to market your local business online
June 27, 2011 • written by Laura Crest
This can be tricky, because ideally if you’re launching a new business, you usually have a marketing budget, however small. At the same time, Heather has worked with local companies that invested all they had just to get their business up and running – only to find themselves scrambling to figure out how to get the word out.
Tune in as Heather shares three ideas for marketing online when you have no cash, and under the conditions that it’s possible to do so:
It’s possible…but under certain conditions:
It is possible to market your business online with no budget, but only for the short term, and under certain conditions.
Marketing Idea #1 – Twitter
Marketing Idea #2 – Facebook
Marketing Idea #3 – Local Publications
It’s easy to forget that not all marketing has to be done online (and that print often has an online component).
Thanks for joining us for today’s SEO copywriting tip! Do you have a question for Heather? Zip it over to her at askheather@seocopywriting.com and you may very well see it answered here! See you then.
Filed under Small business,Tips and techniques,Tips by Industry
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Interview with Ken Lyons of Measured SEM
May 24, 2011 • written by Laura Crest
Ken Lyons has been in Internet marketing for more than seven years and is co-founder of Measured SEM, an inbound marketing agency in Boston, Ma. He’s an avid blogger and has been featured in Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and Website Magazine. He also writes a monthly Web strategies column for Allbusiness.com.
So tell us a bit about how you came to establish Measured SEM
In 2009, I started working at WordStream, a venture-backed startup in Boston that provides search marketing software. That’s where I met my current business partner, Tom Demers. Tom and I headed the SEO and inbound marketing efforts for WordStream. We worked really well together and in one year were able to grow site traffic at WordStream.com from 2,000 monthly visits to 200,000, which was no small feat considering we were slugging it out in hyper-competitive, organic search verticals dominated by some of the top SEOs and SEO agencies on the planet.
Ultimately, Tom and I decided to launch our own boutique inbound marketing agency, Measured SEM, which we did this past February. With Measured SEM, we knew that we could apply the same strategies and tactics that transformed WordStream.com into a traffic and lead generation machine to other companies in other niches and see similar results. So far, so good
What is the make-up of your clientele?
Currently, we have a roster of 30 clients that range from smaller mom and pop shops, who want local SEO/geo-targeting traction, to larger SMBs software vendors where we manage their online marketing campaigns from end-to-end, to ecommerce clients where we develop and execute content-based link marketing campaigns.
So how did you determine your niche market?
Starting an inbound marketing agency that would grow site traffic and online lead generation for companies seemed like a logical extension of our experience, skill sets and passion. What’s more, despite the economic slowdown, the search marketing space continues to thrive each year. So it made sense to continue working in an industry that’s enjoying rapid growth and still relatively young with a lot of upside.
What kind of SEO services do you provide?
Our SEO services include technical site audits, SEO strategy, keyword research, on-page optimization and SEO copywriting. We also offer a range of content marketing and link building packages, that include everything from infographic creation and promotion, to group interviews with industry thought leaders, to our popular guest blog posting service.
The overriding goal of our services is to provide exponential value to our clients. So for example, if you spend $X amount with us per month we want you to see $2X worth in return.
How big a role does copywriting play in the services you provide?
Copywriting is pervasive in almost everything we do at Measured SEM. Think about it: good copy touches so many aspects of traditional SEO–from crafting clickable title tags, to persuasive meta descriptions, to compelling page titles. In addition, we produce search-driven content for clients, which includes informational content (blog posts, expert articles, authoritative industry reports) and transactional content (SEO landing pages that are designed to convert).
Great copy also plays a major role in our content marketing campaigns, where we not only research and generate the content/linkable assets, but we also promote the content via outreach, which in itself involves writing a very persuasive pitch letter to compel the recipient to not only look at your content but to share it with their audience as well.
Any advice for those considering starting up their own SEO copywriting business?
There’s a lot of competition out there, from cost-effective content shops, like Text Broker, to higher-quality resources like Level343, so you really need to distinguish yourself and provide a strong value prop. The best way to set yourself above the pack is to over-deliver on every project. This is especially true if you’re just starting out. Make the client feel like they’re getting more than they’re paying for and you’ll minimize churn, create a loyal customer base and get tons of referrals.
Tell us about your most difficult challenge as an SEO business. How did you resolve/deal with it?
Setting client expectations is the most challenging aspects of what we do, but it’s vital to the health of every project. You need to set realistic, achievable expectations for clients right out of the gate so everyone is on the same page. Then, you over-deliver
Do you recommend keeping SEO copywriting in-house, or outsourcing as a new biz?
For new businesses, it probably makes the most sense to outsource for a few reasons:
However, once you start to gain momentum and generate consistent revenue growth, I think there are advantages to having a copywriter on-staff. Anyone who’s embedded in your company is going to acquire valuable institutional knowledge and have a much better understanding of your space, your industry and your business. For the in-house copywriter, that means knowing how best to speak to and connect with your target audience.
Filed under B2B SEO copywriting,Small business,Tips by Industry
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5 post-Panda strategies for optimizing your e-commerce site
May 2, 2011 • written by Laura Crest
Over the past financially-stressed year, many e-commerce companies simply lacked the resources needed to produce high-quality, original content. So they’ve been hurt by Google’s Mayday and Panda/Farmer updates. But there is a shiny silver lining to this setback, as Heather explains:
Common E-Commerce Issues:
Whatever the circumstance, these smaller e-commerce companies are at a huge disadvantage right now. But the silver lining is that this setback presents a fantastic opportunity for these businesses to give their e-commerce site a complete “make-over.”
So here’s what to do (over) if you find your e-commerce site hurting from Google’s algorithm changes:
1) Figure out what’s working, and what’s not: Seize this opportunity to delve deep into your analytics and look at things like bounce and conversion rates. The information you glean can provide you with a road map as to what to do next. For instance…
2) Are you using the right keyphrases? Upon entering the e-commerce world, you may not have completely understood what keyphrases were or how to work with them. Or your original keyphrases may have brought in traffic at the start, but may be not the best, qualified traffic. Again, this is a great opportunity to go back to the beginning and re-evaluate. You may well discover other keyphrases to focus on and leverage for SEO.
3) Messaging: Do you address your prospect’s primary question of what’s in it for me (WIIFM)? Revisit your benefit statements: do they explicitly tell your reader what’s in it for them? Are the tone and feel of your site targeted to your perfect customer? Are you bringing out the best benefit statements that you can? This is a golden opportunity to make your site as tight and wired to your customer as possible.
4) What else can you “tweak?” Consider what other elements could be improved to help make you money. For instance:
5) Checking your analytics, determine what your top-performing pages are and start re-writing those first. Look at the top 20-percent of your site’s highest-performing pages, and begin your copywriting do-over with these.
Yes, this website “do-over” does mean an investment of time and money, but the silver lining is that once you’ve gone through the process — taking the time to do it right — then everything else will fall into place: your site will be well-optimized for the search engines, will better serve your customers, and you’ll see a greater return on your investment!
Thanks for joining us! Do you have a SEO copywriting or content marketing question? Zip it on over to Heather at: askheather@seocopywriting.com, and she may well answer it with next Monday’s video post!
Filed under Catalog/retailer,Small business,Tips by Industry
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5 reasons why social media is good for SEO
April 26, 2011 • written by Laura Crest
Guest Author, Stacey Acevero
Do you like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn? Well I’ve got a reason to love all of these social media platforms. We use these outlets to learn new information, disseminate interesting information we find, engage with new people and share ideas. But what most don’t realize is that social media is in fact great for SEO and can help boost your search engine rankings. Here’s how:
1) The same way you use keywords to optimize your blog posts can be used to optimize your posts in social media. Leveraging keywords improves search traffic when you use keywords that rank highly for your topic. Use a keyword research tool such as Google Adwords to figure out which search terms rank higher, and infuse those terms into your posts.
2) Social media encourages the sharing of multimedia, and multimedia is shown to increase time on page. PRWeb did a study which concluded that including multimedia in news releases increases time on page by an average of about 30 seconds. Imagine what that could do for your blog and social media posts. That’s the difference between someone reading your post and clicking the “X” and someone reading your post and getting hooked—you want the latter.
3) Social media influence increases link sharing, which ultimately results in better search ranking. Every link into your portal improves your chances of ranking well in Google and other search engines, according to informIT. I like to call it link-love, and give plenty of it when tweeting throughout the day. Tweeting information from a variety of sources is important because those sources might notice this and tweet you back: creating lots of link love.
4) Google’s crawling, indexing and rankings are directly influenced by Tweeted links and Facebook shares. The easier it is to link to your content via sharing buttons, the more likely someone will use them to share your content, according to SEOmoz.
5) SEO is based on relevance and authority. You build relevance and authority by creating and sharing original content (such as blogs) and building communities on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter. The more relevant and authoritative you are on your topic, the better search engines will view you.
Are you convinced yet? Try your hand at increasing your SEO using social media and share with us what you find! Keep one thing in mind: all SEO takes time and patience.
For more information on social media and SEO, I recommend visiting the TopRank Online Marketing Blog, Mashable or SEOmoz.
Stacey Acevero is the social media community manager at Vocus and PRWeb. Part of the PR team and an early adopter of social media, she blogs frequently about public relations, social media, marketing and search engine optimization at BloggingPRWeb.
Filed under SEO Content marketing,Small business,Tips and techniques,Tips by Industry
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Drive revenue with benefit-specific, targeted product pages
March 21, 2011 • written by Laura Crest
If you’re new to the how-to series or could stand a quick review, it might be helpful to check out Heather’s previous posts on Features vs. Benefits and Transforming Ordinary Features into Extraordinary Benefits.
Well-Written Product Pages Drive Revenue
Product pages are “money pages,” and if you own an ecommerce company, your product pages present a spectacular opportunity to improve your conversion rates. You have a fantastic chance to first, improve the overall copywriting itself and second, improve your search engine optimization. So let’s look at what is great, and what isn’t so hot:
What’s Hot and What’s Not So Great:
Keep in mind, first and foremost, that your #1 Goal is to Sell the Product
You want your prospect to land on your products page and immediately think, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I want and I’m hitting buy now!” With this priority in mind, here are specific ways to help our readers do just that with targeted copywriting for our product pages.
1. Product-Specific Benefit Statements (vs. Feature-Oriented Content)
This is a HUGE opportunity that a lot of companies miss out on. You may have an incredible amount of product features – color, weight, dimensions, etc. – but key to your conversions is to explicitly highlight and translate the benefits implicit to those features so your prospect says “Yes!” Specifically addressing that “what’s in it for me” is precisely what will sell your product. (Again, recommended reading are Heather’s detailed posts about features vs. benefits, and transforming features into benefits).
2. Product-Specific Keyphrases (vs. General Keyphrases – or None At All!)
Here’s where you can dig in to your analytics and do your keyword research to figure out the best overall keyphrase strategy for your site, as well as drastically improve your conversions: look into SKU’s, specific product and category names, and designer search terms. With this data, you’ve a great resource for discovering those keyphrases ripe for optimizing both your products page and your conversions!
3. Directed and Original Content Written with your Customer Persona in Mind (vs. Simply Uploading the Catalog/Manufacturer Copy)
While Google’s taken steps with its Farmer/Panda update that does not reward mere uploads, beyond that you want to rewrite the generic catalog/manufacturer copy so it speaks to your customer persona. While refining and honing the copy like this means more time and more resources, know that you don’t have to do it all at once. You can baby-step your rewriting, focusing on the most important content first.
4. Clear Call to Action (vs. Long, Scrolling Content where the “Buy Now” Button is Buried)
The idea is to make it easy for customers to buy your products. A clear and visible call to action will go a long way towards improving conversions – you don’t want to make prospects work to make their purchase. This is where an A/B split test can be applied to see what works best for conversions in terms of the placement of your call to action.
5. Highlighting Overarching Company Benefit Statements (vs. Hiding Them in Copy or Not Mentioning Them At All)
Again, this where a lot of businesses miss the mark. Specials, discounts, free shipping, and other such benefit statements should be made clear and obvious to the prospect. You can’t assume the customer knows about your company’s sales or special offers – don’t hide these great benefits in the copy!
6. Fantastic, Benefits-Oriented Title (vs. So-So Title Filled with Product-based Keywords)
The power of a benefits-oriented, compelling title cannot be overstated! A well-written, “clickable” Title not only improves click-thru rates on the search engine results page, but is far more likely to result in conversions than a Title that merely lists keywords separated by commas.
One company that has product pages down is Brookstone. Clearly thinking of “search-ability,” the company incorporates a keyphrase into their product name, and pairs it with a benefits statement and product-specific SKU: “OSIM Comfort Massage Chair.” Looking at the company’s product page, you’ll notice they’ve also incorporated customer reviews, great content, benefit statements, and answers to customer questions. The Brookstone product page is a good example of how to do it right.
Thanks for tuning in for today’s video how-to! Be sure to check in next Monday, when Heather will address how to write a killer services page. See you then!
Filed under Catalog/retailer,SEO Content marketing,Small business,Tips and techniques,Tips by Industry
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3 tips for DIY small business SEO content writing
September 2, 2010 • written by Heather Lloyd-Martin
I’ve said it before – small businesses can write killer SEO content. When their passion for the written word is translated to the page (or, in this case, to the site,) the end result is entertaining, persuasive and powerful. I’ve profiled two small businesses, Portland Adventure Bootcamp and Studio Blue Pilates who have both gone the DIY route and seen some spectacular results.
However, many site owners – even folks who are fairly SEO savvy – make some common copywriting 101 mistakes. Here are three most common ones:
Why aren’t I mentioning keyphrase placement? Of course DIY small business owners should go through the necessary keyphrase research and SEO content writing steps – that’s just smart marketing. At the same time, focusing on these three foundational copywriting steps in addition to your keyphrase placement will help convert curious prospects into committed clients. It’s really that easy.
Have a SEO copywriting tip for small businesses? Tell us about it!
Filed under Small business,Tips and techniques
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Does your SEO copywriting sound like a bad date?
May 6, 2010 • written by Heather Lloyd-Martin
As I was remembering those “bad old days,” I realized that going on a first date is a lot like visiting a site for the first time. In that split-second before you hit the site (or you see your date at the restaurant,) there’s always an anticipatory moment of, “I really hope they have what I’m looking for.”
And then, sadly, there’s the letdown when you realize, “Oh no. They are obviously not what I want.”
For all those “bad date” Websites out there, please stop doing the following. Immediately. Thankyouverymuch.
Side note: Great minds think alike. After I wrote this, it was brought to my attention by @lisabarone that she had written a very similar blog post – and the original pic I had for my post was the exact same one as hers (and no, I hadn’t read her post!) I switched out my pic, and highly encourage folks to read Lisa’s expert take on the topic. Enjoy!
Filed under B2B SEO copywriting,Catalog/retailer,In-house Content Marketing,Small business
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