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Lets shed a little light on content marketing, content management – the importance of it and why every small business any business should be looking into it and investing some time and resources into getting it right. Then, lets look at the objective and strategy so you can use your time wisely.
Content marketing is nothing new, it is fairly commonplace. People talk about how “content is king” and how blogging is important. So everyone is aware that it is important, but WHY is it important and how to best apply it as part of your SEO marketing strategies on your site is not well known.
Google has been emphasizing the addition of valuable original content that has some real weight to it for quite some time. Not just a couple hundred words on a page, but rather substantial weight (1000-1500 words) of valuable and interesting content is decent goal. Google has ways of analyzing content and their priority list as far as sites rank is emphasizing VALUE. How are you going to separate yourself from other competitors that might be wanting to rank for those same keywords and terms?
CONTENT NEEDS TO HAVE THE FOLLOWING ATTRIBUTES TO BE CONSIDERED EXCELLENT:
- Original
- Unique / Rare
- Substantial
- Valuable / Relevant
- Enjoyable to read (NO KEYWORD STUFFING)
Create a resource center about your business, services, and industry. Become an authority that visitors return to for valuable information and you will be rewarded by Google for it.
Here’s how…
Blog! Have a learning center on your website and share the love! Almost all of our clients do. This means write consistently interesting blogs and articles and refer your blog posts back to your original service pages and visa-versa. Don’t go crazy with the links and don’f force it. But by linking to and from, you spread your domains “authority juice” around.
If you are writing articles or if you’re sub pages off original pages that break down the information and then you build a whole new page off of that about 1500 words off of that for a subcategory, it can really start to add up as far as traffic coming to your site. The more traffic you get to your site the more leads you’re going to get, the more leads the more sales. Title tag your pages the best you can. Just be natural in the way you name and categorize your work. Again, dont try and game the system.
For instance if you have an article on carpet cleaning, do not name the articles URL,: /carpet-cleaning-rug-cleaning-clean-your-carpet This will end up NOT WORKING WELL. Simply name it: URL: /carpet-cleaning-tips
Clients and customers want to do business with people that they know and trust. Providing valuable, insightful information builds up that trust. Take pride in your articles and show respect to your readers. As they read your work, they will get to know you and as you continue building up trust you become an authority online. So they did the search, they found what they were looking for and they see that there’s a person that provides these solutions right in their geographical area. They’re probably going to give you a call or they’re much higher more likely to give you a call.
Others who don’t call, may share your article on their social media platforms. (This is also great for SEO)
You look back six months, a year, or longer and if you’ve been doing these posts and blots at a rate of one article per week or a new page every other week you look back over time and a year goes by and boom you’ve got another 50-100 pages on your site. Now you’ve really separated yourself from other business owners who have neglected their site over that same period of time. Trust me, the vast majority of business owners neglect their sites big time. For local business owners, out performing your competition is usually not that hard.
So the benefits of content marketing are huge. Here they are:
- It’s going to help with rankings and traffic
- It’s going to help with conversions (turning visitors into leads)
- It’s going to help with building up an authority for yourself (Leadership)
- Its going to help increase the authority of the domain name
- It’s FREE!
Thats right… It doesn’t cost any money to put content on your site if you do it yourself. Even if you have to pay for have someone do it for you and you have to approve it and put it on your site, if its original valuable content, it’s worth doing.
These are things that you need to look at and look into but if you haven’t touched your site in the last three weeks, three months, some people, the last three years, you need to start looking at this or else your rankings will start to slide if they haven’t already.
The other thing about having a lot of content on your site if it’s updated on a regular basis is it anchors down rankings that you’ve earned. Your competitors are not going to sit by and do nothing forever. Some businesses already are feeling the pressure and know they have to get into the Internet game, so get ahead of them. If you are already ranking high, that is great news but it isn’t a reason to neglect content marketing for your business. Content will help you nail you down. So think about your strategy, think about the services that you offer, think about niche areas within your services for subcategories and start building pages off of those.
I always ask my clients you know, what are the FAQ’s that you get? What are the most frequently asked questions and then we can start even using some of those questions as a topic for our Learning Center. All these things start to come into play with content marketing and content management. answer these common questions on your site.
VIDEO & More
Content does not just mean words. Video is a great way to add content to your site. Google purchased YouTube years ago and the authority given to a properly optimized YouTube channel is not something to overlook. The words spoken in a video are also cataloged and used in search results. There are many types of content beyond page copy. Info-graphics, webinars, interviews, White papers, podcasts, and more. The options and ideas for content marketing are literally endless.
COMMIT TIME TO MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS
A successful business owner doesn’t watch the clock or work 40 hours per week. A successful owner does whatever it takes to succeed. Period. It takes a large commitment of time to focus on growing and managing the business. Make appointments with yourself to manage your business or work on your business every week. Even if it is 10-15 minutes. Every Saturday morning at 10am with a cup of coffee or whatever works for you. Set an alarm. Commit and succeed!
Commit from the beginning to having an open mind and welcoming new ideas, new technology, and new strategies. Times are changing. Technology does not stand still. Rigid thinking leads to a stagnant business and reduced sales. If you want your business to succeed, you must embrace new ways of thinking, even if it means doing things that take you out of your comfort zone.. The attitude that good ideas don’t come from the outside can drive a stake into the heart of a business.
Hope you found this information useful. Contact GMS Today if you have any questions you need answered. We love business owners and we want you to succeed.
