Small business owners are at a loss how to handle content marketing. These are the main problems that they are usually faced with:
- What to write about
- How to rank in local search engine results pages
- How to use social media properly
What’s sad is that it is not difficult to find answers to these problems. In fact, the answer to it can be summed up in a single phrase; a small business owner should think globally, but take actions locally.
How can small business owners manage content marketing properly?
Where You Should Focus
Like many small business owners, you are probably concerned about ranking at the top of local SERPS. While that is really something that you should pay attention to, putting all of you efforts to that aspect of marketing can cause you to lose sight of other things that you can do.
You could be trying to rank for keywords where the competition is too intense, while ignoring simple things that you can do. Things like ensuring your citations are accurate, getting good reviews on other sites, and updating your Google My Places.
These are things are all easy to do and yet they can bring in real results. Remember that at the end of the day, your ultimate goal is for people to recognize your business from the SERPs and click on your link.
In some cases, business owners do not create pages that are local specific. This is a huge mistake because that sort of page has the potential of capturing a large amount of traffic. Making all these mistakes could mean giving your competition the opportunity.
As a small business, you should aim to snatch away opportunities from the competition. You can and you should use your local knowledge in order to do that.
Using Local SEO
Small business owners are missing out on the opportunity to do well in local search. While big brands have the resources to dominate local search, they do not really spend their resources in creating local-specific content, which leaves a door for small businesses.
It is a sad fact that small brand owners do not bother to craft good content. They feel that it takes up too much time and that it is too complicated. But creating good content is not that difficult. Being local experts, they have a voice and knowledge that people would actually want to read.
Small business owners should realize two points:
- Local offices of big brands can steal customers.
- The ability to rank in SERPs is directly proportional to the size of the service area of a business.
But they can counter those two points by using content that is focused on a specific location, using personalization and knowledge that only a small business can have.
If you are a small business owner, try these steps to give your content marketing more punch:
Step 1 – Always Choose Quality over Quantity
Many SMB owners are at a loss when it comes to the frequency of their writing. In reality, that should not be a question to puzzle over. That can be resolved by focusing on the right thing.
What are the topics that your customers would want to read about? When you have an answer to that question, the next step is for you to try and write about those topics in a way that would catch your reader’s attention. When you focus on that, you do not even have to ask yourself how often you should be writing.
As a SMB, your aim is to create content that can get your phone ringing. You also need to make people into loyal customers, people who can become brand advocates and you can only do that by writing quality content.
Good content should have the following qualities:
- It should bring people together. – Quality content should be unifying. It should place everyone reading it on the same page.
- It should educate people. – Your content should provide good information about your area. People crave for local info.
- It should be insider information. – It should be written from the point of view of an insider. That makes it more credible to readers.
The key takeaway here is that quality content goes beyond impeccable grammar and using interesting images. You should aim to create content that the competition cannot match because you are using your insider knowledge. That is how you can catch reader attention and win loyalty.
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Step 2 – Be an Expert
More often than not, small business owners fail to realize that they have the most powerful tools in their own hands. They let other people create content for them without realizing that they are letting their best weapon go to waste.
That tool is their local expertise. The big brands cannot hope to match that weapon. Localized excellence can do a great deal for your business. A plumber for example can draw customers by creating content emphasizing their localized excellence.
Different businesses have different priorities. Let’s go back to plumber as an example. A local plumbing firm does not really require getting back links that much, what it needs is to get customers to call them for jobs. So content that can get people to call, should be their aim.
Plumbers should focus on localized excellence.
Build your reputation as the local expert. Then start creating content that you can share with other websites. As soon as you have established yourself as the local expert, calls will come in.
Step 3 – Personalize It
Content that is unique to you is something that cannot be copied by the competition. How can you create content that is uniquely your own? You can do that by personalizing your content.
If you are a local business, try featuring your customers in your content. If you are a local carpenter for example, try posting pictures of the people that you have built things for. You can post those photos on your social media.
Carpenters can ask their clients for reviews and comments.
Posting images on social media can create shareable content and make other people your very own promoters. That would be something that even large brands would envy.
You can even get short reviews from your customers by interviewing them. Remember that you should not be limited to written content. You can also use videos of happy customers. They don’t even have to talk praises about your business. They could just talk about themselves, which would give a more personal touch to it. Just take a look at some of our Top rated SEO client reviews on yelp.
As a small business owner, you have the power necessary to beat big brands in your hands. You just don’t realize it yet. Remember that local SERP is your turf and you should own it. You can count on The Ad Firm to back you up on that.
