Content marketing tips in this article will help you improve your strategy for small businesses and make it more effective.
#1 Know your target audience
The success of any marketing campaign depends on the ability to know your target audience. How can you ever hope to reach them if you don’t know who they are or what they want?
Before starting a content marketing strategy, you must understand the following:
- What pain points do they have?
- What do they want from you (your product or service)?
- What value does your product or service offer them?
- Where are they looking for this information?
“Know your audience” is a phrase that every content strategist has heard. But it’s important because it can help make or break your marketing campaign! This simple phrase can save you hours of wasted effort if followed correctly.
#2 Do your keyword research
The most important of all content marketing tips we can give you when creating content is to know what you’re talking about.
Keyword research is discovering which words and phrases people use when searching for a product or service like yours. You look at websites that are already ranking well in Google and see what keywords they rank for, then try to find out why they rank so well and how you can apply these techniques to your own site.
Keyword research gives you valuable insight into things like:
- What people want from your business (and what they don’t)
- How easy it is for customers to find your business online (i.e., when someone searches for “small business marketing,” will my site show up?)
- How much competition is there in this industry (i.e., if there are many competitors who have been around longer than me with more traffic because they’ve been doing keyword research since day one…)
To learn about your target audience, it is essential to conduct research. This can be done by conducting surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Many different tools are also available online to help you gather information about your customers. Many tools can help you with keyword research. When it comes to keyword research, one tool is not enough. Here are some of the best:
- Google Adwords Keyword Planner (free)
- SEMRush ($69/month)
- Moz Keyword Explorer ($99/month), Google Analytics (free)
#3 Optimize for mobile search
If you haven’t already, it’s time to optimize your website for mobile search. This means ensuring that your site’s content looks good and is readable on a phone screen.
To do this, it’s essential to use a responsive design so that when someone accesses your site from their phone or tablet, it automatically adjusts the website’s layout so that everything fits comfortably on their screen.
It’s also important to ensure that your content is readable without zooming in or out by using appropriate font sizes and colors (no tiny text, please).
#4 Don’t neglect local SEO
Local SEO is essential to your marketing strategy, and it’s especially important if you’re a small business. Furthermore, local SEO is just as important for B2B companies as it is for B2C companies. If you’re looking to get found online by people in your area or near your physical location, then local SEO can help you out.
Local SEO takes into account not just keywords but also factors like:
- Your business’s physical address
- Your business’s phone number
- The proximity of competitors’ locations to yours (if any)
B2B companies: Local SEO is a great way to get found by local businesses looking for products and services in your area. Ecommerce companies: If you’re an eCommerce company, then you’ll want to make sure that your website is optimized for local searches so that people can find you online.
#5 Review your data and analytics often
Much like the data, you collect on your sales, using Google Analytics to track how people interact with your content will help you create more compelling content in the future.
Analyze your bounce rate, time on site, and pages per visit. If people are bouncing from your page after only a few seconds, it might be because they don’t find what they’re looking for or because the content isn’t relevant to their needs. On the other hand, if visitors spend a long time reading through every page of your blog post before leaving, it’s not so great!
#6 Spend time on your content headlines
As the name suggests, inverted pyramid-style headlines start with a summary of your post and dive into more detail as you go down. The “rule of 3” says to use three pieces of information in each headline: “3 ways to get more customers online.” The “rule of 5” tells us we should use five words or less—for example: “5 content marketing tips for small business owners.” And the “rule of 7” says that one or two numbers are okay, but three is best—for example, 1) 2) 3).
The general rule here is to keep things short and sweet so that you can grab readers’ attention quickly. You can also consider using numbers in your headlines (like 13 Ways To Be A Better Writer), which has been proven to help make content more engaging for readers across all industries.
#7 Use hashtags on Instagram and Twitter
Hashtags are a great way to categorize your content and show your audience what you’re interested in. Hashtags also help you connect with others, find new followers, and make it easy for others to see your posts.
If you’re using Instagram or Twitter, consider adding hashtags when posting photos or videos related to the topic. If you’re posting about small business marketing strategies and include a photo of yourself holding up a sign saying “Top Small Business Marketing Strategies,” consider adding #smallbusinessmarketingstrategies as well as any other relevant terms so people searching for those topics will see it on their feed.
#8 Audit your content marketing strategy often
One more in the line of important content marketing tips is regular audits. Content marketing is a long-term investment, and you must ensure you’re investing in the right things. That means regularly auditing your current strategy so that you can make changes that support your company’s goals.
Audit at least once per quarter. This can help prevent short-term thinking, leading to a lack of focus on what’s most important for your business. Audits should also be used as opportunities to create new initiatives or reevaluate existing ones based on changing needs and priorities within the organization.
Conclusion
Content marketing is a powerful tool to help you grow your business and establish your brand. But it’s not easy to know where to start or best practices. We hope these content marketing tips help you in your journey to a successful content strategy!
