What is content marketing?
Content marketing is a marketing strategy used to attract, engage, and retain an audience by creating and sharing relevant articles, videos, podcasts, and other media. It is the development and distribution of relevant and useful content, such as blogs, white papers, newsletters, social media posts, emails, videos and more, to current and potential customers. Content marketing helps to establish and nurture relationships with an audience and encourages them to purchase your product or service. It also provides a competitive advantage by helping to increase online visibility, generate leads, boost loyalty, and improve authority. Content marketing is used in each stage of the sales cycle, from awareness to consideration to purchase, and can be made simpler with the right tools and resources.
What are the benefits of content marketing for small businesses?
1. Increased Web Traffic
Content marketing can be a great way for small businesses to increase their web traffic and visibility online. By creating localized content that is tailored to their local demographic, small businesses can gain more organic search engine traffic, which can lead to more website visitors and potential customers. Strategies such as optimizing content for local keywords, including geographic tags in content titles, and using local and related phrases in content can help businesses reach the top of search engine results and attract more qualified visitors. Additionally, having consistent, high-quality content can increase engagement and build trust with the audience, resulting in more leads and customers for the business. Content marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses to use in order to reach their target audience and grow their business.
2. Increased Website Visibility
Content marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses to increase website visibility in search engine results. When done right, content marketing can help small businesses build a strong presence on the web and be seen by more potential customers. Content marketing increases your website’s presence by providing valuable information and resources that are of interest to your target audience, as well as helping to establish your authority within your industry. By delivering content that is relevant to your target audience and engaging with them, small businesses can create brand loyalty and trust. This in turn will help increase web traffic and sales, as well as improve search engine rankings. Additionally, content marketing can help small businesses optimize their website for the latest search engine algorithms, making it more likely to appear on the first page of search engine results. Ultimately, content marketing is an essential component for small businesses looking to increase website visibility and ultimately boost their sales.
Emediacy is a web development and marketing agency that designs websites to get more traffic, engagement, and conversions. Emediacy will design a website that is tailored to your company’s unique requirements and preferences. We work with businesses in Bend, Sisters, Redmond, Prineville, Powell Butte, The Dalles, and Hood River, Salem and Portland.
Emediacy has helped businesses in generating leads, increase conversions, and raise brand awareness. To know how Emediacy can help to grow your business exponentially, schedule a consult today.
3. Improved Search Engine Rankings
Content marketing is an essential tool for improving search engine rankings for small businesses. Through content marketing, businesses can engage their target audience and provide them with valuable information that is tailored to their needs. This in turn can lead to improved search engine visibility, as search engines will recognize the relevance of the content to the user’s search query, and reward the website with higher rankings. Additionally, content marketing will provide small businesses with more opportunities to build relationships with their target customers through content that is both useful and interesting. These relationships may in turn lead to more loyal customers and higher conversions, and this can lead to organic growth in website traffic which can further boost search engine rankings. Content marketing is an effective way to reach customers and improve search engine rankings for small businesses.
4. Increased Brand Awareness
Content marketing is a powerful tool for small businesses to increase brand awareness and build a loyal customer base. By creating content that is relevant and useful to their target audience, small businesses can increase website visits, generate leads, and ultimately drive sales growth. Additionally, content marketing helps businesses establish themselves as authoritative thought leaders in their industry and build trust with potential shoppers.
Small businesses can create content through blog posts, social media posts, branded videos, and more. Content can be made geo-localized, allowing businesses to virtually window their products and reach a larger audience. Additionally, content marketing can be used with local SEO to improve the chances of appearing in search engine results. This helps businesses gain more visibility and attract more qualified visitors, leads, and customers.
By using content marketing, small businesses can also benefit from tracking their campaigns in real time. This helps businesses measure the efficiency of their marketing campaigns and make necessary adjustments to improve their ROI. Additionally, small businesses can use Google Alerts to get notifications whenever their business name or relevant keyword is mentioned around the web.
Content marketing is a key tactic that, when done right, can help small businesses increase brand awareness, reach their target audience, and drive sales.
5. Improved Customer Engagement
Content marketing helps businesses to improve their customer engagement by increasing their visibility online, driving more leads, boosting loyalty and authority, and allowing them to take advantage of digital transformation and localized content marketing. Through content marketing, businesses are able to reach potential customers who never knew they were looking for them, providing them with highly informative, educational, and entertaining content that educates them on their pain points. This helps to build trust with customers, increasing engagement and leading to more leads and purchases. Content marketing also helps to position a business as a thought leader and authority in the industry, further increasing their customer engagement.
6. Increased Website Conversion Rates
Content marketing can help small businesses increase website conversion rates by providing relevant, engaging, and high-quality content that is tailored to the interests of their target audience. By developing content that is tailored to each individual customer’s needs, small businesses can build relationships and trust with their customers, resulting in increased website conversions. Content marketing also helps to improve organic search engine rankings, which can then drive more qualified leads to the website. Additionally, content marketing can help small businesses improve their website speed and visitor flow, optimize their website for better performance, and create high-value marketing plugins for WordPress. All of this can result in more website visitors, more leads, and ultimately more sales.
7. Increased Business Profits
Content marketing is an effective tool for local businesses to increase their profits by leveraging the power of search engine optimization (SEO). Content marketing allows businesses to target their ideal customers by optimizing their website and search engine presence for local clients that are already looking for the product or service they offer. By providing quality content that is relevant to the target audience, businesses can draw attention to their services and increase their website traffic, resulting in more leads, conversions and ultimately, higher profits. Content marketing can also help businesses create positive customer reviews on platforms like Google and Yelp, which can further boost their search engine rankings, visibility, and profitability. By investing in content marketing and SEO strategies, businesses can predictably increase their leads and sales, no matter their industry, while also earning a 5.7x return on their monthly investment.
Emediacy is a digital marketing agency that can help to attract, engage and convert your audience. Through paid advertising and SEO strategies, Emediacy has helped businesses in generating leads, increase conversions, and raise brand awareness.
Take advantage of Emediacy’s conversion-focused local SEO services. To know how Emediacy can help to grow your business exponentially, schedule a consult today.
What are the step-by-step process on how to create a content marketing plan?
Step 1: Identify Your Goals
Identifying your goals for a content marketing plan is an essential step in creating a successful plan. Here are the steps to help you create a plan that meets your business objectives:
Understand Your Audience: Have a thorough understanding of your target readers, their priorities, challenges, and preferences. Create detailed segment profiles before you start writing content.
Set Short-Term Goals: Develop a content plan that you can realistically complete in 3 to 6 months. It’s important to factor in the resources and budget you have available.
Conduct Discovery: Research your website authority, main keywords, and competitive analysis using professional tools and processes.
Create a Plan: Construct an effective SEO plan that includes keyword research and best practices.
Implement the Plan: Start on-site and off-site optimization, link building, tracking, plan improvement, and monthly reporting.
Define Goals: Make sure your goals are clearly defined and tied to your business objectives. Examples of goals could be increasing online form submissions, website visits, or creating more brand awareness.
Choose the Right Formats: Select formats for your content that make sense for each stage of the sales cycle. Examples of content could be articles, blog posts, e-books, videos, and newsletters.
Quality Matters: Make sure the content you create is of the highest quality. Hire a professional proofreader to review your content before it is released.
Following these steps will help you create a content marketing plan that meets your business goals and engages your audience.
Step 2: Define Your Keywords
Creating an effective content marketing plan starts with defining your keywords. Knowing the exact words and phrases your target audience is searching for will give you a competitive edge in the search engine result pages. To accomplish this, you need to do keyword research.
Using professional tools and processes, our keyword research process gives you insight into website authority, main keywords, analytics, and competitor analysis. This data helps us construct an effective SEO plan, including discovery, keyword research, analysis, and best practices.
Once the plan is ready, we’ll begin the process of optimization. This includes on-site and off-site optimization, link building, tracking, and plan improvement. We’ll also provide monthly reporting on your SEO progress.
When you’re creating content, be sure to use your target keywords in the title, link, meta title and meta description, and other headings on the page. As a general rule, you should use the target keyword at least once in the body of the article, but be sure not to “stuff” it in there. Too much of the same keyword can actually hurt your SEO efforts.
By using the right keywords in your content, you’ll be able to improve your ranking in local search results and reach more people. Keep these tips in mind and you’ll be on your way to better SEO.
Step 3: Create Content Planograms
Creating content planograms for a content marketing plan is an important step in optimizing your content for maximum impact. To begin, you will need to know your target audience and the best formats for each stage of the sales cycle. Once you have this information, you can create a short-term (3-6 months) plan. Make sure your plan is realistic and attainable based on your budget and resources.
When creating your plan, it is important to consider the right format for each stage. This could be a video, an article, a blog post, an e-book, or a newsletter. Be sure to identify the right resource to create the content, and have a professional proofreader review it when finished.
For the awareness stage, you should focus on the top concerns of your audience and create educational, how-to content. For example, a restaurant might write a blog post about how to plan a menu for a graduation party in the spring, while a bike touring company might create a short video on the topic “3 Ways to Choose the Right Bike Trip”.
Once your content is created, you can optimize it by implementing keyword research and tracking how long it takes to create each piece of content. Additionally, you can promote your content through SEO and product page optimizations. With the right plan, you can ensure that your content reaches the right readers at the right times.
Step 4: Optimize Article Outlets
Optimizing article outlets for content marketing can be done in a few simple steps.
Identify high-potential channels: The best article outlets for content marketing are those channels frequented by your target audience. Consider big, popular channels as well as smaller, industry-focused ones that are likely to connect you with good prospects. Gather input from your audience to determine which channels they favor and build a manageable list based on their preferences.
Craft your copy to fit the channel: Each article outlet has its own level of professionalism, accepted voice, and other details that you need to familiarize yourself with before writing your post. Put your own company spirit into the post to make it more engaging.
Test and modify your approach: A successful content marketing campaign involves trial and error. Track responses from the various channels for quantity and quality of engagements. If you’re getting a few high-potential engagements, that might indicate that the channel is a good fit, as opposed to a slew of clicks that never convert into an audience.
By following these steps, you’ll be able to optimize your article outlets for content marketing and get the most out of your efforts. To learn more, consider using a social media management tool such as Mailchimp to create an effective social media calendar.
Step 5: Optimize Websites for Google My Business
Optimizing websites for Google My Business can help businesses increase their visibility in local search results, thereby aiding in content marketing. When businesses verify the ownership of their business and add all requested information to their Business Profile, they become more likely to be found in searches related to their products or services. Additionally, publishing posts to their profile, adding photos and videos, and optimizing webpages for mobile devices and social media engagement can further help businesses reach their target audience. All of these practices can help businesses increase their visibility and presence online, ultimately leading to more leads and customers.
Step 6: Add Location Pages to Your Website
Adding location pages to a website can help with a content marketing plan by providing a high level of relevance and authority for businesses in targeted locations. This helps to ensure that search engine algorithms can quickly and accurately identify the business and make it easier for potential customers to find. Additionally, having location-specific pages avoids the issue of duplicating content across multiple webpages, which eliminates the risk of duplicate content penalties. By optimizing these pages with relevant content and keywords, businesses can increase their visibility and rank higher in local search results, leading to more engagement and conversions. Furthermore, the creation and management of local citations can help to further increase the visibility of the business, allowing people to easily discover the business online.
Step 7: Participate in Your Local Community
Participating in the local community can help with a content marketing plan by providing valuable insights into the needs of the customers in the area. By understanding the trends and topics that are of interest to the local population, businesses can create content that is relevant to their target audience. Content that is engaging and focused on the local news stories and events can help to capture the attention of the customers and provide businesses with an opportunity to establish a connection with them. Additionally, participating in local events and initiatives can help create an engagement with the local population and give businesses the opportunity to promote their brand, leading to increased visibility and higher chances of ranking higher for related terms.
Step 8: Submit to online business directories
Submitting content marketing plans to online business directories can be a beneficial tactic for businesses in order to achieve their desired goals. By submitting the information in a comprehensive and accurate way, businesses gain the opportunity to increase their visibility to potential customers or clients. This can be done through submitting a backlink from the directory listing to the website and optimizing for directories such as Yext, Moz Local, Yelp and InfoGroup. Additionally, optimizing for Google My Business, engaging with social media platforms, regularly updating content on Google My Business, auditing one’s website for SEO issues, improving the internal linking structure and having a mobile-friendly website will further help increase the chances of being seen by potential customers. All of these optimizations and actions help businesses increase their visibility and search engine rankings, which leads to more customers and increased revenue. Furthermore, it also increases brand awareness, which in turn leads to more customers and higher sales. Therefore, submitting content marketing plans to online business directories can help businesses achieve their goals by increasing visibility, search engine rankings and brand awareness.
Step 9: Regularly check website health with a site audit
Checking website health with a site audit is an important step when creating a content marketing plan. A site audit can identify any areas that need attention, such as technical SEO problems, mobile friendliness, or poor page load speed. Knowing this information can help you to create a content marketing plan that will be more effective in achieving your desired results. For example, if your website is not optimised for mobile users, you can include more mobile-friendly content in your plan. With more visibility, you can ensure that your content is reaching the right people and that it is engaging and converting them. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your website will also help you craft a more targeted strategy that meets the needs of your users and takes advantage of your website’s strengths.
Step 10: Get inbound links with relevance and authority
Step 1: Create great content targeting relevant local keywords. This will help other local businesses find you online, and if they appreciate your content, they may include a link to your site in their own content – otherwise known as a backlink.
Step 2: Focus on quality over quantity. Aim to get a backlink from a website with a higher domain authority score (i.e. 40-90) rather than multiple links from sites with lower domain authority.
Step 3: Get links from the same or similar sources as your competitors. This will show search engines that you are on the same topic as your competitors.
Step 4: Participate actively in community conversations as it can lead to more incoming links.
Step 5: Grow your presence on social media platforms, as this will help increase your domain authority.
Step 6: Generate backlinks through guest posting, sponsorships, partnerships, guest blogging and being a valuable resource.
Step 7: Reach out to well-known publications and ask them to feature you in an article with a link pointing back to your website.
Step 8: Aim to get organic backlinks rather than relying on paid methods. This is more sustainable in the long run.
Step 11: Focus on link signals (get high-quality backlinks)
Step 1: Do High-Level Research and Strategy: Before beginning your content marketing plan, it is important to spend time researching your target audience, desired keywords, and local competitors. Understanding these elements is necessary to create a successful plan.
Step 2: Focus on Technical On-site SEO: Your website must be optimized for search engine optimization. This means making sure the website is crawlable, with loading content for all users, and having a mobile friendly design.
Step 3: Master On-Page SEO Content Creation: Once the technical side is handled, focus on on-page content that is optimized for your desired keywords. This content should be detailed and authoritative in order to establish your site’s authority and start building links.
Step 4: Implement an Ongoing Blogging Strategy: Consistent content development is essential for a successful content marketing plan. This includes blogs, videos, and other forms of content that are regularly updated and relevant.
Step 5: Focus on Link Signals: Quality backlinks are essential for successful local SEO strategies. This includes links from high-authority websites and those in your local area. It is also important to acquire links from the same sources as your competitors in order to gain an edge.
Step 12: Actively manage reviews and ratings
Bonus Step 13 : Create content based on local news stories or events
Managing reviews and ratings is an important part of creating a successful content marketing plan for local SEO in Bend and Central Oregon. Reviews and ratings give customers an idea of the quality of services and products that a business provides and can be used as a way to build trust and relationships. By responding to reviews in a timely manner, businesses can also use reviews and ratings to improve their SEO efforts by incorporating relevant keywords into their responses. Additionally, monitoring reviews can help businesses stay competitive by providing them with an understanding of customer feedback and helping them to create content that is relevant to their local population. Ultimately, by taking the time to monitor reviews and ratings, businesses can create an effective content marketing plan that not only strengthens their SEO.
Emediacy delivers outstanding branding, web development and digital marketing services to clients across the region. Schedule a consult today Or call 541.640.9116
