Why do I need content for my business?
You need content for your business because it generates organic traffic to your website and increases your online visibility to attract new customers. This happens when you create content that follows SEO strategies, which increases your chances of appearing in search engine results. Creating content can also help keep your existing customers engaged with your business.
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Types of content
Here are six different types of content that you can use to complement your business’s credibility and drive traffic to your website:
How-to content
How-to content is excellent for companies that offer complex products or services. Create how-to content in the form of an article or blog post, infographic, instructional video or a combination of these content areas to demonstrate how to get the most out of one of your products. For example, a software company writes an informational blog post about how to use their new program. There is a tutorial video at the top of the blog post for additional help.
Founder-created content
Founder-created is content that the owner or CEO of a company posts, and it usually takes form in videos, articles or blog posts.This allows customers and site visitors to engage with your company’s chief officers. As an employer, you write an article for your company website each month, highlighting a particular company value or summarizing new product developments. This builds credibility with your audience and provides more insights into the company, its purpose and its offerings.
Behind-the-scenes looks
Content that shows customers a glimpse into the inner-workings of your company builds your credibility and helps you maintain a loyal customer base. For example, an organic clothing company cultivates customer trust by creating a video series of their manufacturing facilities, conducting interviews with employees and showing viewers the source of their organic fabric material.
Interactive posts
Interactive posts allow users and prospective customers to engage directly with your content. Interact with existing customers to remind them of your services and cultivate new customers as a result. Examples include social media posts, polls, surveys and contests that encourage your followers to engage with you and your business.
Opinion pieces
Write an opinion piece about a current industry trend or event that relates to your business and its services. Those who search for articles about a specific topic or trend could read your article and look for related articles on your website. For example, a consultant firm posts an opinion piece about consultants in the business world. Throughout the next week, the company website receives an increase of 30% in traffic as a result of itsarticle.
Syndicated content
Companies republish or”syndicate”content from other credible company websites to add value to theirwebpages. If you find an article, video or blog post that relates to your company, its benefits or services, contact the site owner for permission to republish their piece with credit on your website. For example, an environmental nonprofit organization republishes an article about plastic waste reduction initially published on a nature conservatory blog.
How to create content
Follow these steps to create tailored content to increase your online visibility and maintain a loyal customer base:
1. Create your goals
The first step to creating valuable content for your business is to develop realistic goals that you want to achieve. For example, a small business needs site traffic to generate potential sales, or a large corporation wants to expand its customer base to include a different age group or culture.
2. Identify your current customer base
The second step is identifying your existing customers, their age, economic status and interests. This determines what types of content and topics to use. For example, an investment company knows it needs to create content that accommodates financially-minded individuals.
3. Establish content creation’s place in your sales cycle
Establish where content creation fits into your sales cycle. For example, a company decides to incorporate content creation as a part of their lead generation process.
4. Emphasize the call-to-action
A call-to-action encourages the person who is engaging with your content to connect with your company. For example, conclude an article with something like, “Check out our other hardware tips here.”
5. Review and revise
Evaluate which content did better than others in generating traffic to your website, and edit the content that didn’t do well for better results the next time.
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Frequently asked questions about content for brands
Here are some answers to additional questions you might still have about creating content for your business and its brand:
How frequently should I create and publish content for my business?
You should create content to distribute on your website every week or at least once a month. If you have a designated marketing department,assign them these tasks to maintain a continuous flow of content that helps drive traffic to your site.
Is there one type of content that is more beneficial to use than others?
Although one type of content does not weigh out the rest, articles, blog posts and other written forms of content can prove to be extremely beneficial in generating traffic to your site. This is because you can insert keywords throughout the text to enhance visibility. Another benefit of creating written content is that you can add backlinks to your main company page or other content pages, which increases the credibility of your website to search engines.
Should I replace my traditional marketing methods with content creation?
You should not replace your traditional marketing methods altogether. Instead, use content creation to complement your traditional tactics.
