Google handles around 99000 search queries every second – that’s about 8.5 billion searches a day. And all of the search results it serves up are based on content – blog posts, articles, videos, audio, and other resources.
Even in this day of ChatGPT and AI powered (re)search the ability to produce engaging and relevant website content can significantly impact your brand’s success as search engines like Google are still a significant part of how businesses bring new visitors to their sites and generate revenue.
Your website content helps people find your business, and learn about your brand and products. It serves to build trust, and establish your expertise, it helps Google and other search engines find and recommend your site, and generates new leads for your business.
If you’re like most small business owners, you probably didn’t actually go into business to create content. You’re probably already juggling quite enough hats (and maybe even a couple of chainsaws) and the whole idea of writing articles/making videos/updating all the socials feels just a bit much.
Here are a few tips, tailored for small business owners like you, that will allow you to harness the power of content creation for your business without being overwhelmed.
Have a clear goal for your content
Before you get started creating any content for your website, make sure you have clear goals for what you want your content to accomplish for your business.
Some examples of goals you might have for your website content are:
- Brand awareness
If you’re a new business, or your business is not very well known, then you might have the goal of creating content that helps people become more familiar with your brand, products or services.
This could look like
– tutorials
– interviews – with staff, founders and/or clients
– guest posts on industry or complimentary business websites
– company news
– posts showcasing your products or services. - Website traffic
If the job of your website is to generate sales or leads for your business, then your primary content goal might be to create content that does well in Search Engines like Google, Bing or Perplexity.
This could look like:
– blog posts that answer frequently asked questions about your products, service or business
– blog posts that help your audience with problems related to your product or service or that your product or service can help them solve
– setting up a knowledge base or FAQ page
– case studies. - Establishing expertise
If you or your business want to be known as a leading expert in your industry than you might have the goal of creating content that showcases your expertise and knowledge of your industry.
This might look like:
– opinion pieces about current events in your industry
– how-to posts to help people get the most out of the solution your product or service provides
– case studies
– interviews
Having clear goals for your content provides a road map for success. It makes it easier to brainstorm topics for your content as you are not starting with a completely blank page, it can help you decide on a content schedule, and it provides you with metrics to measure your success.
Understand your audience
Its so much easier to create content for your website if you know who you are creating it for. Finding out your ideal customers’ preferences, interests, demographic details (like age, gender, location for example) means you can create content that is focused and effective.
When you know who you are creating content on your website for, then you can address the specific problems that you solve for your customers with your product or service, you can answer the questions that you know your audience are likely to be asking, and you can use the kind of language that will resonate with them.
Write first and edit later
Your content doesn’t have to be perfect – in fact, if you’re just starting out writing, it probably won’t be. The only way to get good at creating content is to actually do it.
So the trick is to just get your ideas out and onto the paper or screen. It doesn’t matter if they are good or less than good just get them all out there. Editing as you go is a sure fire way to end up with a blank page instead of a blog post! So while it is an important part of the content creating process – save it till after you are done getting all your ideas out.
You don’t need to write a novel
When it comes to creating content for your site that is valuable and covers your topic well, 1000 words is a good target. You can get a lot of really useful stuff in with 1000 words. That’s essentially a 10 minute conversation – and most of us can talk about the stuff we’re really interested in about our work for hours if given the opportunity!
But if the idea of sitting down and writing a thousand words just makes you want to curl up in a corner – fear not. You actually don’t need to write anything at all. Instead you could:
- Record yourself answering a commonly asked question and then get your recording transcribed using a service like Otter.ai or Happy Scribe. Then all you have to do is polish up the transcription and add it to your site as an article.
- You could create a video of yourself or a staff member answering a question about the service you offer or showing how to use your product. Once again, you could get this transcribed and added to your website as a video with a transcription – or just embed the video with a brief introduction.
- You could interview industry experts or clients, have the interview transcribed and added to your site.
- You could write a bullet point list of the points you want to cover and get ChatGPT to flesh them out into a blog post. Then you can review the content AI spits out, add any extra detail, remove anything that isn’t quite right, and make it sound a bit more human – and add it to your site.
- You could create a slide deck and video the presentation – and embed that on your website.
- You could curate a list of useful posts, articles, videos or industry news that your audience would value
- You could record webinars and embed these in your website
Remember, the key is to focus on providing value to your audience while staying true to your business objectives – and doing it in a way that works best for you!
You don’t need to post every day
You can create content on a regular schedule that works for you. You can write every day like Seth Godin if that’s your jam. Or you can write once a quarter if that’s going to work better for you. You’re the one who makes the rules and sets the criteria for success.
Embracing these tips can help simplify creating content for your website, allowing you to connect with your audience more effectively and achieve your business goals. So, don’t be intimidated by the prospect of content creation—think of it as an opportunity to showcase your brand and engage with your audience in meaningful ways.
If you need help creating content for your business, our Grow & Flourish Care Plans could be just what you are looking for. As well as keeping your WordPress Website secure and updated, we will work with you to write 3 blog posts a month, add them to your site – and we’ll create a social media campaign for each post to help spread the word.
