Most small business owners have more than enough on their plate already without having to worry about “content development” for their website. But to garner the benefits of organic search engine optimization, and give your visitors a reason to keep coming back (and staying in touch with you) it is important to keep the content of your site fresh and add new content regularly.
Here are some tips for creating content for a small business website.
Create a Calendar
You are already a “subject matter expert” which is just a fancy way of saying you already know a lot of stuff. This is stuff that your customers don’t know. That’s why they come to you. Writing about what you already know makes life a little easier.
Creating a calendar of topics ahead of time makes life a lot easier.
Think about the questions you’re asked most often and write them down. There. You now have your list of topics.
Write these topics on the calendar. There. You now have an editorial calendar for your website or blog.
Shoot to have at least 6 months of article topics on a schedule of one every week or every other week. When the time comes to write an article you won’t have to worry about staring at a blank screen with no idea about what to write.
Invite Guest Authors
Chances are you work with vendors who can very easily supplement your expertise with their own. They are also “subject matter experts”; so invite them to write articles that provide useful information to your readers.
Your readers are getting good, fresh content. Your guest authors get visibility, and backlinks to their site. You get fresh content that you didn’t need to write yourself. Its win-win-win.
Repurpose Older Content
There is no rule that says you can’t freshen up older articles and reuse them. Chances are your readers aren’t delving into the back recesses of your articles archives to find older gems. So dust off some of your older articles and reuse them.
You can do this by adding some new content; update your “top 10 list” to include a few new items or remove ones that may no longer apply, add some insight into changes that have taken place since the original article was written, etc.
Or write a brief article that includes a link back to an older piece that remains relevant. It will provide additional information on the topic without you having to rewrite anything.
React To Articles Written By Others
Write an article in reaction to something on another site. You may agree and can write in support of the author; sharing your ideas, anecdotes etc. Or maybe you disagree and can write around how your views differ. This is a great technique to supplement your editorial calendar since it’s a bit harder to schedule around.