Some people have “the gift of gab” — the natural ability to start a conversation with anyone, anywhere, and leave them smiling. Online, the equivalent is “the gift of grab” — the ability to capture someone’s attention in the first two seconds and give them a reason to keep reading, watching, or clicking. Here’s the honest truth: most small business websites and social profiles are quietly failing at this. Not because the business isn’t good. Because the first line of the homepage, the first image on Instagram, the first sentence of the email — they’re all about the business instead of the person reading. Let’s fix that. The Attention Economy Has Gotten More Competitive When I first wrote about capturing attention online, social feeds were less crowded and website visitors had a little more patience. Neither of those things is true anymore. The average person now encounters thousands of messages…
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Tag Archives: content development
What Does Content Marketing Look Like?
When you get right down to it, its exactly what it sounds like – creating content to sell or market your business. That’s straightforward enough, right? But how do you do it in the real world and why does it matter? Content marketing in the real world In the real world, your customers are looking for your goods or services. When they get to your website, you want to connect with them so they know what you do and they want to pick up the phone and call you. The words and images you use to convey that message is “content”. To create good content it’s important to create content with your customer in mind. Put yourself in their shoes; they are likely doing research and may be thinking that your goods or services will fill a need they have. You’re sales calls probably address the same seven questions regardless…
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How A Blog Helps Your Business
You know you need a website to reach the 50%+ of customers who begin their research online. A blog may seem like overkill. It’s not. Here’s how a blog helps your business. 1. A blog provides information to your readers. Your standard pages are great and talk about who you are and what you do. But your blog pages are what provide information about your industry, trending topics and latest best practices/products. This is important information especially for those who might be in the early stages of the buying cycle. They might not be ready to buy yet because they just don’t know enough. Give them what they need to get ready to buy. 2. A blog provides information to search engines. As you write articles around your primary business and industry you will be providing information to the search engines about your site. Even if you don’t write with…
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Content Development For Online Marketing (video)
Welcome to our Summer Lunchbox Series on online marketing webinars. Here is the third webinar in the series: Content Development: More fun than root canal! This webinar was prerecorded so live questions are not possible. Feel free, however to contact us if you’d like any additional information about anything discussed during the webinar.
Continue readingBlogging For Business (video)
Blogging for business is a key component of your website. In this video-slideshow learn why you really do want to have an integrated blog on your business website.
Continue readingAn Editorial Calendar
An essential tool for content creation. What is an Editorial Calendar you ask? It is an essential tool for consistent, quality content creation. Let me be honest. I knew I was due to write a blog article, but I was not sure what would be relevant and useful. Typical “uh…what now?” kind of moment. In an effort to a) follow my own advice and b) show how content creation doesn’t have to be torturous, I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on getting past the blank page. Create An Editorial Calendar What questions do you find yourself answering all the time? You likely have ten or more questions that clients and prospects regularly ask. Moreover, you probably have an answer at the ready. Each of those questions and your response is fodder for an article. Taking a few minutes to jot down some article topics that you can write throughout…
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Creating Content For A Small Business Website
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.
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