Hope these 3 tips help! Be sure to click the RSS feed button.
Content marketing is the small business owner’s secret weapon
Writing articles and posting them to your blog should help promote your business and establish you as a leader in your field.
I say ‘should’ because all too often a few unexpected things get in the way.
Having written as many articles and blog posts as I have over the years, I have seen my promotional gifts business thrive.
I would now like to help you get the most out of your content marketing.
Get it right and you could walk all over your larger competitors while they’re still arguing in the boardroom whether or not they should have dress down Friday.
The following four tips will get you on the right track;
Proofread all your work!
When I first started content marketing, I tried to get as many articles published as quickly as I could. I did proofread the articles before posting them but I didn’t take this important stage seriously enough. I’m still cleaning up the mess!
Check your articles for grammatical errors, misspelled words and readability.
I always read my articles at least twice before publishing them. I read out loud which helps me stay focused and actually listen to what I’ve written.
Write at a 10 year old level
Many studies have shown that it is in your best interest to write at a ten year old’s reading level. If you get too technical people could switch off.
Don’t expect your customers to be impressed with your vocabulary and reach for their dictionaries to understand you. They won’t!
Sure there are times when technical language is essential to the success of your article but know your audience.
If you are a medical doctor writing about reducing high blood pressure through diet, you will want to write your article differently for a top medical journal than you would for the general public!
Understand that brevity is key
Writing for the Internet is different to the way we were taught at school.
People looking for information online scan text for information.
You should therefore write short concise sentences and paragraphs with lots of white space in between.
Give them large blocks of text and they are certain to click the ‘get me out of here’ button.
Also remember that short articles between 400 and 500 words are more successful than longer articles online.
Well you’ve obviously read this far so I’d like to give you one last bit of food for thought. Content marketing will only work if you publish regularly! It is a long-term commitment so keep it up and watch your business grow! Get to lazy and watch your competitors’ businesses grow.
For more information about content marketing, please subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog. If you would like to take your marketing one step further with promotional gifts, please click here.