Are you small business in a big pond? "Small" business is another way to say opportunity for growth. That's why a content marketing plan is just as important for small businesses as it is for larger corporations. If you have heard it once you have heard it a million times, content is king. This is true for businesses of any size and can be done with an effective content marketing plan to enhance SEO through inbound marketing tools such as blogging.  So how as a small business can you craft a content marketing plan that is larger than life? Check out this article for content marketing tips to create the perfect small business blogs. 

What Are Your Top Content Marketing Goals?

First, you need to decide why you are creating content and what you are hoping to get out of it. You need a clear and concise indication of what content marketing will accomplish for your company.  Keep in mind that an effective strategy should aim to write for the reader rather than creating a goal that solely focuses around promotions and making sales. So, when creating a content marketing plan, the following are some vital components to consider for your overall goal:

• Providing valuable information. The content you create should offer your readers valuable information that will let them learn something new related to your products and services.
• Brand awareness. Writing valuable content also helps spread the word about your brand and allows people to understand your business better. Building your brand is about developing trust and you can accomplish this by  providing prospects and customers what they need to make the right purchasing decisions. 
• Enhancing Your SEO efforts – Blogging for small businesses is key because it is another opportunity available to enhance your SEO efforts. As you write your informative content, also do the research needed to add effective keywords that people commonly using to search for information. 
• Generating and nurturing leads. Write content that you know will inform as well as intrigue to generate leads.   As you start to generate these leads, your job is not fully over. Continue to nurture those leads and keep them intrigued so they don't eventually leave and move on to someone else. 
• Sell your products and services. Of course, selling your products and services is always a businesses priority and creating content to do this isn't a bad idea as long as you have your customers' best interests in mind.  However, one of the best ways to create content for this goal in mind is to center it around an existing promotion, new product rollout or a sales opportunity.

Why Create Small Business Blogs? 

Now that you have a goal for your content marketing strategy, it's important for small businesses to start blogging and continue to consistently do so. Small businesses commonly think that blogging is something that wouldn't help them grow and advance. However, blogging on a regular basis is a simple way to enhance your inbound marketing efforts, drive traffic to your website, and attract more prospective customers. Still skeptic about the power of blogging? The following are some statistics provided by Huspot that might change your mind: 

• Marketers that use blogs receive 67% more leads than those that do not.
• By 2020, it's predicted that customers will manage 85% of their relationships without talking to a human.
• Companies who blog receive 97% more links to their website.
• Blogs have been rated as the 5th most trusted source for accurate online information.

How To Craft The Perfect Business Blog

So now that you know your small business should be blogging how do you get started on crafting an effective blog? You already have your content marketing plan created that highlights your goals for creating content. Keeping your specific goals in mind, it's good to get started by selecting a topic that people are interested in that still relates to your products and services. Next, you should carefully create the content with research and topics that will separate the information you provide more detailed and informative than the rest. Either during the writing process or after your draft is complete, make sure to optimize the post with valuable keywords that will help get your blog found.  Don't just add keywords anywhere and add too many that the information doesn't sound credible anymore. Choose a few effective keywords related to the information and have them spread throughout the content about 3 or 4 times depending on the length of the blog.  At the end of the blog, provide a call to action link that allows the reader take interact with your business if they liked the information you have provided. A CTA lets the prospect ask you for more information, which means they are one step closer to a purchase. 

Once the blog is complete, you can start to promote and share your blog to gain more readers. Strategically promote your recent and popular posts using other outlets that have shareability like social media and emails. Finally, measuring and regularly analyzing your blog post performance is an important element to boost visibility. This allows you to see which posts are performing well by the number of views, number clicks to any CTAs or by topic of individual blog posts. Analyzing these numbers can give you insight into adjusting strategy to refine your blog posts and boost engagement. 

ImageWorks LLC | Small Business Blogging

On the Web, time is even more of a premium. You have just a handful of seconds to grab the reader attention, engage his interest to prevent him or her from surfing to another site.

Our blogs are written, from the ground up, to be "search engine friendly.. So it not only sings with the right sales messages, but it will get indexed by the search engines — like Google and Yahoo! With ImageWork's inbound marketing tools and services, you'll be able to appeal to a fresh new batch of prospects that will find your website when they're looking for information about your industry's products and service.

Download the cheat sheet below to get started on creating effective small business blogs.