8 Business Growth Goals You Can Conquer with Great Content

Content, content, content

Let’s be honest: creating great content on a regular basis can be a real drag.

After all, you didn't get into this business to be a writer any more than to be a salesperson, an accountant or a lawyer. However, just as you can't neglect to fill your sales pipeline or pay your bills or protect your company’s assets, you can't ignore your content.

Why is content so important? Because it's the fuel that propels your business growth engine. Whether you call it a blog, a magazine, a resource library or a newsletter, your content is the one weapon in your arsenal that can help you conquer nearly every challenge of growing a company in today's marketplace:

1. Increasing visibility and driving traffic

You can’t win a customer that can’t find you. And more often than not, today’s customer is looking for you online, which is why it’s critical to optimize your organic search ranking.

People tend to think of SEO as if it's some occult form of black magic. While the practice of SEO is certainly complex, the one thing you must remember is that even though search engines are driven by intricate algorithms, all of those metrics and calculations are founded in delivering high-quality, relevant results that will be the most useful to real people.

Real people value good content. As a result, so do Google, Bing and Yahoo.

There’s no more rock-solid SEO strategy than publishing great original content on a regular basis. As you develop valuable, (legitimately) keyword-rich content that becomes popular through page views and inbound links, your level of perceived authority on that subject will increase in the eyes of the search engines, which in turn will boost your ranking in searches that pertain to your core offering. And the higher you climb in the rankings, the more potential customers will be able to find you.

2. Attracting more targeted traffic

If all you want is to send your site visit stats through the roof, there are plenty of attention-grabbing stunts you can pull to draw sheer numbers.

But numbers don't necessarily equate to dollars. For your business to grow, you need to consistently attract the types of people to your site whose needs and interests are the most closely aligned with the products or services you have to offer.

This is where your content steps up to the plate. When you publish unique, insightful information that appeals to your tribe, you'll attract visitors that will become your fans, spread the word about you, bring their friends and, ultimately, turn into customers.

3. Building trust and converting customers

Bringing visitors to your site is just the first step. Your job isn’t done until you convince them to entrust their hard-earned dollars to you.

The task of building trust with a prospect when you're standing in front of them is a relatively straightforward proposition.

However, you don't always have the luxury of a face-to-face encounter to make a first impression. Instead, more often than not, you're relegated to building trust through a computer screen. And thanks to all the Internet con artists and shysters out there, the burden of proof you must overcome to establish your trustworthiness is a large one.

So what options do you have? You can always sing your own praises in the most flattering and superlative fashion. Of course, that doesn't hold much sway in the absence of solid evidence to support your claims.

Don’t just cross your fingers and hope that your customers will buy into your sales pitch. Instead, let your content make the case for you.

Your content is the proving ground for your expertise. If you’re a big phony and you don’t know what you’re talking about, it will become obvious pretty quickly. But if you have something of genuine value to offer, and you give it away willingly upfront before you ask anyone to spend a dime, that’s where real online trust-building begins.

4. Differentiating your company from your competitors

Your company doesn’t exist in a vacuum. There are plenty of other people who do what you do and sell what you sell. For your business to grow, you must be able to make a compelling case for why people should buy from you rather than the other guys.

This is a challenge that dates back to the genesis of marketing, but in the Age of Information, it’s one that great content can go along way toward helping you overcome.

Make no mistake: your content is not your sales pitch. But if you can provide truly useful information that your customers can’t find elsewhere, you’re making an implicit case for the benefits of doing business with you.

For example, let’s say you’re a general contractor, and you’ve created a comprehensive online resource library for homeowners that covers all things home improvement-related: the latest renovation trends, how-tos for simple DIY projects, advice on upgrades that deliver the best ROI, etc.

This is the type of information that your potential clients will truly value. And by demonstrating your authority, you’ll prove that what you have to offer is much more than just a common commodity, which will even help you fend off lower-priced competitors. Your customers won’t care as much about saving a few dollars if they feel more confident knowing their project is in the hands of a trustworthy expert.

5. Generating word-of-mouth marketing

You live in the world of your products and services. You eat, breathe and sleep your business. Talking about what you do is second nature to you.

The same does not hold true for your customers. They don't go through life looking for opportunities to be your walking, talking billboard.

However, great content has the power to get people talking. Everyone loves information that gives them ways to save time and money, makes life easier or gets their creative ideas flowing.

And in the culture of the Web, we're all hard-wired to be like-button-pushers and retweeters. So when you give your customers good stuff that sparks their interest, they’ll be instinctively inclined to share it with others, and your name will travel far and wide right along with the content you’ve created as it passes through their networks and their friends' networks, too.

6. Expanding your customer base

The interminable task of business growth is identifying sources of new potential customers and finding ways to get in front of them. This quest is what's kept the purveyors of mailing lists in business for decades.

But in today's Web marketing universe, you don't have to shell out thousands of dollars to gain exposure to new customers. Communities exist everywhere around the Web, and your content is your foot in the door.

All you have to do is identify those whose tribes’ interests align with your products or services, and offer to provide content for their websites. In exchange for giving away your valuable expertise, you'll have the opportunity to take the stage in front of a brand new audience of potential customers, who will be more receptive to what you have to say due to the cache of trust conveyed to you by the established leader of that tribe.

If you’re an event planner, for example, you could approach the owner of a popular local blog targeted to moms and offer to write an article on a timely topic of interest, such as “10 Trendy Summer Birthday Party Themes.”

Without ever having to make a direct pitch for your services, you’ll suddenly have a new tribe of potential customers who know who you are, and if you’ve done a good job, will likely be inclined to click through to your website to see what other ideas and information you have to offer. In terms of exposure to your target demographic, your content-driven approach will deliver a greater ROI than traditional advertising ever could.

7. Building community and keeping customers engaged

You wouldn’t hand a customer a brochure and expect them to wake up every day excited to read it over and over again.

The same holds true for your website. You can’t expect to build community around a vanilla site that’s all about you and your product or service offering. No matter how beautifully crafted it might be, there's nothing to keep people coming back. They'll get the basic information they need, and they'll move on.

Great content is the key to transforming your company’s website into the hub of a thriving online community. People don’t want to interact with brands; they want to interact with other people. Content puts a human face on your company and makes your brand approachable. It’s the common ground between your company and your customers.

And not only is your content the spark that ignites conversation, but it's also the fuel on the fire that keeps it going. When you recognize and respond to those who comment on and share your posts, you make them feel like they’re part of something meaningful and give them added motivation to invite others to join the party.

8. Driving innovation

One of the best fringe benefits of the task of researching and writing top-quality content is that it forces you to keep up with what’s going on in your industry.

When you’re trying to build your business, it’s easy to get tunnel vision. You get so deeply immersed in the day-to-day nuts and bolts that you don’t make time for the big-picture thinking that’s required to reach the next level.

Creating content requires you to be a perpetual student of what you do; to be constantly reading and exploring so that you have fresh, exciting ideas to share with your readers.

This, in turn, makes you a sharper, more confident, more agile businessperson. Rather than doing things as they’ve always been done, you’ll be on top of the trends and ahead of the curve, with an overabundance of inspiration for what to try next.

What you put in is what you get out

Just like anything else, what you put into your content it is exactly what you'll get out of it.

If you want your content to help you meet your business growth goals, it has to be the real deal. It has to be meaningful. It has to be unique. It has to be too valuable to ignore. It has to address real problems and issues that are relevant to your customers. It has to offer practical solutions and insightful tips that are so good they’ll eagerly await your next post and gladly pass along your links to others.

Creating content of this caliber takes time. It takes hard work. Most importantly it takes discipline and commitment. If you don't make yourself buckle down and hammer out the good stuff week after week and month after month, you’ll quickly lose your audience to someone who will.

On the other hand, when you faithfully publish the type of content your customers crave, the reward is a sales engine that’s so powerful and so robust, you’ll put your company in a competitive position anyone would envy.

Read more:

Shut Up and Blog Already

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Shut Up and Blog Already

You know you should do it. You know other people who do, and they make it look so easy. And yet you can’t think of anything more intimidating than staring at a blank page and a blinking cursor. You can find reasons all day long to rationalize why you haven’t yet started your own blog, but none of those justifications are going to help your business grow. It’s time to stop being your own worst enemy and start understanding why the excuses that are holding you back are all in your head.

1. I’m not a writer.

So you’re not a writer – at least not by trade. Big deal! Neither are many very successful bloggers. They’re entrepreneurs, artists, community activists, foodies, moms and even CEOs. Instead, what they have in common is passion. Always keep in mind that what you have to say is far more important than the mechanics of how you say it. A blogger’s purpose first and foremost is to entertain and engage. If your punctuation is less than perfect or your sentence structure leaves something to be desired, no one is going to report you to the grammar police. But if there is no conviction behind your words, no one is going to invest their time in reading your blog week after week. Your writing style should be easy and informal. Don’t approach the task of creating a post like you’re writing a research paper. Instead, imagine you’re sitting down to dash off a quick e-mail in response to someone who has asked you a question about your chosen topic. Keep your entry brief and conversational. When you’ve finished writing, read your post aloud to yourself. If you trip over words or phrases because they feel unnatural or clunky, go back and simplify them. Always keep in mind that what you have to say is far more important than the mechanics of how you say it. No one is grading your blog with red pen in hand. Authenticity and personality count far more than perfection any day of the week. Just loosen up and let your own voice come through. Not only will this make your writing more approachable, it’s the very foundation of building credibility and trust. After reading one post, your readers should feel as if they’ve met you; if they continue to follow your blog over time, they should feel as though you’re a familiar friend.

2. I’m not a designer or a programmer.

Stop right there. Nope – not another word. Can you use a word processor? Can you open a web browser window? Can you attach a file or a picture to an e-mail? If you answered “yes” to all three of these questions, then congratulations, my friend, you have all the technical and artistic know-how you need to be a blogger! There’s no reason to let technophobia hold you back from reaping the benefits of blogging – not when you can take advantage of user-friendly, do-it-yourself tools like Google’s Blogger. Blogger is designed to give anyone the power to publish. The interface is so intuitive and easy to navigate that you can have your blog up and running in just minutes, and best of all, it won’t cost you a dime. Simply choose from an assortment of templates, select your preferred combination of colors and fonts and away you go. Creating posts is easy, too, and you can even enhance them with links, photos and video. You also can assign each article to a subject category of your choosing to help your readers find related content according to their specific interests. Of course, you’ll get an even greater return on your time and effort if your blog is hosted on your own website, since your visitors can read your latest entries and peruse your archives without ever leaving your primary site. Still, there’s no cause for concern. Simply partner with a good web development firm like Fame Foundry that can help you integrate your blog into your existing website in a way that’s consistent with your brand and provide a content management system that’s just as easy to use as any of the free do-it-yourself tools. No matter which approach you choose, you’ll be surprised to find how simple it is to get your blog up and running and how little time it takes to publish new content.

3. I wouldn’t know where to begin.

One of the best things about blogging is the fluidity and flexibility of the medium. As a blogger, you are your own writer, editor and publisher. That means that there are no hard-and-fast rules to which you must adhere. Think of your blog as a blank canvas that’s waiting for you to add color, shape and texture. As a blogger, you are your own writer, editor and publisher. There are many different ways you can approach blogging – each one of them just as valid as the next. You might choose to use your blog as a platform for reporting industry news and forecasting trends, for providing useful advice and how-tos or for journaling your personal experiences in order to help others who are trying to achieve similar goals. Some very popular blogs like Catalog Living are nothing more than an ongoing series of images with funny captions. One of the best ways to get started is not by writing at all. Instead, it’s by reading. If you’re seriously considering starting your own blog, you should make a point of reading other blogs every day – blogs that talk about subjects that relate to your business and industry, blogs written by your competitors and even blogs that have nothing to do with your particular field but that you find enjoyable and entertaining regardless of the subject matter. Subscribe to the RSS feeds for these blogs and set aside a few minutes each day to scan through the latest posts. You don’t need to read every entry, just the ones that strike you as most interesting. Look for commonalities among the blogs you read daily for pleasure. What do you enjoy about them most? When you find an article that you can’t stop reading, take a moment to analyze why it is so compelling. Is it the writer’s voice, their unique approach to their chosen topic or the way they’ve organized their argument? Pay attention as well to the headlines that catch your eye and think about what makes them captivating. Over time, as you assimilate these observations, you will achieve clarity about what you want your blog to be and how to craft posts that will keep your readers hooked.

4. I don’t have time.

Blogging is a medium created by and for the culture of the Web, which is one in which attention is always at a premium. As a result, it is the ideal information exchange platform for the time-starved – both writer and reader. Blogging is not an exercise in filling up a page. Your job is to take one very narrowly defined topic and put your unique stamp on it. Blogging is not an exercise in filling up a page. More than newspapers, more than magazines and more than trade journals, blogging is about specificity. Your job is to take one very narrowly defined topic and put your unique stamp on it. Some of the best, most powerful blog posts are also the shortest. At Fame Foundry, one of our favorite bloggers is Seth Godin. His entries are rarely more than five or six brief paragraphs in length (some are as brief as five sentences), but every last one of them hits home. We are devoted followers of his blog because we know that in exchange for just a few minutes of our time each day, we’ll walk away with profound insights that inspire us or reinforce our belief in the way we do business. Blogging is not your full-time job, nor should it be, so follow Seth’s example. Use the time you do have to string together a few sentences, but make each one of them count. Keep your topics focused and your points sharp. Short, compelling posts will make your work as a blogger manageable while keeping your readers coming back for more. Also, remember that writing is like running. The first time you strap on a pair of shoes and hit the pavement, every step is painful and every breath is labored. But the more you do it, the more effortless it becomes. Whereas once you might have thought you’d never complete a full lap around the block, soon you’re taking on a 5k as though you’ve been a runner all your life. The same principle holds true for writing. With practice, you’ll get better and faster. It might take you two or three hours to write your first entry, but once you get a few under your belt, you’ll find you can crank out a post in just an hour, half an hour or even 20 minutes. The creative process that at first feels arduous and awkward will soon become routine and, believe it or not, even enjoyable.

5. I don’t have anything interesting to say.

Don’t think of your blog as a podium; think of it as the microphone at the center of a town hall meeting. You aren’t there to deliver a monologue; you’re there to start the conversation. Your job is not to sell; it’s to educate, inform, entertain, excite and provoke thought while leaving room for others to join the discussion. Here’s a piece of age-old writing advice: Write about what you know. When you write about what you know, you’ll write with passion and authority. Your writing style will be more natural and conversational, not like you’re writing a term paper. You’ll have the confidence to make big, bold statements, and you’ll never run out of things to say. Here’s a piece of new-age blogging advice: Write about what you know, but do it in a way that’s different from anyone else. With hundreds of millions of blogs in the world, it’s likely there are many others that cover the same general subject matter as yours will. What will set you apart is the way you apply your unique cache of experience, expertise and perspective to that subject to create original content that is useful and interesting to your readers. Let’s say you run a bakery. Baking is a science, and you are an expert in that science. As a result, you have a limitless source of material. How many people understand the fundamentals of baking a basic pie crust? How many would love to know how to make use of that bread machine that’s been collecting dust in the cabinet since their wedding shower? Are there other blogs in the world about baking? Of course. But none of them have your distinct voice, your particular experience and your individual point of view. Maybe you own the neighborhood coffee shop. Nowhere is it written in stone that you must write about coffee. Your blog could be about the neighborhood you serve – what’s going on, the issues people are concerned about and the events that are happening around you. For you, a post could be nothing more than a collection of photos from the neighborhood chili cook-off. Does that have anything to do with what you sell? Nope! Are people interested in it? You bet! The loyal local following you could build with this type of blog is something that even Starbucks or Dunkin' Donuts would envy.

6. I can’t come up with enough good ideas to keep it going.

If you sit down in front of a blank page and wait for great ideas to come, chances are, they won’t. You’ll just find yourself staring at the cursor, anxiety building as the minutes tick away. Instead, to be a successful blogger, you should be constantly mining the world around you for inspiration. Just as reading other blogs can help you develop your voice and sharpen your point of view, it is also a bottomless wellspring of creative fuel. To be a successful blogger, you should be constantly mining the world around you for inspiration. As you browse through your RSS feeds, you might come across an article that you disagree with completely. Why not share your take on the subject? Or perhaps you stumble upon an interesting observation and find a way to tailor it to be relevant and relatable for your particular audience. You might even find ideas spread across four or five different articles that you can weave together into a comprehensive how-to guide for your readers. No matter the source, you’ll likely find that inspiration rarely strikes at your convenience, when you have time to sit down and write a post. To make sure you never let a good idea go to waste, keep a running idea log. This doesn’t have to be anything formal – just a simple text file or even a handwritten journal will do. The most important requirement is that it can be kept within easy reach at all times. Jot down any and every idea as it comes to you, even if it’s not fully developed. Include the link to the article that inspired you and make a few basic notes about what you want to say on the subject to help jog your memory later. When it comes time to write your next post, simply choose a topic from the list and pick up where your notes left off. You’ll never find yourself wasting your precious blogging time just hoping and praying to land on a great idea.

7. No one will read it anyway.

For a while, it might feel like you are talking to an empty room. You’ll be tempted to throw your hands up and quit, but don’t. Persistence is your friend. Successful bloggers stick it out. You must begin with reasonable expectations and realize that it might take a year or more to build a following. However, even while your readership is low, your efforts are not in vain. Persistence is your friend. Successful bloggers stick it out. Think of your initial weeks and months of writing as laying the foundation for your blog. Your first entries will be fundamental in establishing who you are and what you stand for. You’ll likely find yourself referencing these foundational posts again and again, and by linking back to older articles, you’ll encourage new visitors to delve into your archives and see what else they might have missed. It’s also important to understand that your job is not done when you hit the publish button. Traffic building is just as much a part of blogging as research and writing. Post links to your latest content on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Also be sure to include social media badges on your posts to make it easy for your readers to share content that they like with their friends and followers. Another way to bring more eyes to your blog is by becoming an active participant in the community that exists around your topic. As you are scanning through your RSS feeds each day, look for opportunities to post insightful comments with links back to your blog when relevant. You should also approach the owners of more well-established blogs and volunteer to write a guest post, which will give you exposure to their regular readers. Likewise, invite other bloggers to write for you. They’ll promote their gig, and you’ll benefit from their connections. Finally, remember that blogging isn’t just a numbers game. If the purpose of your blog is to help your business grow, it’s not about the volume of readers but the quality of your readership. Are you reaching people who might have a need for your product or service? Are those readers actively engaged? Do they make a point of reading each and every new post? Are they sharing your content with their circles of friends? A small community of dedicated followers who fit within your target audience and evangelize for you is much more valuable than thousands of disengaged subscribers who might only occasionally read your articles and will never buy from you.

Sit down. Start typing.

You’ll never blog if you don’t try. Start reading. Start writing. Before you publish anything, ask friends, colleagues and mentors to review your drafts and give you their input. Your initial attempts may never even see the light of day, but that’s okay. These practice runs will help you dust off your writing skills, define your content niche and get the ideas flowing. If you need a push in the right direction, let Fame Foundry help. We can work with you to launch your blog and help you develop relevant, original content that will establish you as the voice of authority for the tribe of people who share a passion for what you do.

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