Three Major Steps In Content Marketing For Small Businesses

If potential customers trust you, they will do the business with you. To gain that trust you have to become the authority in your niche.

Content marketing is the way of becoming one. Believe me, it’s possible even without a large budget, and I’ll show you the path, but know this - there are no secret ingredients, it’s all about hard work and patience.

In content marketing, three most important steps are:

1. Create a great content
2. Drive traffic to your website
3. Get the leads

There are a lot more actions to be taken and I’ll talk about them, but these three are the major steps.

Let’s see.

#1 Creating a Great Content

Firstly, let’s clarify what the great content is. The most precise definition is this:

The great piece of content is the one that provides additional value to its user.

It can be a tool, video, blog post, infographic, survey, quiz and so on. Let’s dive into the most common types of the content.

Articles

You can write about anything related to your industry. For example, if you work with the real estates, you could write something like this:

• Why Is It So Good To Live In Chicago
• Top 10 Tips For Growing Up In an Industrial City
• How To Choose a Roof For Your House

Obviously, the titles should grab an attention of the people who are planning to buy a house for a living or rent a place for some reason.

But that’s just the first step. Think about their intention - they want the useful article that matches the title they opened.

Therefore, you need to write in-depth and trustful articles if you to want to keep your visitors. Articles with more than 2000 words usually have better Google positions - ranks.

Later, I’ll explain why is this critically important for your business.

Source: Backlinko

Let’s see the industry example.

Type rent a house in Google search, and you’ll get the following results:

As you can see, the first three results are sites with a large PA:

• Rent.com (PA 34)
• Rightmove.co.uk (PA 66)
• Zoopla.co.uk (PA 69)

It would be incredibly hard to outrank these sites. Yes, the first result has only PA of 34, but that’s an exception. If you don’t know what does PA mean, let me briefly introduce you.

That’s a metric (invented by Moz) which stands for Page Authority.

Basically, it predicts how well will your site perform on Google. Also, it’s possible to outrank pages with high PA if you have a high DA. New posts start from 0 PA.

Anyway, if I search for how to rent an apartment with no job, I’ll see the following search results.

Check the rank #3 - it has a PA of 15 and DA of 16.

How is possible for that page to outrank other (competitive) sites? Because of the long-tail keywords.

Competition for long-tail keywords is definitely lower.

However, that’s not the only benefit - the probability of conversion is more likely than for the head terms. In fact, long-tail keywords have less search volume but it’s still better to rank high for 100 - 200 search volume queries than to be on page 7 for head terms.

By writing a blog post you're presenting yourself as an expert in real estate business. This way you’re building your authority which is a key thing from a customer's perspective.

When it comes to the final decision - who they want to do business, you’ll want to have your name to be first in their mind.

We've written +8,000 words article about starting a new blog and I recommend you to read it.

Infographics

In any kind of the business, people simply love to compare things and there’s no better way to make a comparison than infographics.

For example, let’s say that a man got a job in a city, but he’s not sure if he wants to move to a small town nearby or somewhere closer to his work.

If he sees your infographic titled as Living in Small Town VS Living in Big City, you’ll be the one who helped him with his big life decision.

This is the evergreen content, which means there will be always people with this kind of dilemma.

They are your potential clients and as the number of them is getting bigger your chances for conversion are increasing.

Comparisons are not the only thing you can show in an infographic. You can also show research, trends, history and much more.

Here’s one good example:

Source: HouseHint

YouTube Videos

Making a YouTube video is the best way to present yourself as a true expert.

Now, I’d like to share with you one great example. On Property blog has a YouTube channel with over 4,000 subscribers.

For example, they published a video called How To Choose The Right House To Renovate.

In their channel, they share a daily dose of property education and inspiration. That’s what you need to do.

Here, we’re talking about video content that will boost your traffic. For example, you can open a YouTube channel where you would cover up important news about real estate trends and prices on a weekly or monthly basis.

In fact, sending YouTube lessons to your subscribers isn’t the only reason why you should invest in YouTube videos. According to Moz, YouTube has a DA of 95.

In other words, it ranks great in Google SERP since Google tends to display YouTube videos in its results. Here are some typical cases when you can expect to appear in SERP:

• How-to videos
• Review videos
• Tutorial videos

For example, if you search for how to repair a shower you’ll see videos in SERP.

There are lots of tips how to improve your YouTube SEO, but that some other time.

In fact, a lot of those who’re looking for shower repairing are very frustrated because of it, and some of them might be interested in moving to a new house.

Quiz

This is a particularly interesting piece of content because, with quizzes, you can learn more about your subscribers. Quizzes are really good for getting information about your targeted audience.

However, learning more about them isn't the only reason why I like to create a quiz. Interaction is also what like about it because sometimes they will share their quiz results on the social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

Once they share the results, your quiz reach will dramatically increase and that means more email subscribers.

How?

You simply have to force them to enter their email address if they wish to see the quiz results.

You could create, for instance, a quiz where people would be answering some questions that would deliver you information like which town is best for their lifestyle, or which type of houses they see as the best.

For example, if you’re renting houses for students, you can simply target students on Facebook and ask them a couple of questions through the quiz.

The smaller part of them will be frustrated and leave because they need to provide you an email for the results, but most of them won’t be able to resist the curiosity.

It’s pure psychology and it goes in your favor.

#2 Drive Traffic to Your Website

As I’ve already said, creating great content is just the first step. It’s inevitable step, but still not enough to bring you desired results.

Another move forward is getting traffic to your website Different types of content require different activities like:

• SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• Influencer outreach
• Facebook advertising

and a few other activities that I won’t mention right now.

All these activities have the same goal - to get visitors to your website.

There are various things you can do to make it happened, but eventually, you’ll get visitors in two ways: organically or/and through paid ads.

Depending on the content you have, some actions will be more effective than others.

Let's walk through the most important activities to drive traffic to your website and make it all clear.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Here’s webopedia definition of SEO:

Search engine optimization is a methodology of strategies, the techniques and tactics used to increase the number of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) -- including Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.

It’s perfectly clear that when we say search engine, we mean on Google. Your job is to make Google suggest you to its users before others.

Now, the fact that there are more than 200 Google ranking factors means that a lot can be done.

But, In order to do that fast, you can try to learn how to improve SEO using different free and paid tools.

For example, one of the SEO goals is to find out phrases, popularly called keywords, that your potential customers are using.

This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It’s because we said something similar when we were talking about creating a blog and it’s not a coincidence.

Again, there’s is a thing about the keywords that you should understand - long-tail keywords are your chance.

Comparing to head terms, it’s easier to rank for them,  because of the lower competition, and they have better CTR.

Based on the keywords you should optimize your blog.

Here are some of the most effective tools that help you in finding keywords:

• Ubersuggest
• Keywordtool.io
• WordStream
• Google Search Console

Basically, they all work in a way that you paste some phrase and then get related keywords suggestions.

Contacting Influencers

Influencers are the important people in the industry. When they speak, post or share something, a huge number of people will notice and receive that as an important information.

When he or she recommends your website, it will boost your credibility and traffic, especially if they provide a link to your website.

When he or she recommends your website, it will boost your credibility and traffic, especially if they provide a link to your website.If you’re not sure who the influencers in your industry are, Twitter is the place where you’ll find them.

I suggest using Followerwonk app. If you’re not sure who the influencers in your industry are, Twitter is the place where you’ll find them.

I suggest using Followerwonk app.For example, I’ll type content marketing and click on Do It.

For example, I’ll type content marketing and click on Do It. In the results, I can immediately see that Jeff Bullas a top influencer with more the 480k of followers:

In the results, I can immediately see that Jeff Bullas a top influencer with more the 480k of followers.

Now that you find your influencers, the question is how to reach them? Sending messages on their social media profiles won’t work.

These guys are too busy to reply on tons of messages they get, so they probably won't even read them.

On the other hand, if you manage to contact them on their emails you’ll have better chance to get a reply. Finding email is not easy, especially from influencers.

Luckily tools like Hunter can help you. I know what’s Jeff’s domain, so I’ll enter it in Hunter. The result is here.

OK, now that you’ve found your influencers and their emails, you need to figure out the way to get noticed.

Remember, your mail is in someone's inbox, which means that having an interesting subject line is a must, otherwise, they won’t open it.

Here at Jellymetrics, we had a great response rate when we were asking influencers to give us their thoughts that we could use in our content marketing quotes blog post.

People love when they’re mentioned in a positive context. It’s just a human nature. As for Jeff, I sent him an email that I mentioned him, so he answered.

That’s what I call ego building strategy. I represented him as a true marketing expert, which he definitely is, but everybody wants to hear that, again. I asked him for a tweet and he did it.

If I repeat this step, I’ll constantly improve my traffic. I know that it might be boring, but it is what it is. There’s no other way unless you have enough money for advertising.

Now, let’s see something more about it.

Facebook Advertising

What I like the most about Facebook advertising is the possibility of the precise targeting. However, Facebook Ads require investing some money.

The good news is that you don’t have to operate with a big budget to achieve good results. Here we’re talking about driving traffic so I’ll stick to that.

Still, if you want to dig deeper, here is the guide How to Advertise on Facebook. You could be wondering what content should I promote on Facebook?

You can promote literally everything and I’m encouraging you to try with different types of content to see what works the best.

I’d always recommend advertising on Facebook in a combination with quizzes or downloading a book since this way, you’ll acquire new leads.

However, keep reading to see how to get the new leads. When you start advertising, you’ll probably pay per click.

For that reason, you need to make sure that your ads are interesting since attractive ads tend to have a high CTR.

When you have a high CTR, you’ll automatically get a high Relevance Score which means that your CPC decreases.

Anyway, make sure that your ads don’t repeat too much since that decreases CPC and increases CPC. Here’s the evidence.

Furthermore, you should always know what your CLV is. Basically, if you have a high CLV that means you’re able to pay higher CPC. The calculating CLV formula is definitely simple. If your ARPC (Average Revenue Per Customer) is $49, and churn rate is 1%, it means that your CLV will be exactly $4,900.

That’s how much an average customer pays you in the cycle of being your customer.

#3 Getting the Leads

After you’ve created and promoted the content through SEO and social networks, the traffic on your website is increasing.

Congrats, but now it’s time to make it count by getting leads and conversions.

When you have big traffic, you have great opportunity to expand your email list. Otherwise, the traffic is useless since the most visitors will never come back.

Lots of people think that modal dialogs are boring. Well, they are but, they are also very efficient. Your goal is to collect as much as possible emails.

Here’s one typical example.

Next, you should see at least 2% lead rate. I’m talking about unique visitors, not visits. If you see a very low lead rate, then I think you should consider optimizing it.

You can do it by different ways. For example, A/B tests are always great. The idea is to create two versions of opt-ins, and to split the traffic. Very soon, you’ll see which opt-in works better.

Content upgrades are extremely efficient. As for me, this is the best way of generating new email subscribers. Specifically, you should see a 3-4% lead rate which is, undoubtedly, amazing.

The idea is to provide a great content for free, but if you wish to see something better, you need to provide an email address in exchange.

Here is the one example.

You should attack as much as possible.

There should never be a screen without the possibility of getting new leads.

For example, you can try with sliders too.

Of course, here you can optimize lead rate for content upgrades and sliders, too. Here’s how.

First of all, let your CTA be visible all the time but reduce distractions like banners if you don’t want your visitors to get frustrated.

Make it looks clear and simple. Next, your CTA has to compel the visitor to action.

Every detail can make the difference. In Content Verve’s case study, changing a word from My to Your decreased conversion for 24.91%.

Some words simply convert better than others and we call them magnetic words. I’m not talking about typically used:

• Join us
• Check this
• Sign up

or similar to that. You’ll need something better, something more persuasive.

Here is what Buffer suggests.

Another important moment is positioning your CTA (content upgrade, for example).

With Yandex Scroll Map you can see exactly how much users scroll in average and where their focus is.

Another important moment is positioning your CTA (content upgrade, for example). With Yandex Scroll Map you can see exactly how much users scroll in average and where their focus is.

Optimizing your CTA is not only about getting conversions, it also reduces the bounce rate on your website which is among top Google ranking factors that I already mentioned when I was talking about SEO.

Final Words

I will repeat what I said at the beginning - it’s all about how hard you try and how much patience you have. For example, when you’re blogging it can be frustrating writing long articles all the time without having instant results.

You just have to accept that because reaching high rankings takes time. What’s more, creating content is usually the easy part, promotion is what will put your patience to test. But eventually, it will all be worth of your time and energy.

Once you reach high rankings, and above all, get recognized as an authority, you will feel the true benefits of content marketing.