A website is one of the strongest assets of any business. Your online presence is likely the primary way potential customers will discover you. But if your business hasn’t seen any signs of recent growth, your content could be to blame.

You have a website, but have you done more than listing your products or services? Or if you have a blog, does it have a regular publishing schedule? All too often, the answer is ‘no.’

It takes more than a digital presence to create customers. This guide will show you how to use content for an inbound marketing strategy that will increase traffic and customers for your small business.

Developing Demand Generation

In a recent study on the State of Digital Marketing in 2015, the technique expected by marketers to have the biggest impact this year is content marketing. This is because creating content strategies are the key to becoming a true resource, instead of just a brand.

It’s important that you begin building resources, helpful articles, tips, guides, whitepapers and whatever else you can determine would be of value to your prospective visitor. Provide value through these, and visitors could turn into customers, if you play your cards right.

Fish Where the Fish Are

After, compile a list of keyword phrases of what your customers might use to (hopefully) find you when using search engines. Use these phrases with keyword tools like SEMrush and Google AdWords to develop a much stronger understanding of where your content strategy focus needs to be, so you’re targeting the right topics and phrases.

These tools also measure monthly keyword search volume, which helps guide you to producing content that is in demand and of interest to others. Use phrases that have a high search volume, but have less than the largest search volume. You have to crawl before you can walk or run first, so go after the less competitive and lower hanging fruit with less monthly searches.

Be in It for the Long Haul

Be forewarned, your inbound marketing strategy won’t be an overnight success. It takes consistency and commitment to develop the resources and links required to build your success. Think of it this way – any resource that has built itself up has done so using quality information and the links it has earned.

Inbound marketing is about gaining organic traffic from search engines, so links are the key. They vary in quality, but each is like a vote that gives your site authority.

Create a Roadmap for Success

To start off on the right foot, create an editorial calendar that you can fully commit to. Staying on course makes a world of difference. This might mean one article a week, or several. For example, create a handful of good articles offline and hang onto them until you have a fair amount to launch your content strategy with.

An important aspect to your success is a distribution plan for announcing the release of any new articles or other resource. This is where social media provides a lot of value so you can share and distribute your content marketing efforts.

Building Your Marketing Funnel

Though organic search traffic looks free, it actually isn’t. The time and effort involved add up, and while you might be tempted to throw in the towel, your investment does pay off. The traffic acquired from organic search engine marketing often provides the best conversion rates.

Building your marketing funnel doesn’t have to solely rely on paid solutions. Paid options are there to help you scale leads when needed, but if you’re doing your inbound marketing right and providing value through your content strategies, you know where to invest your marketing efforts.

Learn More

Want to know more? Take advantage of Small Business BC’s wide selection of seminars for entrepreneurs and small to medium-sized business owners. Space is limited, so don’t miss your chance to register today.

Plus, don’t forget that you can meet one-on-one with an expert to get specific information that applies to your business by booking an appointment with Small Business BC’s Ask the Expert service now.