This guest post is by Michelle. 
Marketing your company online is an ongoing process.
All businesses, entrepreneurs and even regular Internet users can market themselves using a variety of well-established practices.
Search engine optimization (SEO) can incorporate social media, link-building and other methods, but the most important thing is to have content that is all of the following:
- Consistent
- Original
- Interesting
- Up-to-date
Go The Extra Mile
Content has to be relevant, well-written and useful to the reader. Like all marketing efforts, it must be planned out to have any positive effect on search engine rankings or sales.
An SEO company can tailor a strategy to the individual goals of a business and its industry, budget and customer base. A business, however, should take a more proactive approach to managing its content creation strategy.
- Tip: The last thing that you want is to post boring or repetitive content.
In order to keep customers and potential customers interested in your business, you must create new, fresh content that people will want to share.
Stop Selling
It’s important to remember that you’re trying to attract customers with your content, not sell them anything—yet.
- Tip: Content should not contain the same verbiage as sales pitch.
The way you create your content has to be done thoughtfully. Good content will make your readers:
- Feel as though you sincerely care for them
- Believe that you’re truly passionate about your company
- See that you honestly believe in the products and/or services your company provides
Poor content makes it transparently obvious that you are just looking to make more money.
Methods of Planning Content
Get blogging
A basic blog is a way to start creating good content ― consistently.
Blogging is almost the standard in beginning to show your presence online. Just going ahead and starting to write is not enough, though, as this can lead to a haphazard blitz of information that has no real relevance.
- Tip: Organizing a publishing schedule with a calendar is the best way to manage your efforts of content creation and promotion.
A publishing schedule will also ensure that you are posting content on a regular basis. Uploading a blog post once or twice every two months won’t do much of anything to increase your online presence.
Remember: People subscribe and share blogs that are consistently updated; no one wants to share a blog post from July in October.
Yearly Calendar
A yearly calendar can help a company establish a solid marketing plan.
- Tip: Break your calendar down in 90-day blocks, so even more details can be added for monthly strategies.
A narrower time frame also allows for details on scheduling and workload assignments. Succinct planning methods also ease setting deadlines and managing posts from each contributing author.
Themes
Themes are also important. Themes can be set up for each month, which translate into topics for social media, blog, newsletter and other kinds of posts online.
- Tip: As content needs to be relevant, include topics related to seasons, holidays, events, etc.
Maximum readership becomes more likely and also the ever-important search engine rankings can be improved.
Be Interactive
Create interactive content. Make a list of phrases that you can use for online posts that allow your readers and customers to participate with you online.
- Tip: Social media phrases such as, “Fill in the blank” and “Caption this photo” are great ways to keep fans interested.
Staying at the top of search results is something all companies fight for, so exceptional content is more of a boost than a guarantee. Useful content is essential, however, to be ranked by search algorithms at all.
Consider the Search Engines
Internet marketing takes on many forms and incorporates various elements into a single strategy. Careful attention to search engines is the common thread of all of them.
Google has become a force in the online marketing world, because its changing algorithms affect how your page is ranked.
- Tip: Update frequently. Websites that are updated more frequently get cached more often by Google.
Constant updates also provide more opportunities for adding keywords and links to content and comments. These are looked upon favorably by the search engine.
- Tip: Make sure these updates include content that reflects current events, trends and times of the year–then your calendar will have proved useful.
Hopefully, it will also translate into increased search engine rankings.
Start a Newsletter
Another way to think of producing content is creating a newsletter. Publishing information on the company and its products is valuable to customers and potential prospects.
Getting visitors to your website is the first step, and doing so requires a concise plan that combines various aspects of SEO with your content creation.
Go Big or Go Home
Creating ideal content is not difficult, but you must be committed to producing good content.
- Tip: Imagine yourself as a customer, or a random web surfer, what kind of content would catch your attention?
What would catch your attention AND make you keep reading? What would catch your attention, make you keep reading, and then keep coming back to check for fresh content?
If you follow these tips and commit to creating high-quality content, you’ll have no problem creating an ideal content plan for your company.
Byline: Michelle is a Content Specialist and Blogger with a passion for the Internet, specifically social media and blogging.
She loves how social media connects people across the globe, and appreciates that blogging gives her the opportunity to voice her thoughts and share advice with an unlimited audience.
Photo Credit: Taryncasey.com