3C Digital

Digital Marketing for Small Business

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What not to do on your small business blog

What not to do on your small business blog

  1. Plagiarise
  2. Copying and pasting other articles
  3. Not crediting sources
  4. Not using quotes
  5. Not researching trends

We’ve previously written about why small business websites need a blog. Not only does it help with your SEO ranking, it also provides good information for your customers (if you do it right). It’s a lot of hassle, we know. It can also be quite daunting especially if you’re new at this. In this post, we will give you some tips on what NOT to do on your blog. You really need to read this because we’ve seen these mistakes in some of our clients. And they can get you in trouble.

Plagiarise

This is the most serious one of the lot. What is plagiarism? It’s when you copy all or part of an article published somewhere else, written by someone else, and then passing it of as your own. You and your small business can get in serious trouble with this. No matter how ‘small’ the website is, or how unknown, you shouldn’t just copy and paste the content and put it on your site. We’ve met clients where their previous ‘website guy’ just copied and pasted entire articles from another website. Then they just placed a tiny accreditation of the website at the bottom of the page. That’s still plagiarism.

Website checklist

Not crediting sources

If you are using a part of the content from another website or source, you need to make sure you credit them. How do you do this? Add their name on the post you’re writing, with link to their website and their position. You always give credit to the website/writer and use quotations marks when you lift a blurb from a certain article. Also, linking out to the original article is also good for your SEO. Not giving credit where credit is due is just bad form. And also, it makes your small business blog look dodgy.

Not researching trends

There are hot topics in your small business industry all the time. You want your content to stay current so you need to do some research as to what everyone is talking about right now. If you don’t do your research you are going to get left behind. Also, it will be good for your small business to stay on top of things if you figure out what’s hot and what’s not. Pick a hot topic, find your angle, and write a post on your blog about it. Your spin to the latest trend will make your content original and relevant.

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How to write good content for your small business website

How to write good content for your small business website

  1. Choose your topics
  2. Create content calendar
  3. Be as descriptive as possible for titles
  4. Outline each topic
  5. Write it like a conversation

Why is there a need to have regular fresh good content on your website? It’s a question we get a lot from our clients. It is one of their main concern and understandably so. Writing and posting fresh content on the website takes time and effort that you’d rather pour into growing your small business. It is also quite taxing especially if creating content isn’t your forte. We totally understand the concern. But like we mentioned in our previous post, useful content helps with your ongoing SEO strategy. In this post, we will tell you three easy ways to write good content for your small business website.

Choose your topics

Create a content calendar ahead of time so you don’t grapple for topics to choose for that month. It can be a simple Excel sheet, or even something you write down in a notebook somewhere. We suggest creating a content calendar for three months. Write down the titles and make it as descriptive as possible. Some examples of topics we’ve used on our site are ‘3 Ways to get followers to your small business Facebook page’ or ‘3 Tips when using Instagram for your small business’. Both titles not only give readers an immediate idea of what it’s about, it also gives us an idea where the content is heading so we can write it easily. Also, it’s really good for SEO, so win win win!

Website checklist

Outline each topic

Once you’ve listed the topics and the titles you want to write, it’s time for the outline. Sounds complicated? Not really. To make it simpler for you, keep the outline short. For each topic, write three points that you want to expand when you start writing it. For instance, when we created the outline for this post, we simply wrote down the title then the three points we were going to discuss. The outline went something like this, title, point 1, point 2 and point 3. That’s it! You already know what you want to say each point so you don’t need to add elaborate details. You can add more details if it helps you write faster in the future or if there’s a point you want to emphasise. Do what works for you.

Write like you’re talking to them

Remember that it’s just a conversation. You want to impart your wisdom and expertise to the readers you are targeting. Always remember that you are a subject matter expert. You have a lot to say so don’t be afraid to own it. You don’t need super fancy words to get your point across. In fact, we prefer non fancy words because it’ll be easier to convey your message. Most people just want digestible information that they can consume on their mobile phones. By making your content conversational and easy to understand, you’ll be able to connect with your audience more.

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How to come up with good content for your small business blog

A common question we get from clients and workshop attendees is about content creation for their small business blog. They can’t figure out what they should be writing about.

It’s a good point and also one of the struggles of running a blog. Blogging seems too much work, too much pressure, too much time away from the business. We can help you with the topics.

We are writing all about this one over at Inside Small Business. Go have a read!