There’s a marketing line I’m going to toss out there. It’s one that you’ve heard before, possibly – as the cliche goes – a “thousand times.” Before I just toss it out there, I think it’s important to understand that despite the fact that it feels overused, it doesn’t take away from the truth at its core.
Content is king.
Yep. There it is; I wrote it.
The problem is that small businesses are too often plagued by content that is poorly strategized, poorly structured, or poorly written. And I’m not referring to only landing pages and blog posts; I’m referring to even the smaller elements, like meta descriptions.
“Shop new Honda models or used vehicles at Saville Honda to find your next car, truck, or SUV, or schedule service with our experts. Contact us today in Pensacola!”
Oh, under 165 characters, baby! Nailed it!
I’m sure you’ve seen a flat, unenticing meta description like that if you’re a small business.
I also bet you’ve had an agency craft a bunch of “near [City], [State]” content, whether it’s a section on your homepage, product or service page, or about us page; or you may even have seen this as a page in itself built out without providing any value to you or, more importantly, any consumers.
You’ve probably also had a blog written by your agency partner like this:
It’s what I like to call FLUFF GARBAGE.
It doesn’t merit being a standalone piece because it’s either something that nobody is searching for or isn’t enough of a substantive question to write substantively about – and sometimes, it doesn’t even merit being a part of any content. Period. Full stop.
Fluff Garbage (n): content that is filled with unrelated information (FLUFF) based on a really bad premise because either nobody is searching for it or it makes no sense to be a standalone piece of content (GARBAGE).
Small businesses are hounded by agencies who promise a cheap price and a lot of content, and what’s listed above is generally what they get. And you can change a few words and get the same outcome for any industry:
2024 Guide to Shared Custody from Saville Law
Why Saville Plumbing is the Best Plumbing Service in Pensacola, FL
Get Efficient Service at Saville Home Appliance in Pensacola
Fluff Garbage is easy. It’s how many agencies can offer scaled content: it doesn’t require due diligence, thought, or even consideration of the local consumer.
So Now What? What Content Should I Get?
Great question. And I can’t answer it. If I purported to be able to answer that, I’d be selling you like any other agency. It all depends, but there are some fundamental truths to how to begin conceiving what it should be.
Here are the three essential elements for every piece of content on which the messaging above will be based:
Who is the target audience?
What is the core message of the content?
In other words, what type of search intent is it satisfying?
Why is this interesting or of value?
To help you build the core message of the content and establish why it’s interesting or of value, there are some initial questions you can ask yourself.
For example:
What are your specific business objectives?
What are you known for or want to be known for?
What is the bread-and-butter of your business?
What could be the bread-and-butter but isn’t yet?
What are your organization’s mission, values, and vision?
Why would someone choose you over the competition?
So how do you take those answers and craft messaging around them? Let’s cover the types of messaging that you should include in every piece of content you write for your small business.
Directional Messaging
To prioritize your content plan, you need to help consumers locate what they want and tie this as best you can to the first four questions above.
If they demonstrate purchasing-seeking behavior by conducting searches like “best personal injury lawyer pensacola,” “emergency plumbing services,” “2024 honda civic for sale,” do you have the right content for search engines to direct them to a page that best satisfies their need?
If they are seeking information on a path to purchase or acquire services, again, do you have the right content for search engines to direct them to a page that best answers their question?
It’s about the consumer. Create for people and optimize so search engines can find it. The more you can direct local shoppers to the right page via the search results page, the less friction they’ll have – after all, every click that has to happen on your site for a customer to get to where they want to go is a chance for them to tire and bounce off of your site in complete dissatisfaction.
Front-of-Mind Messaging
This supports your Directional Messaging.
You will present your product or service’s benefits. This goes beyond your value propositions as a business and into how your offerings will provide the best outcome for the consumer. In order to do this, you’ll need to conduct your due diligence to understand what and how people are searching for those very products and services.
And the what and how will have a great degree of variance, which you’ll need to cluster and distill into cogent, robust responses. That’s the crux of it: you need to be the best answer possible out there, and that cannot happen if you don’t know all of the ways in which people are posing semantically, topically, and contextually questions.
Bear in mind a few tips here based on your type of business:
Product-specific: Focus only on the primary, overriding benefit(s), keep it simple, and let the content’s optimizations, structure, and message breathe.
Service-specific: Outline the problem it solves, explain how the service works, and explain why it’s the best value.
Business-to-Business (B2B): Offer reassurances of quality, service, and delivery while focusing on professionalism and trust.
Extra tip: Benefits are more than just features. You also need to understand that all primary benefits have peripheral benefits that you need to know how to communicate, too.
Ex: Home security – not just an alarm, it’s peace of mind.
Ex: Home Cleaning Services – not just a clean house, it’s time back
Ex: New Car – not just a vehicle, it’s a symbol of hard work / accomplishment
Back-of-Mind Messaging
You need to give local customers a reason to visit, which will satisfy the fifth and sixth questions above.
What distinguishes you from your competitors?
I can tell you this: I can go to any two personal injury law firms or any two car dealerships or get any two plumbers who can essentially all do the same thing for me – so why should it be you?
Place that value into the back of their mind as you leverage Directional and Front-of-Mind Messaging to satisfy the essential needs of their search.
You can incorporate these value propositions – third-party awards and accolades, distinguished or unique features, internal accomplishments, et cetera – into various pages and elements on your website and even beyond (think your GBP description or social media profiles).
So, to Sort of Wrap It Up…
For all SEO content, as you leverage all of what this blog covered, you need to not forget that the entire purpose of this endeavor is to directly satisfy the precise intent of the searcher with the best possible answer in your market.
If you would like a content audit, please reach out to me at [email protected] or 312-757-7212.
