Category: Advice

This is an interesting question

Because the answer is obvious isn’t it?

You need to write it yourself.

But I’m going to argue against that for four reasons.

Reason 1 – I want your work

OK let’s get this out of the way right now.

I’m after work.

I love working with SME’s and the first reason I am going to argue against writing it yourself is because I want to write for you.

If that seems a bit upfront, the fact is that I prefer to be honest and actually there’s always that elephant in the room.

So now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get onto the more important reasons.

Reason 2 – You need an expert

Now I’m a bit of a pain for tradesmen because I think I can do pretty much anything myself.

I can plumb, I can do electrics, I can decorate.

But the truth is I never do it quite as well as REAL tradespeople.

It’s never quite as quick, never quite as good quality and I never know those hidden little tricks that real professionals know that gives you an all-round better job.

Reason 3 – The money

You are going to have to pay people to write your blog.

But, here’s the thing – while they are writing your blog, you can be off doing other stuff that is probably going to earn you more money than you are spending.

Net win.

I have a client (and good friend) who always says he could write the stuff that I do for him, but what I do in an hour would take him at least half a day.

He’s right. He’s every bit as good a writer as I but he’s not as quick.

So even if we charge exactly the same hourly rate, paying me to write his blog saves him four times as much as it costs.

Reason 4 – You’re too close to it

This is a mistake I see a lot of people making.

You see you know your industry intimately.

You know all the words and phrases

You know all of those damned Three Letter Acronyms (TLAs)

So that’s what you write and truthfully anyone in your industry will love your blog.

They’ll really get it and they’ll know exactly what you are trying to say.

But your customers won’t.

And who would you prefer to understand your blog; your competitors or your customers?

You may well know your expansion tank from your PCB and your diverter valve but what your customer is asking is can you fix my boiler?

Get someone you like

Bit of a controversial one this but I’d say the first thing you need to look for is someone who you like or, more specifically, who’s work you like.

Check out their style and see if it strikes a chord.

I’m always very sceptical of writers who say they can write in any style.

Our personalities always come through in the end.

So choose a professional writer, choose someone who may well have industry experience (although this isn’t as important as you may think) but more than anything choose someone who you think will give your blog what it needs.

For the record I can write in a professional manner suitable for professional services type firms like accountants and the like, I can write fairly informally, like this blog or I can do music blogs.

But I can’t do a health and beauty blog because it just isn’t me.

So who SHOULD you get to write your blog?

Well if not me then…

Have a look at websites that you enjoy reading and ask who writes for them and if they might be available.

Bigger sites will have staff writers but SME’s will be using freelancers like me.

Check out facebook and Linkedin. Just search for copywriter, blog writer, a content marketer that sort of thing.

Check out their posts, and have a look at their website.

Ask around, do any of your business contacts have a writer they would recommend?

Get yourself down to the local networking group, there will always be one or two of us hanging around in the corner with our hunched backs and pale complexions.

And if all fails then give me a shout because I might be able to help.

If you are anything like most small business owners then you could probably do with just a little more work – the cream off the top, the icing on the cake sort of thing.

Maybe your website is working well or maybe it’s just tumbleweed blowing across the screen but either way, an excellent method of getting more work from the same asset is to have fresh and up to date content for potential buyers.

So what you really need is a content marketing plan

It’s always good to have a plan

But don’t worry, your content marketing plan doesn’t need to be all singing and all dancing.

What it needs to do is identify the people you want to work with, where they hang out, the questions they are asking and how you are going to answer them

Let’s take an example

Imagine a business that supplies In Car Entertainment systems (ICE).

First question – Who are their ideal customers?

They aren’t selling to young mums I would suggest, or retired people or school kids.

So we know that their content probably needs to be aimed at drivers, probably 17-35 and predominantly men (I know sexist).

And this is the important point here.

I’m not saying that ICEs are ONLY bought by this demographic, but what I am saying is that this is by far the largest market.

So chase it.

Where do they hang out?

I reckon it’s largely pointless getting editorial content into the Guardian.

People that read the Guardian are less likely to be in your target market.

Where do 17-35 year old men hang out?

Youtube, Facebook, maybe Insta

So now you need to get some content up that will speak to them.

Giving something of value

What is likely to get these guys clicking away from Facebook?

Something that they need or something of interest

And so you need to look for people who maybe have been searching for new cars, or who are members of car interest groups.

These are the people who are more likely to want to buy or upgrade their ICE or want more bits for it or who want advice about it.

So you’d look to produce content on ‘the 5 best head units released this year’ or ‘About to fit a new stereo? Don’t make this common mistake’.

Promote the right content in the right place and you’ll get clicks

Get people out of a bind

So far the content suggestions have been for when people are actively searching for something they are going to do but what if they find themselves stuck?

Don’t discount the power of videos as a way to drive sales.

I recently fitted a stereo to my Jaguar (I’m not that rich, it’s a 15-year-old x-type!)

The problem was that none of the fittings were the same so I had to search for how to fit it and what items I needed.

As it was there was no provider who had put on a video and I found some guy in Kentucky who had posted a vid of him doing exactly the same thing.

Now if our imaginary ICE store had posted a video that showed how to do it and then linked to a shop page where I could have bought the DIN converter, ariel converter and trim surround then I am pretty sure I would have bought.

Here’s your homework.

So if you want to make a difference to your business with fresh content then what should you do?

Firstly sit down and write out a pen picture of your ideal customer.

Then find out where they hang out. How you can connect with them. What they are searching for.

Then plan your long-tail keywords to suit.

Once you have your keywords then get your content produced.

Either do it yourself or find an amazingly awesome copywriter or video content producer.

Now, where could you find a copywriter???

Here’s the ad

OK so copywriting is what I do.

It might be blog articles, website content, eBooks or video and advertorial scripts but if it’s words then I am your man.

I can even help you plan out that marketing and work our some suggestions for those pesky long-tail keywords.

You can find out about my services here

Contact me now and let’s see if I can be of help.

So you’re all set up with a website and you’ve written a couple of entries for your SME blog but no one is reading.

What’s gone wrong?

Check out these methods for getting noticed and driving readers to your blog

#1 Post little and often

So there’s lots of argument about how long posts should be.

I’m going to be honest I don’t know and I’m thinking that if anyone says that they do then they are bluffing.

Some people will tell you with total certainty that you HAVE to post 650 words or less every time.

Other people will tell you with equal certainty that the other people are idiots and you absolutely HAVE to post at least 2500 words.

Actually what I think is more important is that you post regularly.

The search engines value content that is fresh and updated so doing one 750 word post a week is much better than doing a 5000 epic once a month.

And who has time to write all that content for their SME blog when they could be doing business?

#2 Make sure your on-page SEO is all good.

So this might sound a bit like gobbledegook but SEO is simply making sure that your business blog has all of the attributes that make it attractive for the search engines.

I’d suggest installing an SEO tool to help with this. I like Yoast and the good news is that the free version has lots of features and will help you get your post right.

#3 post added value

A lot of my clients like to post little snippets and opinion pieces on sites like LinkedIn and I don’t have a problem with this.

It’s all part of the community building work that you need to do.

But if you want to drive readership then you need to be producing posts that help people solve problems that they are experiencing.

When you are looking at your marketing plan (you have got one?) then work out ways that you can solve the issues that people search for with your post.

#4 Have a marketing plan

You’re going to need one of these.

It doesn’t have to be all singing and all dancing but you’ll find life much easier if you have planned out the milestones you need to hit.

You’ll also find that with a marketing plan the post titles will almost write themselves because you will already have some…

#5 Long-tail keywords

I reckon this is worth a post all of its own.

Briefly, though, a long tail keyword is a more natural way of making sure the search engines know what you are posting about.

So for instance you may be wanting to write a post about the water-saving value of changing your toilet flush valve.

Instead of just writing a post that includes the words ‘toilet flush valve’ you’ll write ones that answer questions about them.

‘How do I change a toilet flush valve?’ ‘What are the benefits of a new flush valve?’ ‘What are the parts of a toilet cistern?’ That sort of thing.

The search engines are looking for posts that answer questions that their users are asking so you should answer them.

#6 Don’t just rely on the search engines

If you are writing posts of genuine value then why hide your light under a bushel?

Make sure you publicise your posts on your company Instagram, Facebook, Twitter LinkedIn.

Whatever you have then make sure it’s posted up with a nice pic and a working link.

This is where smaller businesses can have a real edge over bigger companies because they can really home in on their customers’ needs and develop a proper community.

Getting your SME blog a sizeable readership…

Truthfully, it’s not rocket surgery.

I’d like to tell you that it is all a dark art and you HAVE to buy my services but actually getting readers along to your SME’s blog is just a matter of having a plan and making sure you are working it.

If you’d like some more information on how to get readership for your blog then check out these other posts.

• What is hero content?
• Blog posts – should you add a little ‘personality’?
• Planning your marketing – make the most of your time and money
• SaaS companies and content marketing – why?
• Content for accountants – 9 great ideas for winning posts

Now look, I write blogs for SMEs.

I’m not too shabby at it (after all you’ve read this far) so if you aren’t wanting to write your own content then why not give me a call or message me?