A Content Marketing Strategy in 3 Easy Steps

I used to be a lawyer.

Owned my own practice, had great clients, did valuable work, made good money, the whole deal. But I left it and walked away because, on the side, I had launched a side-hustle as a content creator and had begun to make more money with that than my main gig.

That it was also more fun, and more challenging and creative, didn’t hurt.

Today, I have a thriving content company that creates content for some of the biggest companies in the world. Moreover, I recently sold my own small business content site to a major player and launched a new one, PlanetSmallBusiness.com.

I don’t tell you all of this to impress you, but to impress upon you that content creation and content marketing is a potential goldmine, one that you can tap into too.

Start With Great Content

In a previous article, I shared how to create what I call “clickable content.” Having clickable content is great because it serves so many valuable small business purposes:

• It can get your business noticed above the din
• It can put it in front of new customers
• It impresses people
• It bolsters your brand
• It can establish you personally as a thought leader
• It can make you a ton of money

But all of those benefits (and many more) only happen if two things are present.

• First, your content (the blog, video, podcast, webinar, headline, etc.) must be top-notch. It has to be so good that people will want to share it.
• And second, people have to be able to find it so that they can share it.

Think about it: If it’s terrible, no one will want to share it. But conversely, even if it’s fantastic, if people never find it, they won’t ever get the chance to share it.

So, whereas my previous blog explained what goes into creating that sort of desirable, enjoyable, interesting, clickable content, in this one I want to share why and how to create a content marketing strategy so that people will be able to find, share, and post that great content of yours.

Best Marketing Tools

Semrush – All-in-One SEO Platform

Ahrefs – Find content ideas & link opportunities 

Surfer SEO – Boost organic traffic

Content marketing strategies in 3 easy steps

I recently read an article by a guy who does a podcast. That one podcast then becomes six different forms of content. That is truly remarkable. Most of us – myself included – would be happy to create and post one podcast. Having personally podcasted for many years (until two years ago, damn you Covid!), I ended up with hundreds of great shows that sit on my site to this day.

I would also create transcripts of the show and post those as well. But now I see, I could have scores of pieces of content. That’s the ticket, and what you should do too. The trick here in Step 1 then is to create as much valuable content as you can and then SHARE IT in every way you can.

Step 1: Share your content everywhere

Here, for example, is how that podcast guy does just that:

1. He records and posts his audio podcast.
2. He turns the interview into a blog.
3. He takes excerpts from the blog and turns them into Facebook posts
4. He takes the best quotes and turns them into tweets.
5. He takes the best ideas and turns them into infographics to post on Instagram
6. The “greatest hits” from the show become an enewsletter post

I think we can all agree that that is fairly remarkable. And, even better, every piece of content links back to his site, so not only are people able to find him, Google will as well, thereby significantly upping the SEO value of the content.

So the first part of any content marketing strategy has to be – to share your content! Post it on your site, share it on your social channels, make it part of your e-newsletter, and finally – taking a page out of the genius above – consider duplicating your content by cutting it into different forms and sharing it appropriately.

Step 2: Search engine optimization (SEO)

Whole books, webinars, and courses have been written about SEO and so it would be foolhardy to try and duplicate that here. Suffice it to say, whatever content you create must be SEO’d. Yes, sharing it is all well and good, but you create real residual, long-term value when Google finds your content, indexes it, and starts to point people to it say, two years from now. That is the value of SEO.

Here’s how:

• Think keywords. Keywords and phrases that people search for must be included in your content. Ideally, they will be part of your title, title paragraph, and subheaders (look at this very article!) A tool like Clearscope might also be useful.
• Be unique. Google abhors stolen/plagiarized If you do use content that has already been posted, be sure to add “canonical tags.” (Google it.)
• Use an SEO tool like Yoast
• Make it visual. Blogs with graphics get more than 90%b more views. Videos are even better than that.
• Link within your site, e.g., “You may also like” or “Popular this week”
• Get incoming links. Links to your site or article boost your SEO scores, so look to write for other blogs that will link to your site

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Step 3: Advertise

Even with your great content, fancy SEO tricks, links and posts, it is still not always easy to get your content in front of the people most likely to like it, share it, re-tweet it, comment on it, post it, and all the rest. In that case, use the trick that the greatest companies around – big and small alike – use:

Advertise it.

How did Coca-Cola become Coca-Cola? Aside from a great product and logo, the answer is: massive advertising. Ditto McDonald’s, Budweiser, Amazon, Apple, United, and the great small business down the street.

Advertising works and is effective. It puts your business, or in this case your content, in front of the very people who should know about it.

And what is even better today is that with digital advertising and pay-per-click (PPC) you can microtarget your ads to the very people who are most likely to like and share it yet only pay for those eyeballs. Gone are the days of wasting thousands of dollars on mass media ads that miss the mark.

The good news is that advertising online is fairly simple. Here is the Google page that walks you through how to promote your content on Google’s various platforms. The other place to advertise online is Facebook. Here is their tutorial page for new advertisers.

So that’s Step 3: Take your best content, post it on, say, Facebook, and then buy inexpensive Facebook ads aimed at your target market. Or, post it on your own site and promote it with Google ads. People will find it, like it share it, and then find you, like you, and buy from you.

Voila! Content marketing magic (and maybe, just maybe, you too won’t be stuck having to sue people for a living anymore!)