The Small Business Content Crisis
We’ve all heard how “content is king”, and how fresh content can improve not only usage but even propensity to increase rev. So what gives? It seems many small businesses talk the talk, but at the end of the day do not walk the walk.
This is a message in a bottle.
Sometimes it feels like I am sending messages to clients in a bottle albeit from some amazing island somewhere. It’s like there is a disconnect with certain topics. I know I am not alone.
Ask a blogger or a vlogger if content is important. See what they tell you. They may say something like this, “fresh content puts gas in the Porsche”. So the professionals understand and especially the consultants that aren’t sheltered by a large company’s assets.
Fresh content for your users is like the bright sun breaking through their dreary day. Content in some cases provides hope, provides direction, provides a means to take action. It is not an overstatement. Yet, content to many small businesses is in crisis.
Take for example Smith Publishers. This is obviously not a real company, but very close to many companies I work with and in the way they struggle with content. Smith publishers pushes about a book a month and a blog post every 2 months. They have traffic and a lot of loyal users that overlook what in other segments would end badly.
Is this enough content to reach let’s say a group of 20? Yes. How about 100, 200, 1000, or 500,000? Probably not. You see posting at will in on a adhoc basis is not a strategy. Creating content that way, while better than nothing, is not ideal.
So what, some may say? Well Smith Publishers, the fictional company we’re using as an example, expects traffic improvement and revenue improvement. You heard right most small businesses do very little in the way of daily content and expect success online. Seriously.
When things go wrong in the consulting world the consultant always gets blamed. I love being a consultant, but really hate watching clients hurt their businesses.
Large businesses throw money at problems and with the right consultant can help fix a content issue or any number of issues. Smaller clients do not have that cash to throw around.
Nobody likes stale bread.
Either way, “we don’t have the staff” or “we do not have the time” are excuses. If you want a million uniques a month companies must have a content strategy and the will to implement it. In the end, no one likes to eat stale bread or look at your old content.
I won’t go into a granular strategy in this post, but will in the future. But another good example for small businesses is looking at a store like Macy’s. Macy’s is famous for their Christmas windows. How famous would it be if it were the same Christmas window every year?
Needless to say when coming from an org that never had to deal with questions like these it can be tough. Companies that get tons of traffic do so by having a strategy and work from principles like fresh content.
It won’t be easy. Becoming successful isn’t easy. We have to grind, we have to build things others benefit from, and we have to provide others what we ourselves would want – something remarkable. And in this case we all want fresh content updated daily.
Simon is a Product Designer and Front End Dev with over 20 years of experience. He started as a graphic designer and illustrator coding his first website in 1996. He has worked with brands like Publix, Microsoft, and Discovery Channel.
