Low Cost Content Creation Tips for a Small Business

A look at the average Utah SEO company pitch will likely reveal numerous helpful tips when it comes to search engine optimization, especially with the constant changes in algorithms and ranking techniques by the world’s biggest search engines. However, one thing that remains constant is the fact that the importance of content cannot be underestimated. A good website infrastructure, for instance, can only be helpful when the content found therein is helpful to the customer. For the small business person, concentration on content is perhaps one of the ways through which they can gain an advantage on competitors and compete for market share with the more established market giants. Still, a small business will likely have to juggle content creation with other elements of the marketing budget. Here are some innovative ways to create content in ways that will not blow a hole in one’s marketing bank.

Audit

The first step for any internet marketing company is to have their clients perform a companywide audit to determine the content available to them. Cataloguing content like this helps determine what is available, including communications from outside and from the marketing department. Information can come from the unlikeliest of sources, like the sales manual, just waiting for an opportunity to be leveraged. After this, determine what content to keep and what to delete. Examine the content with a critical eye to determine what to keep, with a focus on low cost ways to make the content have a greater impact. The assessment should also determine where gaps exist in the content asset base. Look for topics that are not covered or information that readers might want that is not available.

Calendar

In many companies, it is only the marketing department that has an editorial calendar that tracks the content creation efforts. To improve content in a cost-effective way, it is important to have a calendar that tracks content creation efforts all across the business. This overall view of the company helps identify content creation opportunities, and unite content creation resources and efforts across the various teams in the company. As the company grows bigger, though, tracking the calendar might be difficult for the entire business. An editorial calendar functioning across the entire organization should follow the following principles;

• Determine promotional goals and use those to look for content that will work best
• Examine social media, marketing and other related assets at one’s disposal
• Identify areas that need information sharing among the departments to make the process more effective

Planning

The goal of every content creation campaign should be to create multiple related pieces on the same topic. This requires a lot of planning. Where possible, develop both corporate and marketing content at the same time, as this will reduce efforts and eventually the cost. Large pieces of content can also be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces, further expending one’s budget.