A Guide to Managing Content for Online Business

---

Profitability of an online business always relies on the effectiveness of the content strategy. As a young entrepreneur, you need to understand what kind of content your target audience is looking for in order to achieve that.

After that, you should do your best to provide your potential customers with useful and interesting information. There are important 10 steps which you should take to ensure high-quality of your content.

Analyze Your Target Audience

Instead of making assumptions and hearing suggestions about what your target audience wants, take a professional approach and do an analysis. Audience analysis will allow you to have a better understanding of which content topics and formats your audience is interested in. These helpful insights can be used in planning a long-term content strategy. It will also help you to organize and publish your content more efficiently.

Use audience data such as audience demographics, education level, or their interests to steer your content creation in the right direction.

Research Keywords

Performing basic keyword research is one of the critical steps for targeting potential customers and search engines. By placing relevant keywords in your content you are rising the chances that your online business will get noticed in search engine results pages (SERPS) which is ultimately your goal.

Here are some tips on how to perform a basic keywords search for your content:

• Do your research – Type a term of choice into the search engine and pay attention to the paid ads at the top or right-hand side of search results. They will reveal you the keywords which have high-value.
• Use free keyword research tools – Take advantage of free keyword research tools such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool to find high-value keywords which you may not have considered.

Create Informative and Interesting Textual Content

Your online content enables you to tell your story to the readers or potential buyers. It is a representative of what you have to offer. That is the reason you need to create a high-quality, authentic content that will captivate the readers.

James Daily, a writer, content manager, and founder of Brainished blog confirms that interesting and original content is one of the key parts of establishing a successful online business.

He suggests keeping the following guidelines in mind during your content creation:

• Be original
• Get personal
• Create content with the target audience in mind
• Share stories
• Make the content educational

Communicate Your Brand Value

If you don’t advocate for what your brand has to offer, you can’t expect your audience to get interested. You need to motivate your audience through your content and get them to appreciate and value your business.  Make your brand authentic in order to get the users’ trust and loyalty.

Some of the ways to do that are to showcase your brand in the real world, set clear brand guidelines, keep cohesive communication, show your business’s culture, and stay consistent.

Proofread the Text

Proofreading is a must when it comes to creating a high-quality content. Your professionalism will be valued according to the time and attention you pay to your texts.

A published text full of wrong constructions and misspellings will send a wrong message about your business.

Use online tools like Grammarly or the Hemingway App and services like Fiverr, CanadaWriters, and Men with Pens to ensure that your text is professionally written, grammatically correct, and error-free.

Add Visual Content

The importance of visual content has been increasingly emphasized especially with the rise of social media marketing.

The visuals play a central role in the stimulation of your brand’s growth. Various researches explain this by clarifying that visual content transmits messages faster, triggers emotions, and sticks in the long-term memory.

See below the types of effective visual content you can resort to:

• Videos
• Images
• Screenshots
• Infographics
• Presentations

Start Blogging

Use blogging as one of your marketing tactics. It will support your business and help you to get more in touch with your audience. The benefits of blogging are that it helps to drive traffic to your website, it establishes authority, and brings long-term results.

“Blogging is one of the best ways for your business to get more online visibility,” emphasizes Amanda Sparks, digital marketer and author of TopDownWriter.

Stay Active on Social Media

Social media has become an essential element of every business.

It will help you to get the word out and by using different platforms you will reach out to a larger number of people.

However, it is not enough just to create an account and expect traffic. You need to be active and post relevant content which will appeal to the audience.

“Whether you will use Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, or some other social media network, it is up to you. Just make sure that the platform you choose corresponds to the type of services you offer,” explains Sarah Sloan, a content manager at BestWritersCanada.

Create a Schedule

The importance of good organization can never be emphasized enough and you should implement it in your online business as well. Think about the order of importance and in what way you should publish your content to get the desired reaction from your audience.

Aside to organization, focus on the consistency. Rufus Franck, a business advisor at Consultants 500 states that every successful content marketing strategy has consistency as its main element. ‘This has even higher importance for young entrepreneurs who are yet to fully establish their working plan,” he adds.

Analyze Statistics

Don’t base your actions on assumptions, base them on facts. Statistics will give you a clear image of what steps work in your favor and where you should improve your business.

The impression and feedback from the target audience can bring the most valuable information for your content improvement.

The analysis, or to be more specific, its results, will steer you in the right direction and help you to make all the right moves in the future.

Conclusion

This simple guide works effectively for any online business: from garments store to translation services. It will help you to establish a strong content creation from the very start.

If you make these 10 steps, be sure that your content strategy will work perfectly!

Written by James Scott