Online Content That’s Gaining Businesses Customers

By Rhonda Campbell

Online content drives the Internet as much as technology. In fact, a visually attractive website or customized social media page may not be enough to catch and maintain the attention of virtual visitors, helping small business owners to gain more customers. To catch and maintain the attention of virtual visitors, small business owners need to develop and share online content their prospective customers find valuable. But, even that’s not enough. Small business owners must also distribute or share that content at places members of their target audience frequent to gain more customers.

Online Content Keys to Gaining More Customers
Components of online content that can make a website, small business social media page or storefront sticky include:

• Online content that strategically places search engine optimized keywords throughout a website, article, blog posts, video, etc.
• Interviews with industry leaders
• Infographics that make it easy for readers to absorb detailed information
• Quotes from influential people
• Stats and facts that validate or confirm information included in online content
• Videos supporting content included in written online content
• Polls and surveys to encourage reader interaction
• Customer testimonials
• Add a link from the small business website in written online content
• Include requests for action (i.e. take a survey, preview a new product) at the bottom of online content

Expanding Readership to Gain More Customers
Just as websites and customized small business social media pages must be marketed, to ensure online content reaches as many people as possible, videos, infographics, blog posts and articles must also be marketed. Following are some places where small business owners can share and market online content to gain more customers:

• Directories (Consider using tools like Google Page Rank to check the relevancy of directories. A rank of 1 or above is generally considered to be good.)
• Publish online content at guest blogs (Look for blogs that have a good following or large readership)
• Share online content on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
• Add online content to RSS feeds (small business blogs can be added to RSS feeds to each new article or blog gets picked up by the feed)
• Image directories (by adding SEO keywords to images and pictures, small business owners can get images included with their online content picked up in major search engines, helping these small business owners to gain a lot more readers)
• Major information and news websites like Yahoo! and Huffington Post accept and publish online content written by small business owners and freelance writers. (Small business owners who include a link to their small business website in their article bio, could generate sizable traffic to their small business after publishing one or more articles at these major websites)
• Report publication websites like Scribd, FindWhitePapers.com and Tech Republic permit small business owners to publish white papers and reports at their established websites. (A great way to gain readers for specialized online content; remember, the more readers online content gets, the more opportunities small business owners have to direct these people to their small business websites)
• Ask employees, family and friends to share online content on their social media networks

Small business owners who add social media share buttons and links at the bottom of their online content can make it easy for readers to distribute the content to even more people. Another step small business owners can take to get more exposure for their online content is to write and submit press releases about interviews, new blogs, product reviews, etc. they include in their articles.

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