If you look at any advice on what to do to increase web traffic a lot of it has to do with content creation. Creating content allows your website to be constantly updated and gives you things to share on social media. But how do you come up with ideas for content? How do all these sites have so much to write, blog, and create videos about. The answer is actually fairly simple, but requires effort. No matter what type of business you’re in, you can create content on a regular basis. Below are four ideas to help you break out of your “writer’s block”.
Common Customer Questions
I’m not talking about an FAQ page (which would be for things like returns, refunds, and common business questions), though you should have one of those. No, I’m talking about taking a common customer question and creating a blog about it. How do I choose the right widget? How do I install X? What are the special features of Y? Create a short blog or video about the subject.
I was recently looking up how to seal an air conditioning window gap, it took me to eHow which led to me watching a YouTube Video. You can also during Google searches just choose to see videos. This short video has 155K views, and there are many others. When a customer comes to your store, even if you’re selling shoes, they have a problem they are looking to solve (even if that problem is I’m not eating tacos right now!). With your video you can help them solve that problem, and if you sell the solution as well, all the better.
Work with your employees to find out what your customers are coming in for the most, and see if you can’t write or create a video about how to best choose the right product, or how to use the product properly and get the most out of it (even with tacos it could be about pairing the right salsa or beer to compliment the flavor).
Projects
People love to hear about you as a person, it makes your business more than a company when they see a face behind the name. So, talk about projects you are working on, whether for the business or personally. Are you running in a marathon? Raising money for charity? Have a new company you’ve partnered with? Let your customers know. People love to feel a part of something, and if you can turn your customers into a community, they will bring others with them.
This is especially helpful when you’re thinking of expanding. Letting your customers know that there is a new location coming, and showing them progress, gets them excited. If your new location is near their friends, they’ll tag them in your social letting them know “that place I love is about to open near you!” Not only does this create new content, it creates content that is immensely shareable.
New Items
New items are the lifeblood of any store so let people know about them, or let them know about one special item that came in and go deep on that one item. Your customers love shopping with you for a reason, give them reasons to come back by showing them that “new, must-have” item. This works whether you’re selling shoes or hardware, jewelry or furniture, people love seeing what’s new. Also, this may not be something they need, but perhaps they have a friend who does. The number of times I’ve seen people tag friends in posts about products is amazing. People love to share and if they can help a friend, all the better.
This also gives you a great way to sell the features and benefits of an item before they even walk in the store. And if you think about Search Engine Optimization, it’s even better. If someone searches for a product, and you have an article written about it’s features and benefits, you’ve increased the odds they will click on your link and buy from you. Just be sure to include common “keywords” that might be used to search for the product. There are tools to help you identify keywords, but a new feature of Google Searches is the “People also ask:” it generally gives you a few questions, each of which you could incorporate into your blog or video about the product. I am using a Lenovo Chromebook to type this so I googled that. Here are four questions:
- Is Lenovo Chromebook good?
- How much is a Chromebook Lenovo?
- What is the difference between Chromebook and regular laptop?
- What are Chromebooks good for?
You could easily see how answering those questions in your blog could lead to not only clicks, but sales.
Industry News
You should subscribe to newsletters, blogs, and magazines that pertain to your industry, if you already don’t, as they provide not only an idea of what is happening in your industry and what changes are coming, but also a way to comment on those issues and explain them to the customer. Currently, as of this writing, we are dealing with a world wide coronavirus outbreak. If you purchase goods from overseas, you would need to let your customers know there may be issues down the road. Your customers might love a particular coffee you sell and letting them know about conditions that might mean a smaller harvest, would be beneficial to them. If you are a coffee drinker, the idea that your favorite coffee might sell out, means you’d probably stock up.
In some cases you might want to discover if your customers are following a predicted trend. By writing about a subject you could find out that your customers are in a niche group, leading you to buy differently than the mass market. I read a tweet by writers who disliked the newer Mac laptops because the typing felt weird, I type on a Chromebook as mentioned and immediately understood. The feeling of typing is so integral to writing, especially for those of us who started on typewriters (yes, I’m old). I, for one, do not like typing on a touch screen. I use swype whenever possible. Knowing this about me, will allow you to sell me the right laptop for me by highlighting this feature.
Anyway these are just four ideas that I think can help pull you out of that writer’s block and get you creating content. If you have other ideas of how to create fresh content for your blog, let me know in the comments below. And if you have actual writer’s block, share some tips on how you break out of that one.
Joe Robles 