Ever feel like there is more to do inside of your business than you can keep track of? We understand! But, (and this is important)… even if you are new to content marketing, you can use our 3 free and easy ways to get started creating content!

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Content for your business is going to be hands down the most important aspect of business growth you have, trust us, we have worked with businesses exactly like yours and only through reliable content do they grow.

Content marketing is the marketing and business process for creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action (contentmarketinginstitute.com/2012/06/content-marketing-definition/).

Come up With Ideas

• Assign yourself a notebook, or digital note app that can serve as your idea recorder. When you think of, or see great content that you feel you could introduce to your audience in a fresh light, simply keep track in your idea recorder.

• Have you ever sat down to make a video or other piece of content and you draw a complete blank? Don’t worry! It happens to the best. There is a simple solution to this problem. Clearly define the problem you wish to solve by looking at magazines in your industry. That’s right, go to the grocery store, grab a coffee and look through magazines. Every time you find an article on a topic you know your product could solve, write it down in your idea recorder.

• A great digital note app we recommend is Simplenote. Simplenote is available on all major operating systems: ios, android, kindle, etc.

• Break every 90 mins and force yourself outside or to grab a bite to eat. It allows the brain to reset.

Use a Weekly Planner

To be taken seriously in your industry, you must be creating content. To distribute relevant content in your industry means that you must be constantly coming up with fresh new ideas, keeping track of them, and then executing them.

Now that you know great content ideas can be found by looking at seasonal magazines, and you know that you can track these great ideas by using a note app like Simplenote, what’s next?

Planning time in your weekly schedule to sit down and write. This is by far the most difficult task of getting content out to the world.

Time management is a challenge even for the most talented and motivated people. There is a perfect app for keeping track of your digital schedule it’s called, WeekPlan. Here are some tips from Weekplan on how to keep your time prioritized and on track to complete a piece (or more) of content a week.

• Focus on important activities. Content creation is one of the most, if not THE most important, piece of marketing for your business. Weekplan can allow you to input the most important activity (writing your post or shooting a video) and avoid letting a whole week pass by without creating content due to poor prioritizing.

• You’ll increase your productivity. By keeping track of your ideas and what type of content you want to write, simply set a reminder for the day you schedule to write. With little else to grab your attention (remember to block of time for video or writing) you will increase your productivity, feel accomplished, and maybe even make an extra piece of content.

• Enjoy the feeling of completing content at the end of the week. Each time you create a new piece of content you will feel closer to attaining your business goals. It is a wonderful feeling to be an entrepreneur when you already have all your tasks done. Building your business to run on autopilot (ex: people finding your content on a Google search when your sleeping) is an amazing feeling. But you have to get that content out there before you can enjoy your leisure time.

Understand The Simple Elements for Proper SEO Content

Style/SEO elements:

• 800 – 1500 words

• Use short, mostly one-sentence paragraphs for the introduction

• Use H2 for subheads

• Use H3 for sub-sub heads

• Use bulleted lists

• Use bolded and italicized text for visual clarity

SEO –

• Include the keyword. If you’re just starting with content creation, keep it simple on yourself and use keywords found in industry articles for your titles. These should be a parameter; you should NEVER copy other content titles! (That’s plagiarism )

• In the title, a H2 subhead and in the first line or so of the opening paragraph.

• Make sure your 80% of your posts are not heavily promotional. You are creating content for the service of your audience. Only 20% of your posts should be about products, the rest are about solving problems.

• Include a short bio at the end of the post with no more than 2 links.

Images:

• Use images 1060px x 700px

• Include the keyword in your image file name (this means you save your image on your computer using the actual keywords, this is important to search engines!)

• Use images that you have the rights to or that are Creative Commons licensed. Here are some good sources: Pixabay, Flickr,  Morguefile.

Conclusion

These 3 FREE and Easy Ways to Get Started Creating Content are going to set your business on track to meet your content creation needs every week.

The bonus is that they could not be easier to use! So go out and make the best use of them to show your expertise. Make sure you introduce your products and services, and ultimately increase profit into your business.