How to create an SEO content calendar for your small business

Are you trying to do SEO for your small business and wondering how to create weekly content and have it not take too much time? If so, this week's episode will help you. I'm going to walk you through how to brainstorm content ideas and create a content calendar that will make your life easier. Doing SEO for your small business will help you be more visible online and help the right people find your business. 

Transcript

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Hi, and welcome back to the podcast. Today, I want to talk to you about creating a content calendar for your small business. This is going to make your life easier when you try to create content for your website or blog. So you know, as a small business owner who is interested in SEO, you want to be able to be found by your customers wherever they're searching, whether it's Google, Bing, Yahoo, ChatGPT, Claude, the Google AI Overviews, Gemini. We don't care where they're searching. We want to know that they're going to find us, because we can help them. And if we can get in front of them, then we can hopefully bring them into our world, provide value, build that relationship, and start to really get to know them and help them and be somebody that they like, know, and trust and want to work with. So you've probably heard somebody, could've been me, could've been someone else, tell you, you need to create content on a regular basis, and it may have left you wondering, "How in the world am I gonna do that? What am I gonna write about?" Or, "How am I ever gonna fit that into my schedule with all the other things that I have to do?" And so I wanna talk about that, and I wanna walk you through some things you can do to make content development faster, easier, quicker. These are things that I've worked on over the last probably 15 years. I look at content development now as an excitement because each blog post that I write or each podcast episode that I record is another way to connect with you, the listener or the reader, with the information that you need that helps you learn how to do this to grow your business, so that when you are ready to work with somebody, hopefully you're gonna wanna work with me. It's the same type thing for you for your business. So we really want to think about- Making this as easy as possible, because I know sometimes the thought of creating lots of content for a business can feel a little daunting if you don't love writing. Not everybody loves writing, and I get that. I happen to love it. It's one of my... It's my first love. I went to journalism school. I love to write. I could write all day long. But not everybody feels that same way, and I get that. So when we start talking about creating content for our business, I want you to really think about it's not a task that you have to do. It's something that you get to do. And when you do it, you help the right people find you, and you bring the right people into your world. So if you've been struggling with even getting started or you don't wanna do it or you feel overwhelmed, take a step back and try to think about it in a different way, because that can help to make it feel less overwhelming or less a sense of dread. So now we're gonna go into it and we're gonna think, "I get to write content, and I'm excited, and I'm looking forward to this." Now, before you can create a calendar- You really need to come up with some ideas. So this is something I work with my students on, and that's how do you figure out what you want to write about? Because understanding what to write about is step one. The first thing is finding the topics. The second step is optimizing it so we make sure that the right people can find it. So you can do this by having a brainstorming session. I usually start with a brainstorm. What are the questions that I get asked by my students or by my one-on-one clients all the time? What are the things that they need to know? What are the questions I see on social media? What are the things that I know they need to know, but they may not know to ask? That's the first thing you're gonna think about. So, for example, if I were to brainstorm on small business SEO topics, I might write down things like, how will SEO work for a small business? Does SEO even work for a small business? Does SEO work for my niche? How do I know which keywords to use? How exactly does SEO work? Do I have to do it? If I want traffic, do I have to do this, or is there a different way? Should I do SEO at all? What should I do first? If I'm gonna start, I don't even know what to do first. How many keywords should I use? What's most important? Do I also need to do SEO for the answer engines? Is it the same thing? Is it different? Does my keyword work for ChatGPT? How do I show up in ChatGPT? All these type questions are things that my audience is asking. So what are the questions that your audience is asking? Are you a life coach? Are you a real estate agent? Are you a travel agent? Are you an insurance agent? There's a good chance if you're listening, you're a professional. You are likely a professional service provider. So think about... You could be e-commerce. I've got some e-commerce folks. But think about where do your people come to you with questions, or what information do they need to know before they're ready to, to buy? So that's the first thing you're gonna do, is just start kind of brainstorming. What is it that people need to know? What questions do they ask? What do you feel like you answer all the time? Because those are gonna be a good idea, like where you think about what questions people have, what questions they ask you, what questions you had as you were learning some of the things that you had to learn in order to be successful in your business. So now we want to think about the questions that maybe they don't know to ask yet. So what are things that are tied to your business that would help them, but maybe they're not sure to ask, but they're still teaching moments. They're still things that will connect with them, that will interest them, but we may just not know yet, like, that this is even a question they should have. So in this example I brainstormed for small business SEO teaching topics. Why using your keyword in your image file name helps your SEO. Um, three common SEO mistakes you might be making that are hurting your small business. How to write an SEO-friendly title tag for your small business. How to write an SEO-friendly meta description. Why you shouldn't use the same keyword on every page of your website. Why you need to write unique title tags and meta descriptions for every page. So your customer may not know to even look at or think about these type things yet, but you know that they're important and they're gonna help them. So brainstorm that as well. So you start with all the questions they ask you, and then you brainstorm the questions or the thoughts that you have, the teaching points, the things that you know they need to know as they're starting to work on it. From there, we have a giant list. Now what we're gonna do is to start to organize and categorize and see are there... I generally teach four topics. Are there four, like, topic categories that I could put these into? So for me, I generally teach small business SEO, answer engine, or AEO or GEO for small businesses, also known as AI-based SEO, whatever you wanna call it, it's all kind of the same thing, podcast SEO, and then online marketing for small business owners. So I make a point of trying to cover those four different areas in my content because those are four different areas that are helpful to my audience. So you're going to do the same thing. As you look at your ideas, I want you to think about your products and services, and I want you to think about how you could put these ideas into categories that would tie back to your products or services. Because again, my friend, you are an entrepreneur, which means we need the right people coming into your world, and the right people coming into your world are the people who are interested in buying what you sell, because that's the only way you're gonna make money. We wanna make sure there's a, a line direct through from the content that you create to the product or the service that you offer, so that we're bringing people in who can help you. You can serve them, you can help them, but they're also going to help you build your business because they're interested in what you offer. We don't wanna get a bunch of content created that doesn't have a conversion path, because then what's the point of bringing those people into your world, right? We wanna make sure there's always a conversion path because we're doing this for a business. So now You've got all these ideas you've brainstormed, and you've got your four topic areas. What you're going to do now, I generally like to plan out a quarter at a time. I used to plan my whole year in advance, and what I found is I prefer planning a quarter at a time because I can kind of adjust if I want to adjust. And I like to think about when am I doing a live launch? What am I focusing on for this quarter? Like, I wanna make sure that I have good content that aligns with what's going on in the world so that it all feels cohesive within my business ecosystem, and that's what you want as well. So I start at a quarter, and that just means if you've chosen four pillars, you need three of those topics for each pillar. And then what you're gonna do is you're gonna create your calendar, and if you're one of my students, you have the template for the calendar. If you work with me one-on-one, you also have access to that. So if you're in Simple SEO Content or we're working together 101- one-on-one, don't go trying to recreate the wheel. I've got this for you. If you're not working with me yet, you're trying to learn how to do this and get started, you're just gonna create, like, a Google sheet or an Excel doc or whatever you want that will keep track of what week it is, what your content pillar is, and what your topic idea is. And what you're going to do then is put in one of each of those topics for each month. So over the course of the month, you're gonna hit on each of those four pillar areas. That way, if you have different products and services, you're still regularly communicating with your customers who may be interested in different parts of your business. You don't want anyone to feel like there's no value for them, because that's how they're more likely to unsubscribe from your emails. And if your emails and your weekly content is created to nurture people, we need to make sure that we're providing them with value and there's information that they are interested in on a regular enough basis that they want to stay within your world. So that's how you get started with a content calendar. Once you have that content calendar and you know what you're writing for the course of the quarter, your life is much easier 'cause you're not going to s- stare at a blank screen when it comes time to write. You're actually gonna open your document. You're gonna look and say, "Okay, it's June. These are the posts I need to do." Or realistically, we should be working a little ways ahead. So it's June now, you should be working on your July posts because you want to make sure that you're consistent every week. Working ahead is one of the ways to do that. So you would look at your list and you would say, "Hmm, July, I'm supposed to write about these four topics. Okay." And you get started. You do some keyword research. You do some answer engine research to understand what keyword to target, how to maybe title the blog post, what to include for the AI-based search. All of this I teach you in Simple SEO Content. So if you're really gonna do this and you really wanna understand and create, just come join me in the program. We're gonna have a live launch again in just a couple of weeks. Mid-July, the new group will be coming in, and I'm going to help you learn how to do all of this. So don't try to do it on your own if you're ready. Just plan on joining me in that program, and I will teach you exactly how to do this and look at anything that you have questions about and answer any questions that come up. 'Cause, my friend, questions come up when you're trying to figure this out. That is normal. All right. So that hopefully will help you understand why you want a content calendar and also how to go about starting to create one, how to brainstorm some ideas, and really what to do so that you're not stuck staring at a blank screen ever again because nobody enjoys the blank screen. That just stinks. So all right. I will see you back here next week. Bye for now.