The Alternative Press

As founder of TheAlternativePress.com and now its CEO and Publisher, I speak with business owners every day, particularly small business owners.  Given the economy and the threat of big box stores with steep discounting as well as online foes like Amazon.com, the small business owner is struggling and looking for a magic wand to create customers in their stores.  Meanwhile, they are deluged by every Tom, Dick, Jane, and Harry seeking their scarce advertising dollars.

My column, The Hyperlocal Consultant, will cut through the technical jargon and “fancy talk” that do little but confuse business owners into wasting their hard-earned dollars on marketing that has little short or long-term value.

One concept that is critical for every small business owner to understand is that online, content is king.  Many people will push small business owners to take ads on online sites and yes, online advertising is far superior to other forms including print, but one of the most important aspects of online marketing is content.  Unless a site is offering you content, you are not getting the full value of the marketing dollars you are spending.

Why is content king when it comes to the internet?  Because worthwhile content placed online has many benefits that are either unknown to small business owners or overlooked. 

I should note that you should include links to your website in the content you publish.  If you do not do so, you are not getting the full value out of publishing online and sites that do not allow you to post backlinks to your website are simply taking your “free” content and not giving you anything truly of value in return.

Here are some benefits of publishing content online:

1. By publishing content online with links back to your website, you are “link building” which is a critical component in improving your search engine rankings (how high your website shows up on search engines like Google and Bing).  SEO consultants will charge you hundreds if not thousands of dollars to “link build” but by publishing content online with links back to your website, you are able to achieve similar benefits at no cost to you.
2. When you publish content online, you drive traffic to your website, all of whom are potential customers that you would not have otherwise obtained.
3. Publishing quality content online helps you become an authority on that particular topic and blogs and other sites are likely to link to the content you have published, which further increases both the traffic to your website as well as your search engine rankings.
4. Some sites, like TheAlternativePress.com, archives all of its content forever.  As a result, the content you publish today will be available ten years from now and when people search online, they will come across links to that content, as well, creating a long-tail benefit to the content you publish today.
5. By publishing content online, you help to brand your company and yourself.

And best of all, you can publish content online at little or no cost to you, providing you with affordable and effective marketing, both in the short-term as well as into the future.

For more information on this topic, click here.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and if you have any questions on your mind you’d like answered, email me at mikeshapiro@thealternativepress.com