The Content Champion Podcast

If you're a creative person looking for small business ideas to help get started on your next venture - this post should definitely help.As a professional SEO and content marketer - who started out in journalism and copywriting - I've got over 20 years' experience working in the creative industries as my own boss.And one thing's for sure, if you're willing to work hard and be entrepreneurial - the creative small business lifestyle can have many rewards (not least financially).So let's have a look at the types of ventures that are ideal for creative people who want to live life on their own terms...

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1. Photography2. Event Planning3. Renting Storage Space4. Interior Design5. Furniture Making6. Graphic Design7. Bed & Breakfast8. Catering9. Craft Baking10. Landscaping Services11. Walking/Biking Guide12. Tutoring13. Music/Art Lessons14. Blogging 15. Website Design16. Clothing Alteration17. Social Media Management

1. PhotographyIf photography is your passion, then perhaps it's time to take this passion to the next level. Professional photographers are always in demand, especially if you niche down. Whether it's weddings, corporate events, family portraits or local festivals, talented photographers capture the essence of these events forever. You can build this business from home with few costs as well.2. Event PlanningIs planning and organisation your forte? Then you can try your hand at event planning. As an event planner, you’ll manage the logistics of coordinating major events. Perhaps you can begin by planning your friends’ birthday party or your dad’s retirement party before scaling up? Pull off one great party and soon word-of-mouth recommendations will do the rest. 3. Renting Storage SpaceIf you live in a city or built up area and you've got a secure space not being used, you could always rent it out for storage. We live in a world where people just have too much 'stuff' - so letting storage space is big business. Perhaps it's time to give that garage or workshop a tidy up and get it listed locally?4. Interior DesignIf you love designing interiors, why not turn it into a source of income? Start with a friend or someone from your personal network and use that work to find better business opportunities as an interior designer. You can even partner up with your local furniture stores and manufacturers for a commission. It means they can bring you new projects to work on too. 5. Furniture MakingTake your love of working with woodwork to the next level by opening a business crafting custom-made furniture. You could also offer a repair service for existing pieces of wooden furniture that require renovation. Get a website going to market yourself in your local area and this one could be a winner.6. Graphic DesignThis is a good business opportunity for those who love art and design - and who also know their way round an Apple iMac or similar. With a little training, you can start a graphic design business with minimum expenses - and build up a portfolio of designs for friends and family first. Your main investment would be the Adobe Creative Suite,

Entrepreneurship is hard.

Mastering online marketing is perhaps even harder.

But as a time-strapped small business owner you knew that already right?

Yet here’s the thing…

If you can’t translate the success of your bricks and mortar business to a wider audience of the right people online – then at some stage your competitors will steal your market share. Who knows, it may even be another local business that does it.

That’s why every successful entrepreneur needs to learn some pretty specific and very important skills during their career – in order to make their company a success on the Internet.

These top skills will not only help to set you apart on the Web, by enhancing your online traffic, leads and sales – but will help you build a brand that stands the test of time in your industry.

So what are these essential skills entrepreneurs need? Let’s dive into a list of the key traits that will place you among the most successful online entrepreneurs in the world.

Listen To My Show On The Entrepreneurial Skills

[toc]

1. Positioning

​Smart small business owners know that ​niching down will help them stand out online, rather than going too broad with their ​positioning.

However counter intuitive it may sound, there’s more money to be made by catering to a smaller market than…well, everyone.

Identifying ​a niche market ​requires an entrepreneur to adopt a marketer’s mindset, so you can focus on ​your potential audience’s pain points – their needs, wants and frustrations. ​Positioning your ​business to solve these problems will give you a great foundation to build upon.

Niche targeting has much to do with ​empowering your online ​authority and sales. ​By getting your positioning right from the outset, ​you’ll ​convert more of your web visitors into customers as you grow your traffic.

​Recommended Reader Resources

How To Create Strong Brand Positioning In Your Market

When it comes to getting more traffic, leads and sales – content marketing is the low cost and highly effective way to build your small business online.

Research your target audience, build your customer avatars then create and execute a documented content strategy. That’s it in a nutshell.

The benefits of content marketing for your business are many and varied – but all of them will positively impact your bottom line. Let’s have a look at them…

Listen To My Show On The Benefits of Content Marketing

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[toc]

1. Better Brand Recognition

Content marketing is hands down one of the best strategies to make your brand stand out online. A lot of markets are maturing and becoming saturated, so buyers are naturally more cautious about what they purchase.

By consistently delivering quality content that builds trust and authority with your target audience, you’ll ensure your brand is always at the forefront of their mind.

2. Increased Search Engine Traffic

If you regularly create and promote high quality content based on longtail keyword research using a tool such as KW Finder or Ahrefs, over time you’ll benefit from higher rankings in the major search engines – and in turn be rewarded with higher organic traffic. Sounds simple right? It kind of is – but you need to be persistent and consistent.

3. Enhanced Social Media Reach

If your content satisfies a need or solves a problem, your target audience will definitely share it on the major social media platforms. This means other people you want to reach will also like, share and link to your content over time. If you always focus on creating and sharing high quality content – either yours or someone else’s – then your social media reach should grow quite quickly.

4. More Credibility

Want to look like the expert you actually are? Then let your customers know it, with content that shows how on the ball your business is. A series of blogs showing your knowledge of your product or sector will set you above any competitors who aren’t demonstrating their authority. You’re educating, entertaining and establishing expertise all at once.

5. Increased Conversions

Your website content – and particularly your blog – reaches your customers in the research stage of their buying journey. The chances are, potential customers will find you because they’re searching for a specific answer.

If you know your market, you’ll know why your customers come to you and what they’re looking for – so simply create content that addresses this. If you can satisfactorily answer their questions in your content, they are more likely to convert from researcher into purchaser.

6. Teaches You To Listen

The very act of researching your target audience, customer avatars and conducting competitor and keyword research – helps you connect with your core prospects more deeply so you can answer all their questions.

The feedback you get through this process will help you become better at listening to what your customers really want from you – which is why inbound marketing is such a high value strategy.

7. Unmatched Cost-Effectiveness

We don’t want to sell content writing ...

When it comes to getting more traffic, leads and sales – content marketing is the low cost and highly effective way to build your small business online.

Research your target audience, build your customer avatars then create and execute a documented content strategy. That’s it in a nutshell.

The benefits of content marketing for your business are many and varied – but all of them will positively impact your bottom line. Let’s have a look at them…

Listen To My Show On The Benefits of Content Marketing

Want your episodes to look this good? Try Smart Podcast Player…

[toc]

1. Better Brand Recognition

Content marketing is hands down one of the best strategies to make your brand stand out online. A lot of markets are maturing and becoming saturated, so buyers are naturally more cautious about what they purchase.

By consistently delivering quality content that builds trust and authority with your target audience, you’ll ensure your brand is always at the forefront of their mind.

2. Increased Search Engine Traffic

If you regularly create and promote high quality content based on longtail keyword research using a tool such as KW Finder or Ahrefs, over time you’ll benefit from higher rankings in the major search engines – and in turn be rewarded with higher organic traffic. Sounds simple right? It kind of is – but you need to be persistent and consistent.

3. Enhanced Social Media Reach

If your content satisfies a need or solves a problem, your target audience will definitely share it on the major social media platforms. This means other people you want to reach will also like, share and link to your content over time. If you always focus on creating and sharing high quality content – either yours or someone else’s – then your social media reach should grow quite quickly.

4. More Credibility

Want to look like the expert you actually are? Then let your customers know it, with content that shows how on the ball your business is. A series of blogs showing your knowledge of your product or sector will set you above any competitors who aren’t demonstrating their authority. You’re educating, entertaining and establishing expertise all at once.

5. Increased Conversions

Your website content – and particularly your blog – reaches your customers in the research stage of their buying journey. The chances are, potential customers will find you because they’re searching for a specific answer.

If you know your market, you’ll know why your customers come to you and what they’re looking for – so simply create content that addresses this. If you can satisfactorily answer their questions in your content, they are more likely to convert from researcher into purchaser.

6. Teaches You To Listen

The very act of researching your target audience, customer avatars and conducting competitor and keyword research – helps you connect with your core prospects more deeply so you can answer all their questions.

The feedback you get through this process will help you become better at listening to what y...

Welcome to the show. In this episode I’m going to be making some recommendations on the marketing blogs you should read in 2020 – based on my experience of either reading their stuff for years, being on their email lists or interviewing them for my podcast (or all three).

Listen To My Show On Marketing Blogs

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Featured Blogs

There are so many online marketing guru’s out there – but in my opinion many of them don’t know what they’re talking about. So by all means make your own choices too, but be aware there are a lot of smoke and mirrors being used on most of the marketing blogs you’ll find online.

That’s not the case with this selection though. These are the good guys who actually practice what they preach and can genuinely help you grow your business on the Internet.

So let’s dive into the list in no particular order….

Backlinko

Gotch SEO

Authority Hacker

Fat Stacks Blog

Yaro Starak

Content Marketing Academy

Smart Passive Income

Create and Go

Ahrefs

Income School

Content Champion

In Conclusion: 11 Marketing Blogs You Must Read In 2020

So there are my choices. I like other marketing blogs too but these are my absolute favourites that would fit into a short, snackable podcast.

If you pushed me on what my absolute best blog is at the time of writing – then I’d have to say Fat Stacks Blog. I love Jon’s business model, blog writing style and emails – and in an ideal world I would do what he does for a living. Easier said than done 🙂

While I’ve had some success with affiliate sites in the past, I’ve always found transitioning from client work to a publishing model to be very hard in terms of replacing the lost income.

It seems like a big gap to leap between the two business models, but I’m not giving up yet.

Watch this space in 2020 and thanks for listening.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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Subscribe, Rate & Review The Content Champion Podcast

Thanks for listening to ​the Content Champion podcast throughout 2019, we look forward to serving you with some great shows in 2020.

If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to iTunes to leave me a rating and review.

You can also subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode – and please ...

Welcome to the show. In this episode I’m going to be making some recommendations on the marketing blogs you should read in 2020 – based on my experience of either reading their stuff for years, being on their email lists or interviewing them for my podcast (or all three).

Listen To My Show On Marketing Blogs

Want your episodes to look this good? Try Smart Podcast Player…

Featured Blogs

There are so many online marketing guru’s out there – but in my opinion many of them don’t know what they’re talking about. So by all means make your own choices too, but be aware there are a lot of smoke and mirrors being used on most of the marketing blogs you’ll find online.

That’s not the case with this selection though. These are the good guys who actually practice what they preach and can genuinely help you grow your business on the Internet.

So let’s dive into the list in no particular order….

Backlinko

Gotch SEO

Authority Hacker

Fat Stacks Blog

Yaro Starak

Content Marketing Academy

Welcome to the show. In this episode I’m going to discuss my top five marketing tools of 2019.

I’ve not really talked about my marketing stack before – but that’s long overdue because I quite simply couldn’t run the content marketing and SEO campaigns that I do for clients and my own projects if I didn’t use marketing automation.

So in no particular order, here are my best tools of the year – that I absolutely cannot do without on a daily basis…

Listen To My Show On Marketing Tools

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1. Active Campaign

For email marketing and automations based on tagging people’s interests, I absolutely love Active Campaign. I’m slightly obsessed with creating automation workflows in this software, and I’ve got so used to its interface and layout that I couldn’t even entertain using anything else.

It does have its drawbacks – for instance I find editing emails within automations to be clunky – but when used in combination with lead capture software such as ConvertBox, then this is the only email marketing stack you’ll ever need.

I’m on a $50 bucks a month plan at the moment, and that’s sufficient for my needs in terms of automations and campaigns, so give it a go yourself if you need an email marketing provider or are thinking of changing from another solution.

2. ConvertBox

This brings us neatly onto my next choice – ConvertBox. Describing itself as the new, more intelligent way to convert your visitors – it really is the new, more intelligent way to convert your visitors. ConvertBox helps you create email signup slide-ins, popups and exit intent forms that use advanced segmenting and targeting to convert more of your site traffic into email subscribers.

That sounds fancy but what I really like about this software is its easy-to-use and intuitive interface, the personalised nature of the messaging – and also the fact that the design of the various conversion boxes and elements is refined and doesn’t scream, ‘I’m doing some marketing’ at your prospects.

I went for their lifetime access pricing which is a few hundred bucks at the time of writing, so I’d get in on this fast as I think this offer is running out very soon.

3. Ahrefs

Next up is my SEO tool of choice, Ahrefs. I use this literally everyday and find it to be the Swiss army knife of SEO software. From website audits to keyword research and link analysis – and everything else in between – I choose to stay with this tool because I trust the quality of their data and the size of their backlink database.

Over the last few years I’ve alternated between their lite and standard plans – and although it can get a bit pricey as you go up the service levels – don’t forget you are paying for the integrity of their data, which is really everything in SEO terms.

One feature of Ahrefs that has really impressed me this year is the site audit. I used to use SEO Optimer (which is fine) and a mish-mash of other tools – but I’m finding the data this produces to be really insightful.

The best thing I can say about Ahrefs is that it’s a bit of an SEO oracle – in that if I find a great keyword or some link data in another tool (such as KW Finder which is also great), then I always double check it in Ahrefs just to be sure.

4. Gmail

I started using Gmail in anger at the start of this year – not I would add in anger at Gmail itself, but at the host of other useless email platforms I’d failed with previously (Mac Mail you’re guilty as charged).

I think I pay about $5 bucks a month for the G Suite version of Gmail, which means I can use my own Content Champion domain as part of my email address – and I can honestly say since I did this I’ve...

Welcome to the show. In this episode I’m going to discuss my top five marketing tools of 2019.

I’ve not really talked about my marketing stack before – but that’s long overdue because I quite simply couldn’t run the content marketing and SEO campaigns that I do for clients and my own projects if I didn’t use marketing automation.

So in no particular order, here are my best tools of the year – that I absolutely cannot do without on a daily basis…

Listen To My Show On Marketing Tools

Want your episodes to look this good? Try Smart Podcast Player…

1. Active Campaign

For email marketing and automations based on tagging people’s interests, I absolutely love Active Campaign. I’m slightly obsessed with creating automation workflows in this software, and I’ve got so used to its interface and layout that I couldn’t even entertain using anything else.

It does have its drawbacks – for instance I find editing emails within automations to be clunky – but when used in combination with lead capture software such as ConvertBox, then this is the only email marketing stack you’ll ever need.

I’m on a $50 bucks a month plan at the moment, and that’s sufficient for my needs in terms of automations and campaigns, so give it a go yourself if you need an email marketing provider or are thinking of changing from another solution.

2. ConvertBox

This brings us neatly onto my next choice – ConvertBox. Describing itself as the new, more intelligent way to convert your visitors – it really is the new, more intelligent way to convert your visitors. ConvertBox helps you create email signup slide-ins, popups and exit intent forms that use advanced segmenting and targeting to convert more of your site traffic into email subscribers.

That sounds fancy but what I really like about this software is its easy-to-use and intuitive interface, the personalised nature of the messaging – and also the fact that the design of the various conversion boxes and elements is refined and doesn’t scream, ‘I’m doing some marketing’ at your prospects.

I went for their lifetime access pricing which is a few hundred bucks at the time of writing, so I’d get in on this fast as I think this offer is running out very soon.

3. Ahrefs

Next up is my SEO tool of choice, Ahrefs. I use this literally everyday and find it to be the Swiss army knife of SEO software. From website audits to keyword research and link analysis – and everything else in between – I choose to stay with this tool because I trust the quality of their data and the size of their backlink database.

Over the last few years I’ve alternated between their lite and standard plans – and although it can get a bit pricey as you go up the service levels – don’t forget you are paying for the integrity of their data, which is really everything in SEO terms.

One feature of Ahrefs that has really impressed me this year is the site audit. I used to use SEO Optimer (which is fine) and a mish-mash of other tools – but I’m finding the data this produces to be really insightful.

The best thing I can say about Ahrefs is that it’s a bit of an SEO oracle – in that if I find a great keyword or some link data in another tool (such as KW Finder which is also great), then I always double check it in Ahrefs just to be sure.

4. Gmail

I started using Gmail in anger at the start of this year – not I would add in anger at Gmail itself, but at the host of other useless email platforms I’d failed with previously (Mac Mail you’re guilty as charged).

I think I pay about $5 bucks a month for the G Suite version of Gmail, which means I can use my own Content Champion domain as part of my email address – and I can honestly say since I did this I’ve...

In this episode I’m delighted to be discussing how to write SEO content with world renowned SEO expert, Nathan Gotch. Let’s dive in…

Listen To Nathan’s Show On Writing SEO Content

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Nathan’s Backstory

I got my start in SEO in 2012 when I was still in college. I was just your average college student trying to figure out ways to make money. I discovered that one of the best ways to make money at that time was to start a blog. I had no skillset at that point – the only thing I really knew how to do was throw a baseball. So I decided to start a baseball pitching blog. That ended up being the breeding ground for learning how to do SEO. I was hooked after that and started creating website after website just to figure out how to get better and how to get results more consistently.

I was honestly not even interested in making money. I just enjoyed the process of ranking websites and driving traffic to them, so eventually I got pretty good at it and I was able to drive results consistently. Then I started to take on clients and do client SEO for a couple of years, and that was pretty successful. But then I got really burned out and needed a different way to diversify my income, because I can’t handle just working with clients for 100% of my revenue. So then I built out a white label services division, which serves other SEO agencies and digital marketing agencies.

Then I also built out my SEO training course, The Gotch SEO Academy, which has now been my focus for the last two years. I actually haven’t been working with clients at all – but I’m starting to experiment taking on a few clients again here and there for some future plans. But my main focus for the last couple of years has been Gotch SEO Academy and I’ve grown that to over 700 students now. I definitely think focusing on this has helped me a lot, but I do feel I’ve been missing out on some opportunities to help people in other ways outside of just training – so that’s what I’m starting to dive back into as well.

Nathan’s Questions ​

Before we dive into writing SEO content, can you tell us your back story please?

Tell us about your current business, Gotch SEO?

OK, so what is SEO content and how can it help us?

You follow a 9 step SEO content creation process, so let’s go through each stage in order – looking at an overview of each stage…

Find your keywords

Qualify your keywords

Select a keyword based on competitor analysis

Establish your search intent strategy

Develop your content strategy

Create your content

Optimize your content

Publish

Repeat

Thanks for coming on the show, can you remind us where we can find you online?

The PS Question (subscribers only) – ​Nathan gives us a great answer to my final question…

Featured Resources

Gotch SEO

Gotch SEO Academy

In this episode, I’m going to look at how to write perfect headlines for your blog posts. Let’s dive in…

Listen To My Show On Writing Headlines

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The Importance of Headlines

Headlines are crucial – whatever type of content you’re producing. 

In fact, advertising legend David Ogilvy said that “on average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents out of your dollar.”

The Inverted Pyramid In Journalism

When I was at journalism college in Birmingham in the late 1990’s, I learned about the importance of writing good headlines in the context of the inverted pyramid.

Established in 1845 when Samuel Morse invented the telegraph, the inverted pyramid was a new way of passing important messages and breaking news from one point to another – by loading all the most important details and key information on the front end of the story. This of course starts with a great headline.

Reading the newspapers and news websites (especially the tabloids), will help you learn how great headlines are written.

Newspaper headlines include all the most important information up front, written in an enticing way that encourages you to read more – the headline then segues into the introduction or lede of the story (l-e-d-e), which covers the “who, what, when, where, why and how” of the story in the first couple of paragraphs. 

In turn, the lede entices the reader to move on to read the important elements of the story in more detail (with quotes, statistics, eye witness reports etc), and then the article finishes up with other general background information and supplemental details at the end.

So we see that in this context, all the information in the inverted pyramid is hierarchical in importance – and all flows from the headline itself.

Here are some examples of journalistic headlines and first paragraphs.

Firstly from the BBC website:

Theresa May calls off MPs’ vote on her Brexit deal

Prime Minister Theresa May has called off Tuesday’s crucial vote on her Brexit deal so she can go back to Brussels and ask for changes to it.

Secondly from the New York Times website:

U.N. Approves Sweeping Deal on Migration, but Without U.S. Support

More than 160 countries adopted a sweeping international accord on migration on Monday, after the United Nations secretary general robustly defended against the “myths” and falsehoods that critics had directed at the deal.

How Website Visitors Read Headlines

In terms of blogging then, great headline writing and having an article structure based on the inverted pyramid is ideal for the digital era of short attention spans and a hunger for fast food information. 

In this context, you may have already seen the Nielsen Research study about the F shaped pattern of how people read websites – scanning from top to bottom right to left (reading the headline first to create the top horizontal line of the F). 

Then scanning down and across from left to right in the middle of the page to get other essential information (forming the second horizontal line of the F), to finish reading down the page for all the supplementary details as the vertical stem of the F reaches the bottom of the page. 

This is literally the inverted pyramid formation in action on a web page – so there’s a direct relevance here.

Headlines In Google

The increasingly sophisticated Google algorithm is also geared for this inverted pyramid model too, especially for information based searches – with search intent realised in headlines and first paragraphs through relevant keywords and related phrases,