Website Design & Local SEO for Small Businesses in Central Texas. JavaScript is required for the full experience.
Episode 1 of Content Compass starts at the foundation: before you create a single piece of content, you need to know what you're trying to accomplish. Not "get more followers" or "be more consistent" — a specific, measurable goal that can tell you in 90 days whether your content strategy is working.
The most important distinction in small business content strategy: Service businesses and product businesses need completely different content. Product businesses sell desire and transaction — their content can and should generate immediate purchases. Service businesses sell trust and expertise — their content needs to build authority over time, answering the questions their ideal clients have before they're ready to hire someone. Most service-based small businesses copy product-business content tactics and wonder why nothing converts.
What a 90-day north star looks like for a service business: It's a specific, measurable outcome — for example, "generate five qualified discovery call inquiries per month from our website" or "be the top result on Google Maps for [service] in [city] by the end of the quarter." With a clear north star, every content decision becomes easier: Does this post, article, or Google Business Profile update move us toward that goal? If yes, do it. If not, skip it or deprioritize it.
Episode 1 also covers how to identify your most important audience segment, what they need to see and hear before they trust you enough to reach out, and how to calibrate your content to meet them where they are in their decision process. The goal is to stop creating content by instinct and start creating content with intention. Continue with Episode 2 to build your content pillars on top of this foundation.