It’s everyone’s dream to have their own business. With entrepreneurship, you become your own boss, you set your goals, and if things go well, you can make more money. However, owning a business also means you need to manage stress..

From wrangling employees, to long hours, to worrying that the business could fail to problems with equipment, not making sales, not having enough capital to having too much debt, the list is endless — in short, it’s hard work

These things can make owning a business more stressful and lead to burnout as a small business owner.

But it seems you can’t escape the stress of owning a business, with a 2021 survey showing that 52 percent of small business owners experienced stress during the year.

The best you can do is to learn how to manage stress and protect your well-being. This is especially important for small business owners because the success or failure of the business solely depends on them.

Even if you have a few employees, they depend on your guidance and the momentum you set for your business growth.

Learning to manage stress as a small business owner is as important as learning how to market a business and make sales. In fact, managing stress should be among your top long-term strategies for business growth.

This post highlights top stress management tips for small business owners:

Ready to do this? Let’s go!

How to manage stress as a small business owner

Owning a business is different from working for an established company. As a business owner, you have more responsibilities, and the success of your business largely depends on you.

Statistics show that about 20 percent of all small businesses fail within the first year. As a small business owner, you need to figure out how to keep your business going to ensure it doesn’t fall into that bracket.

Unlike employees, entrepreneurs don’t work for paychecks. They have the responsibility to ensure the company is on the right track. This can sometimes mean working more than 50 hours a week without an overpay or any income at all.

Undoubtedly, many things can stress small business owners, so the question remains: What are the most effective ways to manage stress? Let’s highlight them below:

Know your stressors

The first step to managing your stress is identifying the cause. Many things can stress small business owners, including lack of enough funds, time management issues, and employee management.

Your workplace stress as an entrepreneur could be due to things you can’t solve or get time to do.

Running and growing a business involves many trials and errors and entering unfamiliar territories. This and many other things can stress you even without knowing. To identify your stressors, you need to look back and analyze your actions and paths carefully.

Once you identify your stressors, you can begin looking for the best solution. Sometimes you will feel relieved just by identifying things causing you stress.

While identifying your stressors is important, you should also aim to be more self-aware. By gaining self-awareness, you can know what things or situations make you stressed and the best way to deal with the situation.

Also, when you become self-aware, you know your strengths and weaknesses, which is key when running a business.

One way to reduce stress is by delegating tasks that cause you stress. For example, you can delegate staff management to a team manager if dealing with them directly causes anxiety.

If that is not possible, knowing that a particular job causes stress will help you know how to prepare beforehand to reduce the impact on your mental state when handling it. For example, you can take a deep breath before the task or practice mindfulness.

Focus on the right things

Unless you retrain your mind, you will likely focus more on what is going wrong when running a small business than going right. While this can help rectify your mistakes to keep things going, focusing more on the negatives can lead to more stress.

You’ll be less likely to manage stress when you think about your capital deficit, things that are behind schedule, or an employee who didn’t respond to you appropriately.

Instead of focusing on things that go wrong, remind yourself of things that are going right. For example, you could remind yourself of positive feedback from a customer, an employee committed to their work, or the fact that you’ve dialed in important parts of your workflow.

List all the right things happening in your company, no matter how small they are. Once you have the list, you will be amazed at how much you have accomplished and the potential growth of your business. Keep the list somewhere you can easily see to act as a motivator whenever you feel stressed.

Create a schedule and stick to it

Without a structure, you’ll have no plan, meaning you won’t have a way to anticipate what can happen. When you don’t have a schedule, you have so much to do in a day that you might not do anything.

But when you plan, you can handle more and have enough time to anticipate what might happen.

You quit your 9-to-5 job because you wanted full control of your day, right? Unfortunately, if you don’t create a reasonable schedule and stick to it, you will not have that all-important work-life balance, meaning no time to fulfill your dreams.

Being a business owner should come with a sense of control and should be a reminder that you are your boss.

Having a routine helps you know what to expect each time of the day and comes with a sense of control and peace of mind. That means you don’t have to follow a schedule you haven’t created yourself. The best part is that you can always adjust your schedule if something stresses you.

Creating a schedule and sticking to it gives your mind and body a sense of protocol. This is good for your body clock, which determines when you feel energized or tired and impacts your focus.

When creating your routine, consider the effort you need to complete each task. Schedule the most challenging tasks before other tasks requiring less energy and concentration for better results.

You’ve probably heard small business owners complain that their day is never enough to complete their tasks. The truth is, the number of hours is never the problem but the lack of schedule.

If you schedule your end of the day, you’ll complete all your tasks on time and still have time to rest.

To better stick to your schedule, consider investing in scheduling software to help manage your time more effectively. If you can plan, anticipate, and organize your day, the stress of running a business will significantly reduce.

Prioritize sleep

Not sleeping the recommended number of hours (7-8) could impair cognitive functioning and deplete energy levels.

But telling people to “get enough sleep” without giving tips on how to achieve that doesn’t help. After all, if they could get sleep that easily, they could sleep. The fact that one is advised to sleep means they’re having trouble sleeping or don’t have time to sleep.

But telling people to prioritize self-care — including sleep — is a practical approach that can give results. Ideally, prioritizing sleep means becoming aware that sleeping enough is crucial to manage stress. But knowing that alone won’t help you sleep. Here are practical tips to help you sleep better:

• Stick to your routine. Sticking to your routine won’t only help you achieve your goals but also help you fall asleep easily.
• Avoid alcohol before sleep. While alcohol can make you sleepy, it only gives you lower-quality sleep. This, alongside other effects of alcoholism, makes alcohol not a better option before sleep.
• Avoid coffee at night. Coffee is a stimulant, meaning it increases activity in your brain and nervous system. Taking coffee at night will impact your ability to fall asleep and affect your daily routine.

These tips will help you have enough sleep at night. Having enough sleep means enough rest and more focus the following day.

Exercise more

While you should dedicate more of your time to your business, it shouldn’t be at the expense of your fitness. Exercising doesn’t only improve your physical health but is known to reduce stress as well.

However, this doesn’t mean spending two or more hours in a gym daily — not at all. A 30-minute walk every day or other physical activity will do.

For example, you can walk to your next meeting or walk around your workplace at lunchtime. Also, instead of sitting down for many hours in the office, consider having a standing desk or taking breaks from work to stretch your body.

Whatever the case, don’t spend countless hours in the office sitting, as this will impact your mental and general health — and could lead to health problems down the road.

Exercising increases endorphin levels (brain transmitters) that help you feel better. The higher the endorphin levels, the more you feel less stressed, and vice versa. Exercising is a great way to feel more satisfied and energized, and manage stress.

It helps improve your mood and gives you a better perspective on how to run your business.

Be mindful of your diet

What you eat impacts your mental health and general health. Regardless of how much you exercise, you will remain demotivated and probably moody if you eat unhealthy foods.

A balanced diet is a great way to improve your immune system and repair damaged body tissues. A healthy diet also provides the energy needed to manage stress and make you feel more relaxed.

The food you eat can help reduce stress or increase your stress levels. For example, you should avoid these foods if you are feeling stressed:

• Caffeine
• Alcohol
• Processed foods, including chips, frozen foods, cookies, etc.
• Sugary drinks and foods
• Foods with high trans fats like frozen pizza, fried foods, microwave popcorn, etc.

Instead, eat foods that can help promote feelings of warmth and calmness, including:

• Whole grains
• High fiber foods
• Foods high in magnesium, such as broccoli, avocados, bananas, pumpkin seeds, spinach, etc.
• Protein-rich foods such as peanuts, almonds, chicken breast, lean beef, eggs, etc.
• Foods high in vitamin B like chicken, beef, organ meats, eggs, etc.
• Foods with higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids like avocados, olive oil, salmon, tuna, sardines, etc.

Eating healthily will not only provide the nutrients to handle stress but will also provide energy to exercise and handle daily work.

Delegate tasks

One of the reasons small business owners fail to manage stress is because they have more than they can handle. If that’s the case, delegating is a great way to reduce stress.

Some tasks cannot just be put on hold. This is especially so for tasks at the core of running your business.

But that doesn’t mean that you should be the one to handle them. To avoid being overwhelmed with tasks, outsource some of the duties or find team members to help free up your calendar (and mind).

Of course, delegating tasks can be hard, especially if you have been used to handling the tasks yourself. However, having reliable employees to delegate some tasks is a healthy business choice.

If you’re yet to train people to handle tasks that overwhelm you, you should start doing so. This will benefit your mental health and help you achieve more in your business.

Automate

Automation is similar to delegating, only that you’re relying on technology this time. Running a business today is unlike in the 90s when many things were done manually. Today, small business owners can use apps to automate many aspects of their businesses.

For example, my own company AlchemyLeads saw a 250 percent increase in monthly leads after automating their lead outreach process using Zapier. Not just outreach, small businesses can automate many areas of their businesses to boost effectiveness.

Businesses can save time by abandoning spreadsheet scheduling of their staff for online scheduling. Another area you can use automation is in running your payroll and posting on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

While automation tools will cost money, they will make it easier to run your business and save a lot of time and money in the long run.

Be ready to say “no”

Sometimes you don’t need to delegate or even automate tasks; you only need to say “no.”

When the business is young, you’re likely to say “yes” to almost everything as long as it appears to be helping your business.

And truth be told, you don’t have many opportunities coming to you when starting, so you may seem like you don’t have much choice but to accept all opportunities that come your way.

However, as early as it is, it is good to create boundaries and focus only on things that will help grow your business. So, before you say “yes,” ask yourself whether the act has any short-term or long-term benefits for your business.

But saying “no” is not easy, especially on matters involving customer, employee, or partner happiness. However, remember that saying “yes” to everything might overwhelm you and affect your ability to deliver in the long run.

So, instead of agreeing to anything to make others happy, focus on doing what really matters and set your terms. If you don’t do that, you’ll be overwhelmed, and your acts won’t meet the standards.

Remember, you have limited time to do things that you value. So, learning to say “no” to unnecessary things will help reduce stress and give you more time to focus on more productive activities.

Take breaks

Even if you take the above steps, you won’t be able to manage stress if you work continuously without breaks. This can be as simple as taking a 10-minute break to stretch, walking around the office, or going on vacation.

Whichever way you decide to go, don’t worry about matters to do with your business when taking a break from work. If possible, turn off your phone and have someone handle the tasks on your behalf to ensure you have enough time to relax.

Stepping away from your business for a while will help decongest stress and give you a new perspective on your business and life.

Manage stress and keep thriving

Implementing even one of the above strategies can go a long way to help you manage stress. And once you experience those benefits, keep building on that success. After all, even the most successful business isn’t worth your well-being.

What are the things every small business should automate? We asked successful entrepreneurs and small business owners to share their best insights on how they best automate their business-related repetitive tasks From automating appointment schedulers to email marketing, you’ll find several suggestions that may help you decide on ways small business automation can streamline your business.

Here are 10 things every small business should automate:

1. Appointment scheduler.
2. Customer relationship management (CRM) system.
3. Social media.
4. Applicant Tracking System (ATS) recruiting.
5. Customer service.
6. Daily reporting.
7. Review monitoring.
8. Supply chain management.
9. Net Promoter Score (NPS) feedback.
10. Email marketing.

10 things every small business should automate

We’ve interviewed 10 business owners to help you find the automation processes that could help reduce the operational workload for your human resources significantly. Ready to automate those finicky business processes? Let’s dive deeper into each one below.

1. Appointment scheduler

Small business owners should automate their appointment scheduling using a calendar integration tool. Tools like Calendly or Picktime are low to no-cost options. Using appointment scheduling apps can decrease the need to speak to every client that reaches out to you. It can also eliminate hiring an additional employee to manage appointment setting workflow.

Small business owners can also gain valuable insights by adding a questionnaire to the scheduler. You can find out what the client needs assistance with that can help you prepare for your meeting. You can also garner helpful information like email addresses, telephone numbers and knowledge of how they found out about your business.

Annette Harris, Harris Financial Coaching

2. Customer relationship management (CRM) system

One thing every small business should automate is its CRM system. This will help keep track of all customer interactions and can help improve customer service. Automating your CRM can help you generate and streamline leads and sales reports.

Additionally, it can help you keep track of customer loyalty programs, invoicing and customer satisfaction scores. All of these benefits can help improve your bottom line. I suggest taking a look at some of the CRM software options on the market and choosing one that will work best for your business. There are many CRM software programs out there, so make sure to do your research before making a decision. Automating your CRM system can save you a lot of time and money in the long run, so it is worth considering for your small business.

Joey Sasson, Moving APT

3. Social media

If there is one thing that every business needs to automate, it is posting on every social media platform. For example, [if you’re] posting on one platform (such as Instagram), your post also needs to automatically [publish] on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. Social media marketing is such a crucial part of a small business’s success. And there’s nothing more important than reaching as many audiences as possible. Automating this part of social media will go a long way for small businesses.

Sean Lau, LivingOutLau

4. Applicant tracking system (ATS) recruiting

Automating ATS recruiting helps provide small businesses with more real, qualified and motivated candidates — crucial in a tight job market. ATS recruiting automation platforms are faster, usually more responsive and way more cost-effective (not to mention time-saving). When small businesses automate ATS recruiting, they can recruit new team members and still have the time and money to develop other strategic areas once the process is on ‘autopilot.’

Ricardo von Groll, Talentify

5. Customer service

With less access to resources […]’, small businesses need to manage the trick of being both creative yet consistent in their approach to customer support.

[blockquote] After all, the success of any business depends on its customers and their willingness to make repeat purchases.

By automating your customer support process, it allows you to treat customers the way you would if you had more time. This sounds counter-intuitive, but customers are often frustrated by hard-to-find contact links and slow responses to their inquiries.

By being able to respond to queries immediately, you can ensure your customers remain happy, retain them and increase their lifetime value. Just make sure the responses are accurate, full and [on-brand]. Customer support automation software can also give you a great overview of recurring customer concerns, alongside their wants and needs. This provides insights that may help you improve your product, service and overall strategy.

Andy Way, PartyLite

6. Daily reporting

If your business relies upon digital channels to generate revenue and sales, [you should] automate your daily reporting so that you’re pulling in data from different online sources. This could be a combination of:

• Google Analytics
• Google Search Console
• Google Ads
• Facebook Ads

Use Google Data Studio to combine the data and automatically email you a report every morning — or every Monday morning if you find it too distracting. Having visibility of your performance and data in a single view is paramount to making sound decisions.

Shoaib Mughal, Marketix

7. Review monitoring

Staying on top of customer reviews is not a [easy] piece of cake — especially if you’re listed on a lot of platforms without great control. Unhappy customers turn to public platforms when they feel stuck, which [opens an] opportunity [for you] to spot problems, look for the root cause and fix them.

The faster you get to those reviews, the better your chance of getting them removed.

And positive reviews are an incredible opportunity to engage happy customers, as well as your team. Some companies even share their positive reviews on social media to drive engagement in their communities.

In both cases, time is of the essence. But nobody has time to go and check each platform manually every day. There are plenty of review monitoring and automation tools and most are very affordable – reviewflowz is a free option if you’re using Slack.

Axel Lavergne, Reviewflowz

8. Supply chain management

Businesses must surely automate their supply chain management system. This is one of the best ways to handle business operations. Such a system would provide scope in easing off demand and supply checks — ensuring your inventory is well prepared to meet the requirements.

Having a real-time system automatically providing when to order, how much to order, and maintaining a good lead time schedule smoothens the operations.

Johannes Larsson, Financer.com

9. Net Promoter Score (NPS) feedback

Every business should be collecting customer feedback. If you are, you know that it can be a time-consuming process. And if it’s collected manually, you risk collecting feedback at inopportune times or missing the opportunity entirely. NPS feedback is crucial to customer relationship management and future marketing strategy.

We run team-building events and training programs for corporate groups. We have an automation in place that automatically sends an NPS survey to customers the day after their event.

By automating our NPS, we also allow ourselves to automate referral requests from folks that gave us a 9 or 10 NPS rating. On the flip side, we have automated processes that send internal notifications to our team for folks that gave us a lower rating.

Datis Mohsenipour, Outback Team Building & Training

10. Email marketing

When I have to choose one thing that every small business should automate, it should be email marketing. Although it is a cliché nowadays, email marketing campaigns are still greatly underestimated — small businesses can automate it and devote the time saved to other activities.

With email marketing, you are building a community around your product and brand awareness — often[times] email marketing has a very good conversion rate. A few examples of automated email campaigns include:

• Welcome emails
• Abandoned cart emails
• Birthday/anniversary emails

Tomáš Novák, Marketing Miner

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Setting the right business goals can provide your business with a sense of direction and allow you to measure your progress. But business goals shouldn’t be static and unchanging. Instead, they should adapt as you learn more about your business and your industry. So how often should you reevaluate your business goals? And what’s the best approach to setting new goals?

Why setting business goals is important

Business goals help you in several ways. For starters, they provide your business with direction.

If your ultimate goal is to generate $5 million a year in revenue, you can plan a course of development that ultimately gets you to that destination.

That business is going to operate very differently than one whose goal is to establish operations in 10 different countries. Goals also give you a timeline, so you have expectations for how quickly your business should be growing or progressing.

Business goals play other roles too, including:

• They motivate you. Just like personal goals, business goals serve as a form of motivation. Knowing the end result you want can inspire you to work harder and be more focused. It also can help you take obstacles in stride and avoid feeling daunted by setbacks.
• They allow you to measure progress objectively. Is your business succeeding? That’s often a hard question to answer objectively. But a solid set of goals will allow you to determine whether or not you’re making significant progress: You’ve either reached your goal by the deadline or you haven’t.
• They align teams and individuals. Goals also can provide a fabric of shared philosophy for the entire organization, making sure that your teams and individuals all share the same high-level vision for the company.

How to set business goals

There are several types of business goals you’re going to need to set.

You’ll be setting goals for the entire organization as well as goals for teams and individual employees. You’ll be setting long-term goals, forecasting the future of the business for years, if not decades to come, and short-term goals that you can knock out in the span of a week.

Your long-term goals for the business are going to be the most important, and the ones that provide a foundational architecture for all your other business goals.

These types of goals tend to include topics like the amount of revenue you’re going to generate, the number of people you’re going to reach and the products and services you’re going to roll out. The best all-around approach to setting goals is following SMART criteria.

Your goals should be:

• Specific. The more specific you are, the better. A vague goal like “become the best ____ business in the world” isn’t going to cut it.
• Measurable. Achieving the goal should be unambiguous. How will you know when you’ve reached it?
• Achievable. Realistic, achievable goals strike the right balance of motivation and challenge.
• Relevant. Your goals should be relevant to your industry and your capabilities
• Time-bound. You also need to have deadlines in mind for your goal achievements.

Why reevaluate your business goals?

Why do you need to reevaluate your business goals? The simplest answer is that things change.

Maybe your company was the recipient of $3 million in new funding that you weren’t expecting. Maybe a new competitor emerged and is threatening your business share. Maybe new regulatory requirements are forcing your company to pivot. Or maybe you’ve already achieved your first goals and your company is rudderless.

All your business goals are based on what you understand about your business environment and what you want for the company’s future.

It stands to reason that if your business environment changes or if your vision for the future changes, your goals must change as well.

How often should you reevaluate your business goals?

How often do you need to reevaluate your business goals? The answer will be different for every business, but you’ll need to keep in mind things like:

• Your previous goal progress. What has your progress been like for your previous business goals? Were you able to achieve them in record time? Are you struggling to make any progress toward them? If your goals didn’t seem like a good fit, or if they’re still not a good fit, you’ll need to change them.
• The pace of your industry. Different industries have different paces. Some business environments haven’t changed much in the past 50 years. Others, especially those focused on technological development, seem to evolve on a daily basis. The faster your industry changes, the more frequently your goals will have to be fine-tuned.
• Recent and forthcoming impactful changes. What changes have you noticed in your business and your industry and what changes are coming in the future? Changing consumer preferences, new laws, major rounds of employee turnover and new competitors all can strongly influence your business’s course of development.

Regardless of the answers to these questions, you should plan on evaluating your long-term goals at least once a year. Your short-term goals will require more frequent attention and analysis.

Tools to help you set business goals

If you’re struggling to set the best goals for your business, there are several tools that can help you:

• Microsoft 365. Through GoDaddy, you can access Microsoft 365, a suite of productivity and business planning tools to use throughout your entrepreneurial journey.
• The Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA is dedicated to providing resources and education to entrepreneurs of businesses of all shapes and sizes. There, you can find thorough guides and templates for your business planning needs.
• Any project management platform. Tools like Asana and Trello are specifically designed to help professionals set goals, plan projects and manage the individual tasks that allow them to complete those projects. It’s the perfect place to keep track of your goal progress with the entire team.

Ready, set, go!

While business goals are designed to provide a firm long-term direction for your business, they also need to remain fluid and responsive to your business conditions.

It’s important to reevaluate your business goals at least once a year. Even if you don’t change your goals with every review, doing so enables you to redouble your commitment to your original vision and reinvigorate your business with renewed motivation.

Your content usually appears in one of three forms: things you read, things you hear and things you see. That can be blog articles, web pages, whitepapers, ebooks, special reports, tweets,and so on. Email campaigns (87%) and educational content (77%) are the two of the most popular content marketing methods that B2B marketers use.

You also might use videos, photos, infographics and navigation schemes as 84% of people have decided to buy a product or service after watching a video. Or it could be podcasts, music, presentations or (again) videos. More than half of podcast listeners say they are more likely to consider brands advertised on podcasts.

When customers show up in your sales funnel, they’re already pre-qualified and just need to be shown how and why yours is the best possible product or service they need.

That doesn’t mean you can be boring and create mediocre content and just expect people to show up.

There are a lot of people out there who are creating interesting content and winning people over by being clever, humorous, and informative. They’re writing interesting copy, taking gorgeous photos, and producing high-quality video and audio content.

Improve your content marketing with a basic strategy

If you wanted to create a basic content strategy, you can follow these steps:

1. Pick three to four frequent problems your product or service solves. Dedicate one topic per week for each month. You’ll cover all four topics in a month for blog articles and social media updates.
2. Pick three to four themes for your strategy. Pick one theme per week of the month. For example, 1) how-to, 2) client case study, 3) typical client problem, 4) industry news analysis.
3. Write one blog article per week about each theme. Post it to your blog as a way to boost your website’s SEO, but to also show your audience that you’re an expert in this field. (If you’d rather do videos or podcasts, do that too, but try to stick to the same schedule.)
4. Build your social media audience. Do a search for people who are likely to buy from you and then follow them on Twitter and connect with them on LinkedIn and Instagram. Engage with them in regular conversations, don’t push out sales messages.
5. Share industry news stories on your social channels. A great way to remind people of their pain points is to share news stories about them. If you sell a device that helps fleet drivers reduce fuel costs, share news stories about gas prices going up. And write blog articles that analyze the issue.
6. Do NOT build a day-to-day or week-to-week calendar. I’ve known agencies that scripted out an entire year’s worth of tweets and social updates, plus blog articles, only to have the entire script collapse when something in the industry or company changed. Think guidelines, not schedules.
7. Incorporate holidays and events. Be sure to take holidays or special events into consideration. Hotels should have themes for Valentine’s Day, conference schedules and so on. Accountants should talk about tax day a month in advance. And retailers should make plans for the major shopping holidays several months in advance.

I’m leaving out the basic, it-goes-without-saying elementary “secrets” to improve your content marketing that every other expert tells you, but they’re still things you should do anyway:

• Understand your unique value proposition.
• Define your audience and create personas.
• Know your keywords.

Or my most-detested “secret.”

Write good stuff.

(Seriously? That’s not optional! And it’s certainly not a secret. That’s like your family telling you “Drive safely” when you drive to work. Boy, I’m sure glad you said something because I was just going to swerve all over the place. Basically, if being told “write good stuff” makes you decide to write good stuff, then you need to re-examine your life choices.)

But assuming you already plan on putting forth your best effort as the very foundation of your business’ existence, here are the other 12 steps to improve your content marketing.

1. Optimize your website’s SEO

Depending on how you’re doing your SEO, your website and blog may need a tune-up.

Run your site through tools like SEObility or Moz’s free SEO tools to check the overall SEO health of your website, and then make the necessary updates.

But it doesn’t stop there, because it’s not a set-it-and-forget-it process. This is an ongoing task that you will have to perform until you shut your business forever.

If you have WordPress, install the Yoast SEO plugin and you’ll be able to optimize every page and blog post on your website. Just follow the instructions to earn a “green light” for every page or post and you’ll know that you have covered the SEO basics for your site.

Finally, keep in mind that your blog is going to play a critical part in your SEO efforts. A site with a great blog that is only partly keyword optimized will outperform a site that is greatly optimized but doesn’t have a blog. That’s because Google wants to see lots of written content, and a blog is an excellent way to provide that.

2. Think about your searcher’s intent

Very often, people will optimize their sites with Google’s search bots in mind. Make the bots happy, give the bots what they want and you’ll rank high for your keywords.

The problem is, the bots don’t buy from you. Also, you may not actually care about the keywords you rank for. And eventually, a bot-first strategy will fail because you forgot the people.

Some unscrupulous SEO pros will tell website owners they can get them a No. 1 ranking. The problem is, they’re ranking for really esoteric long-tail keywords — “finger exercises for big data practitioners with degrees from Big 10 universities” — that don’t actually do anything.

Think of why people come to you in the first place. Do they have a problem? What kinds of problems? People even ask their phones or Google that question:

“How can I redesign my house on a budget?” “What should I do after a car accident?” “How do I stop my faucet from dripping?”

Write blog posts and rewrite your web pages to answer those exact questions. You can also do comparisons and reviews of specific products or services, comparing yours to your competition. Or review products that your customers might use, but you would provide for them, such as a heating/AC company reviewing different AC units.

3. Optimize your website for mobile devices

Google now ranks websites based on how well they perform on mobile devices. It doesn’t matter whether your visitors are using mobile devices or not. Even someone looking at your site on a laptop and 30″ monitor will only find your website if it’s mobile-friendly.

Use WPTouch Mobile Plugin if you have WordPress, or better yet, make sure your website is designed with HTML5 elements. If you don’t have WordPress, you still need HTML5. As long as your website looks great on a mobile phone, you’ll improve your rankings.

That also means adding small file-size photos that are roughly 900 pixels wide and 100 dpi resolution. Those load faster on a phone, which also helps your mobile rating.

4. Create INTERESTING content

Think twice before you publish that how-to article or explainer video, said the guy writing a how-to article. They’re usually boring, lack emotion and cover the same material as 1,000 other articles. (Said the guy whose article has 12 WHOLE STEPS!)

• If you really want to interest people, write cool stuff about cool topics.
• Write the in-depth, advanced, 401-level material super-secret knowledge instead of that 101-level stuff everyone else does.
• Tell us how to use the Hero’s Journey storytelling model in our case studies. Do an interview with a notable leader in your field.
• Do a Q&A session with your staff and ask them things like, “What’s your favorite non-business book?” or “When did you first decide to get into this field?
• Have everyone answer the Proust Questionnaire.
• Or develop your own Proust-like questionnaire and ask your staff and partners to answer it.

5. Post photos and videos to your Google My Business listing

When people do searches for products or services, oftentimes, Google will often show several business listings. One way to make sure your listing appears near the top (which puts your website at the top) is to add photo and video content to your Google My Business (GMB) listing.

After you’ve claimed and optimized your GMB listing — you <em>have</em> done that, haven’t you? — you can start adding photo and video content to it to help your Google rank but to also show your customers, followers and fans that you’re keeping the listing up to date.

Post videos of commonly asked questions.

If anyone ever emails you with a “How do I …?” question, turn that into a two- to three-minute video, as well as a blog post.

Post the video to YouTube and then embed it on your GMB listing.

6. Develop a voice and a personality

Most people write in a very serious, business-like tone. It’s rather dry and uninspiring, and it doesn’t convey any emotion or pull people in. But if you adopt a distinct voice and personality for your content marketing, you’re more likely to win people over because you’ll touch them.

Emotionally. I mean touch them emotionally.

See, my voice/personality is often humorous and lighthearted. Other times, I’ll adopt a personality or teacher voice, or put some Dad energy into my writing.* And in a lot of cases, I’ll use first person so you feel more connected to me as a writer.

* Be sure to get your car serviced before winter sets in.

Your voice can be serious, proper, fun, friendly, confident, admiring or inspirational. Think about how you normally speak to your friends and customers and then start dictating your writing. If you need some help, dictate a possible blog article into your phone’s recorder as if you were explaining a concept to your friend, and then upload the audio file to Otter.ai  to transcribe that into text.

Clean it up, get rid of the “umms” and “uhhs,” and make that your article. The tone of voice you used there is your website —and company’s — voice and personality.

7. Answer complex questions

I’ve said it elsewhere, but if you want your content marketing to stand out, avoid that 101-level of information. Stop writing lists about “10 reasons to hire an interior designer” or “5 ways to lower your taxes next year” because it’s the same boring nonsense that everyone else has posted.

Instead, dive deep into the weeds and esoterica of your field. Pick those questions that can’t be answered in just 500 words. If you take 2,000 words to deal with a topic, so be it.

Search marketers are finding that long content is actually performing better than short content.

This article is more than 2,000 words, and if you’ve read this far, then it’s clearly working.

8. Share personal stories and vulnerabilities

People buy from people they like and trust. One way to do that is to share stories about yourself that show you in something other than a heroic, gets-it-right-all-the-time light. Share stories where you learned tough lessons. Share stories of your mistakes. Share stories about your fear.

One of my favorite articles on my work blog deals with how, as a writer with more than 25 years of experience and four books under my belt, I still deal with imposter syndrome on a regular basis. It didn’t get me a lot of business, but I heard from other people with whom that article resonated because they also deal with imposter syndrome. I even had a couple of clients say something about it. It helped them understand me better and deepened the relationship.

You don’t have to uncover buried secrets that you’ve never told anyone. But it’s okay to share your feelings about certain topics if it will, as Simon Sinek says, help people understand your Why.

9. Start using TikTok and other short videos

I’ll confess, I’m not a big fan of TikTok. I see the point, I see why people like it and there are a few TikTokers I subscribe to (@bdylanhollis, @bmotheprince, @cheechandchong). I’ve even toyed with using it myself. But while I may not use it, I believe it will be the “Next Big Thing” in social media and content marketing.

There are already 1 billion people using TikTok worldwide and 100 million users in the United States, which makes it one of the largest social networks out there. TikTok is not an ideal B2B marketing tool.

I can’t imagine many manufacturers saying, “We need a new freight shipper! To the TikTok!”

But if you’re trying to reach Gen Z, you definitely want TikTok: 47.4% of active U.S. users are between 10 and 29, but the over-30 crowd grew 5.5 times from 2020 to 2021.

So if you’re in any kind of B2C market, TikTok and/or Instagram Reels need to be on your content marketing plan for 2022. If you don’t have a knack for video, then consider hiring some college students to produce some videos for you. Hire some kids from the film-making department or the theater department and ask them to produce some TikTok videos about your product.

10. Measure everything

You don’t know what to improve if you don’t know how well you’re doing. So you need to measure everything you do. Even a basic Google Analytics setup can tell you how well your website and blog are performing, and what you should do about it.

Do you receive more web visitors when you publish a blog article? Then publish more articles. Are your how-to articles outperforming your product review articles? Then write more how-to articles.

Similarly, take a look at your Twitter analytics, Instagram analytics (if you have Instagram Business), and even your LinkedIn and Facebook pages’ performance. See what kinds of content are seeing positive engagement from your visitors and fans, and do more of it. The things that are not performing well? Do less of those, or figure out how to make them better.

11. Hone your skills

This is important for anyone doing content marketing themselves. Whether you’re a professional content producer, or you have to write blog articles and shoot videos as a small part of your job, as you get better, you’ll improve your content marketing too.

(Honestly, this step should be No. 1 on the list, but it disrupted the flow of the whole piece.)

That means deliberately practicing new skills and techniques you want to improve.

Photographers and videographers, that means shooting content every day. A professional photographer friend told me that he didn’t get good enough to become a professional until he spent several months shooting photos every single day. He learned about framing, composition and point of focus, but only because he shot photos for two to three hours a day.

It’s the same for us writers. If you want to be a better writer, you need to read books and see what outstanding writers are able to do. Don’t read blog articles, because most of them aren’t that good. Read books from established and well-known authors.

Borrow their techniques and tricks, and then practice them in your normal everyday writing: emails, reports, even your social media updates. If you want to learn how to cut adverbs, do that everywhere. If you want to learn to write short sentences, practice it constantly. Soon, those things will become a habit and you can move on to the next technique.

12. Hire a professional

If you just don’t have the time to improve your content marketing skills, but you want to improve your actual content marketing, then hire a professional. There’s no reason to muddle through it and try to make slow improvements, even while you’re putting out less-than-stellar content. That doesn’t help you in the short or long run.

Think of it this way: If you were to offload all the stuff from your job that isn’t the stuff your business actually does, how much more money could you make?

If you’re an attorney who bills by the hour, how many hours do you lose when you’re doing the books? If you’re a building contractor, how many projects could you do in a week if you didn’t have to do your own estimating or get supplies from the lumber yard? If you have a technology startup, how much time do you want to spend dealing with HR issues or managing payroll?

In these instances, it’s going to save you a lot of time and even make you a lot of money if you outsource those tasks to a trained professional who can do it faster and better than you. That not only frees up some additional time for you, but it can also even give you time to make some extra money to pay for that person’s work.

This is true for content marketing, too. If you hate writing or don’t have the time or expertise to do video editing, then hire someone to do it for you.

Just like every other skill you learned, improving your content marketing is an ongoing process. Some of these things can be done a few times a year, but others need to be done on a constant basis (i.e. practice every day).

Editor’s note: If you need help with SEO, social media,  and more, the experts at GoDaddy are here for you! GoDaddy Social, SEO Services, Website Design Services and Logo Design Services can help save you time so you can do what matters for your business.

Concluding thoughts

Even if you do just a few of these steps in 2022, you’ll see a major difference in the quality of your content marketing, which will lead to increased web traffic, which can only lead to more sales. Pick the two or three that are easiest to tackle and start on those. As you get them under control, pick another one or two and work on them.

And in all cases, if you need help, call in a pro. Don’t spend many hours mucking around with a solution that doesn’t quite do the job for you. This is your company, so make sure you do it right the first time and then reap the benefits that come from it.