A content marketing recipe for small businesses

My post on Tap Defense strategies generated 40k+ uniques in a year and continues to drive traffic

(I'm going to do a few of these over the next little while, with each one focused on a different part of the online marketing mix)

1. Create Something
Write a blog post. Start a podcast. Develop an eBook. Make something original people can't get anywhere else. Make sure it's search engine friendly.

2. Plant the seed
*Carefully* share the link to your content on relevant sites (digg, facebook groups/fan page, other blog comments - do some research to determine what's appropriate). Do not spam, and never use it as a selling opportunity.

3. Don't be a quitter
This is a key step. At first almost everything you post will seem to fall flat. Don't be like every corporate marketing department and give up after 1 week of trying it out.

Rinse & repeat steps 1-3.

If you build it, they will come...eventually
It may take 6 months to a year of regular content marketing before you see results. The bottom line is if you create lots of content, you may not see much traffic from any particular piece of content but collectively the effect is like rain in a bucket (it all adds up), and with some persistence you will see that bucket overflow. The best part? This can all be done for free using free open source tools like WordPress.