BuzzSumo publishes a good synopsis of what Google’s E-A-T means for small business.

Content Marketing is a valuable investment for small business growth in 2021.

The content marketing scene has been exploding within the marketing community for well over the past five years. What used to be clever strategic SEO a select number of marketers deployed as turned into a dedicated service verticle. There are plenty of agencies, creative firms, writing shops, and marketing tools that now focus on content marketing as their primary purpose.

That said, your average small-to-medium-sized business isn’t taking advantage of it. I’d go as far as to say that even in 2021, virtually zero brick-and-mortar shops or local B2B service organizations are thinking of content marketing as a way to differentiate themselves in their market. In circumstances where regional competition is high, and the big-shots have a robust portfolio of SEM campaigns, having a focus on publishing specific and researched pieces on your own website can sway traffic substantially.

BuzzSumo just pushed out a listicle on ways to prepare your existing content to take advantage of new changes to E-A-T. That’s a solid introduction to what (Expert, Authoritative, and Trustworthy) means to Google, but it’s not just for organizations that are already enacting a content marketing machine. For those marketing managers trying to find new cost-friendly ways to drive site traffic during the pandemic, use the article and its fun word clouds and infographics to petition your stakeholders.

The major downside is time— tools like BuzzSumo, Moz, and others can help refine what content might do well for your business, but you still need to write it… and it needs to actually resonate with your audience. No online tool or write shop can guarantee that, and only you know your customers’ true behavior. The BuzzSumo post also links directly to a nice easter egg which is Google’s General Guidelines for producing content to successfully pass their Search Quality Evaluator. I’ll link directly to that here https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/guidelines.raterhub.com/en//searchqualityevaluatorguidelines.pdf

Blog Posts that Hit Above Their Weight

Targeting your local community, local customers, and regionally specific topics will directly relate to your business. That’s what search engines like to see since that’s what real people are searching for. Writing good content for those blog posts means you’re already doing your research. You’re talking to your real customers, local organizations, and placing in the kind of value you’d want to give to your neighbors… because that’s exactly what your readers are.

In the world of SEO and SEM, the big leagues are expensive. They always will be, which means running those sorts of PPC and paid media will likely continue to be prohibitively expensive. Narrowing down your targeting to regionally specific demographics and keywords will make campaigns both less expensive, more efficient, and more effective.

The problem is that your own direct competitors that have the budget will still drive your minimum costs. Now, there are always methods to make your campaigns more profitable in comparison like being smart enough not to pay for search queries on your own name, but running ads isn’t too time-consuming.

For small businesses where everyone is wearing a few different hats, time is the most valuable asset. That’s why SEM is the first choice for marketing spend. For the moment, most SMBs aren’t giving content marketing a serious glance. The few organizations that do are cleaning house. I’ve seen a group of a few competing businesses occupy this common spread:

Business One: 100% SEM-based web traffic. Lots of landing pages.

Business Two: Some SEM spends, little organic traffic. Few landing pages.

Business Three: Zero SEM. Zero SEO. Little website landing pages.

Business Four: No Digital Presence.

Business Five: 100% Organic web traffic. Lots of articles, white papers, and resources.

Looking at the above example, most of the operators of these businesses would say they’re more-or-less doing the same as the rest in their marketing efforts. From a small business standpoint, this could be true. We’re not factoring in long-tail LTV, word of mouth, and physical outreach in the form of community events, sponsorships, and circular print ads.

My point is (and a fair argument to present to your own org) is one of those businesses will have a leg up once content marketing gets discovered by main street. Staying ahead of the curve, and starting now means you’ll be hitting above your weight. You can afford to make some mistakes, throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, and warm-up. By the time you find your organization-specific workflow, you’ll have created an advantage when the rest of your industry (locally) is only just starting.