Your Business is Not Boring – Your Content is

People often ask me: How can I promote my boring business?

I cringe every single time and want to shout “you are not boring!”

What they really mean is: I don’t want to create engaging content.

In fact most businesses are boring when you take that approach.

Who cares for blenders for example? Do you? I didn’t!

Why anyone in their right mind would ever share a blender site on social media?

Yet one of the most successful social media campaigns of all time I would describe as “SEO 2” is about blenders.

Boring Content Ahead: Do Not Read!

This is #3 in my 10 content strategy mistakes series.

I have covered #1 the content definition and #2 content quality. This is #3 boring content.

To me there is no such thing as a boring business or topic.

In a way SEO itself is the most boring.

Of course it only applies when you agree and use the popular definition of boring.

I mean there is nothing spectacular about SEO. Only a few experts understand it at all.

There are no great visuals. You can’t make viral videos about SEO.

(Sorry, you can. I have been proven wrong by now but it’s more difficult than viral pet clips.*)

After all it’s not skydiving or something. Mere mortals do not care about SEO. At least not consciously!

I don’t want to explain how you overcome the boring business syndrome again.

I have done that in the past: How Can Websites about Boring Topics Succeed on Social Media?

In this post I just want to show that every business is potentially interesting to a much larger audience.

You just have to spice your content up a bit.

Some of my colleagues do it all the time and call that linkbait. These days the buzzword for it is content marketing.

I prefer the matter of fact flagship content creation. It sticks out like a flagship but it’s just about creating the right content.

Real Life Example: Toner Refills

One of my clients in the early years of my freelance SEO career was selling toner refills.

Now that’s a boring topic! Back then blogs were still so cutting edge that I couldn’t sell one to him.

I did “article marketing” instead by writing for so-called article directories.

So for several months I have written dozens of articles about toner refills.

I never even hesitated before starting to write one. Sometimes it took me just half an hour to write an intriguing one.

This German site still has its top rankings years after we parted.

The client employed another consultant for a few months but asked me half a year later to come back.

The site still ranks after years despite article directories being virtually extinct in Germany.

Why? They were demoted by Google after too many people abused them submitting low quality duplicate content.

What we also did was adding content to the site itself. Your content strategy needs to combine both off- and onsite content.

One issue with toner refills was and still is the impact on health. It’s not only the refill process, it’s laser printers by themselves.

Conflicting studies claim that they are harmful or not. We didn’t dismiss the warning! I just compiled a list of all the press articles from reputable sources.

One simple list of press articles is still ranking on top for half a dozen of relevant search queries.

For many “boring” business and markets all it takes a bit of research and creating a few pieces of valuable content! That’s it!

Prominent Success Examples in the Wild

You don’t have to create viral videos about blenders blending iPhones.

Those can propel you to rank for competitive terms though.

BlendTec, the company behind the hugely popular “will it blend” videos ranks behind the

1. software called Blender
2. Wikipedia
3. an entertainment site called blender.com

as the first producer of blenders. Thus think twice.

Your business is not boring – your content is.

You can change that. Create new better one.

*Exciting Content About Boring SEO

As noted above: you can create viral videos about SEO.

There is even an SEO song created for exactly that purpose.

Did it work for them on Google search as well? Yes!

The company who made the video ranked at #6 for [seo] behind Google, Wikipedia and a “false friend” site.

The only relevant sites that outranked them were SEO.com and Moz!

Moz was the most popular SEO software and community at the time.

Before that I’ve never even heard of the company that created that video!

Do you know more prominent boring business success examples in the wild?

Link them in the comments below! I mad add them to the post!