Dotty Scott explains why content marketing works for solopreneurs in 2026. Blogs, videos, and Google Business Profile updates build trust, improve search rankings, and position you as the expert in your niche. Video especially conveys personality and filters ideal clients through testimonials and reviews.
This is chapter 8 of your amazing Itty Bitty Visibility book, 15 Chapters to Marketing Made Easy. And today we're talking all about content marketing. And we've talked a little bit about it yesterday with the podcast section, because podcasting is content marketing. And we're going to just do an overview today. And I believe tomorrow we're going to get in deeper with blogging. So content marketing is sharing your online material to create interest in your products and services. It's basically saying, here, I'm the expert in whatever you're an expert in, and you're writing information. People are searching for whatever it is that you're writing, and your stuff pulls up. So it's a big part of search engine optimization is adding content to your website regularly. You can post blogs and articles. Can use those interchangeably, um, on your website, on other people's websites, in content directories. There's tons of those online. Medium is a real popular one currently, and there's Substack is another really, really popular one. Video content is also considered content marketing, and it's super popular. It goes on obviously YouTube as well as your website and other social media, TikTok, all of these accept video and video is more trusted. Even though you can fake it with AI now, it is still a more trusted medium to be who you really are and it shows who you actually really are before people call you. Some reasons for using content marketing. Content, content marketing keeps you in front of potential clients. Like I said, when people are searching for something, they're either looking in AI or they're looking in a search engine and you want to come up. That's called search engine optimization. It's called online marketing. It's called digital marketing. And it is called content marketing. You want to be the go-to person in your industry when people are looking for information. Especially in your local area. And you want to be known as the expert, the person that people go to to get all their questions answered. And then of course, when they're ready to hire it out, they come to you. So why is content marketing all the rage? And you might be thinking, it's not all the rage, Dotty, but really it is. It is becoming one of the fastest growing growing segments of people starting businesses is in the content marketing arena. So it is a huge interest out there. And as solopreneurs, business owners, entrepreneurs, content marketing is something that we all need to be doing. And there's many reasons for it, but one of them is we want to be found. Content marketing helps us get found. And that's the bottom line. People will see you as the expert. Blogging does a great boost for that. And creating content keeps your website fresh and drives new traffic to your website. That is so true. When I get a random gift from Google, and that is essentially someone that calls me up and needs my services and I have no connection with them. They found me by doing a search on Google. And there's 3 reasons why they call me after finding that search. Reason number 1 is I'm always on the first page, and that's essentially what they're looking for. They want to be represented on the first page when somebody is searching for whatever it is that they do. The second reason is they see video. Video is so important, and video is considered content marketing. So there's a reason that Google bought YouTube so long ago, and they knew that video was going to be the thing of the future. Well, the future is now. Video is now, and it has been for at least a solid 10 years. Video is the opportunity for someone to get to see you, to know your personality, and to know whether or not they want to work with you before they ever call. I know this because I ask. I ask why people called me when I get those random gifts from Google. And a lot of times they will say, Dotty, I saw such and such video. It could be a testimonial video. It could be my introduction video. It could be just an educational video that I have around whatever it is that they were searching for. And they'll say things like, I felt confident to call you because I felt comfortable that you were going to be the person to answer my question. I didn't feel like you were going to be intimidating. I didn't feel like you were going to talk down to me, which so many people in my industry, for whatever reason, feel like they need to do that and treat people that way. And I don't. I never treat people that way. And because of all the videos online, I attract the people that don't want to be treated that way, which is my ideal client. So video is really important. The other thing is reviews, which we talked about a few chapters ago, but especially video reviews. People will say that they watched somebody talk about their experience with me, which lets me know they saw the video. People do business with people they know, like, and trust, and trust is really, really, really hard to establish online. Consistency is a great way to establish trust, and that's being consistent in your blog posting, consistent in creating videos, consistent in anything you do online. It could even just be all the way down to consistently updating your Google Business Profile. It's the consistency that breeds trust within search engines and AI overviews, which are super important now. And it's that consistency that will help you get ranked. To hire, and it all has to do with the content that you're putting out. People will see that you are knowledgeable, which is super important. They will see your personality. Again, there's people that I don't want to work with, and those people will be turned off by my personality, and they'll see that in videos. And quite frankly, I am happy about that because I don't want to work with everybody. You know that old adage? I work with anybody that has skin. Well, I don't. I work with the right people and the people that are like me, the people that I have been where they are. And there's other people I don't even want to work with and I don't want them calling me. So that filter that the video creates works two ways. And I'm super happy that it does. So that is an overview on content marketing. Tomorrow we're going to jump into blogging. Which is one of my favorite activities. I've been doing it for almost 20 years, and I've got tons of stories to tell you about blogging. We'll get into that tomorrow. If you want your own copy of a visibility book that I've authored, then you can get that in the link in either the comments or the YouTube description below.
