It’s quite treacherous having to sift through all of the cyber content we’re thrown at now a days. Some of the content is actually good, it’s informative and tells a story. While other content lacks in every aspect of the word good. It’s too short, tells me nothing, and leaves me with a bewildered look on my face.
The best types of bad content are the ones that you can’t even get through because the writing and grammar are so poor. We’re so focused on produce, produce, produce that it’s easy to forget those grade school essentials.
Aside from dotting your i’s and remembering where to place a comma, there’s a handful of other things we can do to churn out enjoyable content for our customers.
Follow the tips below to be one step closer to producing more clickable and enjoyable content. You know, the type of content that has a low bounce rate.
Tell a Story
A buyers journey should be told as a story. Look at Apple for example, they don’t push ad after ad in your face on why you should buy their product. What Apple does the best is to tell a story, and they usually let their users tell the story for them.
Encourage User Generated Content
No offensive, but what you do doesn’t always sound cool coming from you. Let your customers speak for the product themselves and provide you with content that you can showcase to potential customers.
This could be in the form of images, videos, blog post features, or social media posts. Think of UGC like a creative testimonial, without having the ugly quotation marks and doubt.
Make Content Fun Again
Remember how fun it was to read books in school, in elementary school? Imaginations were able to soar from page to page. It was hard to put books down back then, and for some that feeling hasn’t ever left.
Your content should allow imaginations to soar in even the most boring of industries. That means putting “fun” back into the way you write.
Boost Your Content
We all just need to accept the fact that not everyone is going to see our content, our creatively, awesome, user-generated and approved content. What we can also accept is that we do have the power to increase the amount of exposure a piece of content gets.
Spending as little as $1 a day on Facebook, you’re able to boost content posts and increase your reach, quite dramatically actually. What could have only been seen by 40 people can now be seen by 1,000 people.
Get Your Content on Other People’s Sites
Sure, your content has a home on your website, but it’s also okay to go over to a friends house and play every now and again. Plus, the more time it hangs out at said friends house, the better your house ranks. Get it?
Build Relationships With Fellow Industry Peeps
You can’t go over to a friends house if you don’t have any friends now can you? Increase your inner circle within the industry by building relationships. This is best done in-person, but as we can’t be everywhere at once, you can reach out to people and build connections with this simple formula:
- Find an “influencer”
- Follow their blog
- Follow their social media profiles (yes, all of them)
- Start engaging with them on social (a like here and there, and then comments)
- Continue engagement over time
- Reach out to them on the social media network you engaged with the most (direct message)
- Ask them if they’re ever in need of new content, express your background and experience, and how you respect what they do
- Repeat
Keep Your Content Long and Healthy
Not every Google update deserves 1,500 words. If you can write long-form content, of at least 1,000+ words or more without rambling, than you’re in the “sweet spot”.
Not only will more info result in more explanation and translate to more value to a reader, but longer content can help your rankings and keyword depth.
Put Yourself in Your Shoes
What kinds of content do you like to digest? Do you prefer reading blog posts, watching whiteboard videos, attending webinars, what is it that help you connect? Create that!
Chances are you’re best at creating the types of content you enjoy most and your readers will appreciate you for it.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
If you have a wide foot like me, that may be rather difficult, but do try. You should know every single aspect of your customer. What do they drink in the morning, are they coffee or tea people? Do they have certain slang terms they use in their regular speech? Are they working a 9 to 5 office environment or a 10 to 8 remote environment?
Whatever your customer lives and breathes, your content should reflect. If you don’t know what they live and breathe, do research and dig deep to find out exactly what size shoes they wear. Being able to write to your customer and not for your customer will make a huge difference.
Stop Writing Bland Headlines
How to do ____ in 5 steps is how just about every boring blog post begins. Sure, we really do want to know how to do ____ in as little as 5 steps, but can’t you turn up the excitement level a notch or two?
Try titles like, “Shhh: Here’s the Secret to Accomplishing __ in Only 5 Steps”. You’re still including the keywords you need for ranking, and giving your readers something more exciting to click on.
Keep on Keeping On With Your Content
Content is not a one-and-done kind of thing. You need to regularly produce content for several different reasons. The first and most important is for rankings. New content strikes Google as hey, this website / business is active.
The second reason is for your followers. If you publish a new video on YouTube every Monday, you’re giving your subscribers an expectation that each Monday a new video will be released, so check back next week.
The third reason is for your social media. What in the world would we talk about on social media if we didn’t have content? Regularly producing content (like daily or weekly) will help the you fill the 80/20 rule of sharing your content against other people’s content.
Include Stats and Data
Having a hard time hitting that 1,000 word count? Include statistics and data from reputable sources and cite them within your article.
Not only will this spark a future relationship because of the shared link to your new friend, but it will also give you credibility since you’re sharing a stat and showing exactly where you got the data from.
Search For Keywords BEFORE Producing
If you have to ask yourself what keywords should you use after you’ve already written the content, you’re stuffing. Keyword-stuffing is obvious and a complete annoyance to readers. Your brand will look like a sellout and your content will read terribly.
Know what keyword terms you need to be writing for and create content around those terms. Not the other way around.
Did I miss one of your favorite content tips? Add one of your favorite tips below!
