Google Reader is set to expire on Monday, July 1, 2013. For some, it will be a moment in history: others probably won’t know about it, and some just won’t care. For a lot of companies offering solutions to replicate Google’s product, it’s a gold mine opportunity to grab Google Reader’s disgruntled, wandering and lost users. But for users, it’s simply put a frustration. If you are a Google Reader user, you’re probably looking for something to switch to and how to switch out (so your feeds don’t die with it).
What Is the Content Beast? (And How on Earth Do You Feed It?)
You may or may not have heard of the content beast. What is this wily, hungry creature? Well, it’s large, insistent, and, quite frankly, insatiable. It demands to be fed new, fresh, interesting content on a regular basis. If you don’t feed it, it gets tense and twitchy. The beast scares off your readers and potential customers with its overbearing silence and looming presence. However, if you keep feeding it, it helps you maintain and grow your audience. Sate the content beast’s appetite, and it’ll happily go into a soothing state of peaceful bliss. While it rests, your clout will steadily grow. Fail to give this content monster what it wants, and you’ll be eaten. (The content monster may or may not be Google. We’re not sure – we’ve never gotten a good enough look at it.) Bottom line: the only way to stay alive on the web is to give the beast a constant diet of freshly-picked content. Why Fresh, Useful Content Matters for Content Marketing Much like bread, eggs, and produce, content loses its freshness over time. It goes stale. It gets moldy. Nobody wants to read it anymore. It’s in the past. In fact, Moz illustrates how content decays over time: Bet you didn’t know that your website could literally “go bad.” It sounds strange, but it’s totally the truth. According to SEO SiteCheckup, if you fail to update your site, search engines like Google will consider it “dead.” In other words, expired. Useless. Lifeless. In stark contrast, a fresh website that’s constantly updated grabs Google’s attention. Especially if you feed that content beast with quality blog posts, web pages, articles, and other useful information, it will notice you more often. It will stop by and index you. Feed it often, feed it well, and you’ll slowly climb the ranks. As the content monster is subdued, your authority will grow. This is the key to successful content marketing. Infographic from SEO SiteCheckup 5 Ways to Keep Your Content So Fresh, It Should Be Slapped You don’t have to work like the Energizer Bunny in order to satiate the content beast. Instead, with some smart strategies, you can keep producing fresh content that will keep that hungry monster from killing your content marketing momentum. With these tips, your content will be as fresh and crisp as an apple plucked straight from the tree. 1. Plan Your Content and Create a Schedule Without a plan, you’ll be scrounging around for ideas and stressing over creating new content. You can’t be creative 24/7 – that’s just common sense. However, if you pool your resources and come up with a content plan and a schedule, you can appear that way. How to do it? Have a brainstorming session where you cultivate lots of topics for blogs and new content. Write them all down, then plan out when you’ll update your site and post your fresh stuff. 2. Riff off of Holidays Coinciding with your content schedule, you can take advantage of certain times of the year. Holidays and special events are the perfect time for new blogs that tie in seamlessly. According to Business.com, writing a holiday-themed or related post can inject new life into an old topic. It also gives you plenty of fodder for new content. Think about what works for New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, the first day of spring, Memorial Day, summer vacation, Halloween – you get the idea. Then, run with it. 3. Refresh Old Posts with a New Angle Running out of content ideas? Revisit old posts and refresh them. Come at the topic from a new angle, or write about it from a different perspective. If you have new information that makes the old post obsolete, write an update. This is the perfect way to feed the content beast without having to come up with totally new ideas. 4. Look at the News The news is a great source of inspiration you can tap into for new content. Is there a world event or local happening that you can relate to your business or website? Is something new and noteworthy occurring in the industry? Is something happening that deserves your take? 5. Poll Your Audience Finally, if all else fails, don’t be afraid to ask the audience. Poll your readers to find out what they want to see. Then, get that content on your site. Bonus: when you give your audience exactly what they ask for, you’ll build trust. Plus, you can be confident that they’ll find it interesting, relevant, and useful – and that’s a win, win, win. Keep the Content Beast Happy with a Regular Diet of Newly-Minted, Engaging Content That annoying but important content beast can’t find food on its own. It needs you to do the dirty work. Keep it fed, and it will stay happy. Keep it happy, and your content marketing will soar. Need help writing fresh, quality, engaging content? Tap the talent at Express Writers – check out our content shop today.
