When it comes to writing content, you want to make sure you create the best possible pieces for your site and clients. You can look up all the different writing tips and tricks, but there might be one thing you’re missing out on – writing intelligent content.
Intelligent content is the way of the content future, and you need to make sure you are on board with this great method. I am going to take a look at just what intelligent content is, why you need it, and also focus on some great steps to help you achieve the best content this year.
What Does Intelligent Content Mean?
Referring to intelligent content not only refers to how the specific piece of content is written, but also what goes into your content strategy. Intelligent content helps you know whom you are reaching, and it can make the difference when someone clicks on your link on social media, another blog, or from the SERP. A leader in the niche, Ann Rockley, says that intelligent content has a rich structure, and it also keeps everything such as semantics organized. I am going to focus on why you need to have intelligent content for your page, and just how you can get it, easily.
Why Do You Need to Have Intelligent Content?
One of the most important reasons why you need to have intelligent content is because it can be what helps make or break your company’s success. Smart content takes user experience into consideration, which is something you need to focus on when you make your website and any content. A major part of user experience and content is the same, or similar voice, as well as proper research. If you have different content throughout the web that doesn’t have the same voice and that doesn’t match up when it comes to facts, people aren’t going to know if they can trust you. Inconsistency will breed discontent, and you will soon lose your clients and any visitors. Start focusing on creating intelligent content to make sure you have consistency; your clients will greatly appreciate it and you will be immensely happy with the results it produces.
Another reason why intelligent content is important is it is because your clients are able to find what they need quickly, without a lot of hassle. This goes hand-in-hand with user experience. If your clients are able to find what they want and need, quickly and easily, they are more likely to stick around and use your business continually. It will also help you convert visitors into leads, bringing in more customers.
10 Steps to Follow for Incredible and Intelligent Content
Now that you know what intelligent content is and why you need it, I am going to take a look at just how you can achieve it. Intelligent content isn’t very hard to get, and by following a few steps, many of which you should already be doing, you will be able to see some great success. Let’s take a look!
Make Sure Your Content is Well Researched. One of the best ways to make sure your content is written intelligently is to make sure it is well researched. You might know a lot about a certain topic, but it is always wise to do your research and have resources to back you up. Google is not only helpful for people to find your site, but it is also helpful for you to find great research and resources. Look for sites that have high domain authority (you can use Moz’s MozBar to find great sources) and take time to learn. This is definitely important if you are writing about a topic that you do not know too much about. You don’t want to come across as someone who isn’t knowledgeable, so you need to make sure you do tons of research.
Always Have Well Written Content. Another way to get intelligent content is to make sure it is written well. You do not want to have content that is filled with grammatical or spelling errors, or content that sounds stiff and dry. Well-written content is vital to keep readers and convert them into leads, and it is also important when it comes to ranking. Well-written content means that you should be focusing on high-quality content, and we all know how important high-quality content is to the SERPs. A great way to write amazing content is to focus on something you are passionate about; your passion will come across in the writing, which makes it engaging and great.
Make Your Content Industry Specific. Writing about trends is great when you want to stay relevant, but you need to make sure you always write things that are industry specific. You can gain inspiration from the latest movie releases or books, but if it doesn’t relate to your industry, it isn’t going to flow very well with the rest of your content. Make sure that you are always writing about things related to your industry to help set you up as an industry leader and to keep from confusing your clients and visitors. I regularly take inspiration from various trends, but I always make sure that when I write about them, I utilize them to show things pertaining to copywriting, social media or content marketing. Trust me, it is possible!
Use Your Meta Tags to Help Customers Find What They Want. Like I said earlier, intelligent content doesn’t just come down to how well you write a specific piece, but the structure of your content, as well. When you create your content, you need to make sure you are utilizing your meta tags to help bring in people who are specifically looking for a company like yours. It doesn’t work if someone is looking for the top dog food and they accidentally come to your site that is all about construction. That is a bit of an extreme example, but I think you understand where I am coming from. Use your meta tags and industry related keywords to help bring in customers that will want and need to use your company.
Repurpose and Reuse Your Content Throughout the Year. A great way to continually create great, intelligent content for your readers is to repurpose it or create reusable content. You can repurpose content with blogs you’ve created by putting them into infographics, videos, podcasts, and more. This gives you the chance to get more mileage out of one piece, and reach a wider audience base.Another form of reusable content is something that is usually done in technical documentation such as warning labels for products or basic information. The majority of writing, whether technical or marketing, always provides you with content that can be reused or repurposed. Just remember, when you are reusing content online, you need to make sure it isn’t an exact copy because that will trigger Google, which will slap a penalty on your site.
Intelligent Content Should be Adaptable. This is a great example of why you need evergreen content and strategies in your marketing plan. We all know that writing about trendy topics is a great way to bring in clients, but you need content that is adaptable throughout the year to a wide variety of people. When you produce evergreen content, you are achieving this easily. Let’s say you write something and publish it on March 25, 2015 – if it is on a trendy topic, it is going to be irrelevant on March 25, 2016. However, if you write it on an evergreen topic, it will still be important and relevant a year from then.Basically, if you’ve written on “The Dress,” it will be obsolete soon. If you write about the top ways to bathe a cat without a lot of hassle, you’ve created something that can span the years and reach out to a wider audience. You might notice that evergreen content also has a knack for being relatable to more people than something such as “The Dress” or writing about the latest movie release.
Hire an Industry Copywriter. An incredible way to make sure you are getting intelligent content is to hire an industry copywriter. The reason this is a great idea is because you will be able to have someone who always writes well, as well as someone who knows the topic and does excellent research. Hiring an industry copywriter also ensures that you get someone who knows about your specific industry and can write pieces that are well-informed, and intelligent. If you hire a generic writer to write something on legal documentation, you run the risk of it coming across as not researched or as if you do not know what you’re talking about. This can cause a lot of strife for your company because you want to stand out as a leader, not as someone who seems to be questioning everything.
Have a Content Strategy in Place for Your Content Creation. If you don’t take much time to research content and what it takes, you might think you can easily produce content and be done with it. However, this will lead to content that is uninformed, unintelligent, and content that will drive customers away. You need to create a content strategy to make sure you have amazing, smart content that helps converts visits into leads organically, and brings in awesome success. A content strategy takes your web page, social media, and other forms of outreach into consideration, helping you develop a plan to reach out to your audience effectively and drive the best engagement from them. When you do this, you’ll find that you have a lot more success and some very happy clients.
Take Time to Analyze Your Content. Analyzing content takes more than just looking at how many comments you’ve received or if you are getting any engagement on social media. You need to delve deep into your analytics through things such as Google Analytics to see how well your content is doing, as well as seeing if there are any changes you need to make. You can do the basic research that is available to you, or you can hire a content team that can look at it and make sure everything is in working order by doing a content audit. This will help you see what you need to do with your content and help you make any necessary changes.Hiring a team that specializes in this will be great because you will be able to get a full content audit with detailed information. You will also know that the team running the reports are experts in the field of content analysis. Once you analyze, you will be able to improve your site, and get the most out of it with the results you want to see.
Try Out Some Experiments and Track Their Success. Something that will really help your content become intelligent is by simply taking time to try out something new. Experiments are scary because you aren’t ever sure if they will really work or be a miserable failure, but you will find that this is a great way to improve your content. As soon as you implement your experiments, track them and see just how successful they are. If you start to notice that the experiment is failing, then it is time to make a change and try something new. By testing the waters to see the different results you get, you will be able to create intelligent content that is exactly what your clients want and need to see.
Content Intelligence Can Help Further Your Reach!
By following the above steps, you will not only be able to create intelligent content, but you will also be able to create something great for your clients. In fact, focusing on intelligent content and writing for your readers is an amazing way to rank high on the SERP. Start implementing a few of these steps and try out a few new things to see just how well it impacts your company. Which steps do you plan on implementing first? Let me know in the comments!
We all want to craft content pieces that engage our readers and give them something to talk about. Nonetheless, we are fully aware of the fact that our audiences are constantly bombarded with tons of attractive, informative and palatable content coming from different reputable sources.
In this context, we are desperately looking for the simplest, most concise answer to the following key questions: Why is it so important to work hard to exceed our own content creation efforts on a daily basis? How do we make our writing stand out from the crowd? And most importantly, what are the secret tricks and tips that we could apply to craft eye-catchy, memorable content with a real substance? Let’s find out.
Understanding the Challenges Posed by the Information Age
In 2015, we spend a lot of time filtering our sources of information. A century ago, some of the most well-read people were lucky to assimilate the info provided by 50 books during their entire lifetime. The continuous expansion of the Internet has changed the way in which we communicate and educate ourselves and has also increased our appetite for premium content. According to a recent study cited by The Telegraph, these days the average Joe has the ability and the opportunity to filter and assimilate a large amount of information representing the equivalent of no less than 174 newspapers of fresh data on a day-to-day basis. Our brains act like giant last-generation computers that help us avoid the unessential and scan, skim, memorize and revisit the things that interest us the most. In this context, it becomes obvious that modern readers have become increasingly selective and able to distinguish mediocre writing from the truly useful and engaging written masterpieces put at their disposal. This brings us to the next question on our list: what are the steps that we should take to revamp, beautify and individualize our writing?
10 Ways to Craft Strikingly Beautiful, High-Value Content
Wondering how you could add tiny hooks to your content pieces to make your audience read your written materials first thing in the morning, share them on social media platforms, provide feedback and land on your pages time after time? Here are a few pointers that you should factor in to enhance the practical and aesthetical value of your content without losing a wink of sleep.
Unleash the Power of Quality Storytelling. A good copywriter knows everything about marketing tactics, conversions and sales and makes the most of his exceptional storytelling skills to promote any kind of concept, make it extremely desirable and encourage a certain action. We all love a good story. This is precisely why we read books, watch movies and enjoy the conversation that we get to have with an old friend whom we haven’t seen in ages. Stories relax us and help us break the monotony. Stories lead to more stories and get people talking. Every single page that you create needs to be linked to another to add continuity to your story. In order to touch your readers’ hearts and raise their interest and curiosity you should find the best way to:
Introduce yourself and kindly invite your readers to sit down and enjoy the narrative ride
Get your readers intrigued and build anticipation
Present facts that your audience can actually relate to
Rely on a unique approach that will individualize your writing style
Stir up a mix of powerful emotions and explore your manipulative potential to stimulate your readers to respond to your subtle calls to action
According to Copyblogger, strategic storytelling can help you reach just about any marketing goal that may be on your mind at this point. You just have to figure out what your story really is and how you could wrap it beautifully and serve it to your public while it’s still fresh, compelling and newsworthy.
Create and Publish Shareable Images. High-impact, original images that evoke powerful emotions are a gold mine for copywriters looking for the easiest method to upgrade your content. We are all aware of the fact that a good picture is more meaningful than 1,000 words. What you may not know is that images boost recall 72 hours after a first exposure to web content. According to Brain Rules by John Medina, a relevant image can help you take your content from dull and unremarkable to memorable in a split second.
Craft and Implement Attention-Grabbing 3D Pictures. If you are determined to give your website a quick, inexpensive facelift and turn your content pieces into beautiful masterpieces that your readers won’t be able to ignore, consider adding a few well-chosen 3D images to your pages. According to boostblogtraffic, 3D images enable your prospects to visualize the elements that they could get by signing up, registering or making a purchase. In a world where your content is your only tie with potential buyers seeking products like the ones that you’re selling, 3D photos are the bait that you need to boost your catches.
Incorporate Infographics. We will let you in on a little secret: everybody loves infographics these days. As a matter of fact, as Search Engine Journal points out, the search volumes associated with these elements have witnessed an 800% growth over the last decade, proving that audiences have a huge appetite for neatly organized, information-rich, easy-to-read content. Infographics match this description and represent the handy visual aid that allows you to beautify, personalize and promote your content in the most effective manner, while also making it easier for your readers to assimilate the food for thought that you’re providing.
Use Behind-the-Scene Pictures to Add a Sense of Authenticity to Your Writing. Let’s say that you’ve recently stumbled across some amazing facts that could constitute prime material for your next story. You write your content piece and get ready to publish it. But all the cool kids on your block will ask you: if you didn’t post it on Facebook (Twitter, YouTube and any other popular social networking website), did it really happen? Assuming that you want to craft social media-ready content, what’s the smartest move that you could make to achieve your goal? You can start by making sure that your writing is always accompanied by behind-the-scene pictures that enable you to make yourself (and your brand) recognizable, while building credibility and trust. While we’re definitely not encouraging you to take a selfie every single time you’re interviewing an industry expert for a new blog post, we can assure you that a photo of you working on your written masterpiece in a an appealing place (an elegant café or a picturesque, isolated beach) will help you connect with your readers and boost the aesthetic value of your writing.
Add DIY Videos to Your Content Pieces. Following the same approach, don’t hesitate to post videos that complement your written ideas and basically convey a very simple message: “I’m the author, I’m real, I’m here for you, my readers!” Whether you choose to record Skype interviews or combine text, images and music in simple programs such as Animoto to reach your audience, uncomplicated DIY videos will help you amplify your messages and boost their realness and overall power of seduction.
Master the Golden, Unwritten Rules of Text Editing. Now that you know how to explore the tremendous power of popular visual aids to take your writing a step up, you may want to focus on the actual words that you use when putting pen to paper. Here are a few important text editing rules and guidelines that you should always apply to avoid the contagious yawning effect.
Don’t pad your writing with unnecessary filler words
Stay away from weak verbs and adjectives that impact the pace and quality of your narrative (for instance, instead of using the construction “make it clearer”, which lacks strength, you could replace it with the visceral verb “clarify”, that makes the whole sentence become more concise and express more action.
Make sure verbal colloquialisms and flabby phrases and constructions are not a part of your writing (for instance, don’t write “Due to the fact that proofreading takes time, most writers skip this phase. Instead, write “Because proofreading takes time, most writers skip this phase.”)
Avoid additional embellishments that impact the readability of your text and add very little or no value whatsoever to your readers
Pay attention to punctuation. At some point, you may realize that one missing or misplaced comma could impact the clarity (and quality) of your writing
Rely on a Correct Journalistic Approach. Before actually focusing on the most suitable beautification techniques that you can employ to increase the attractiveness of your writing, make sure you’ve spent enough time tapping the substance of your content piece. In other words, according to Social Media Examiner, before turning your thoughts into words you must get your facts straight, conduct an in-depth research, learn how to earn trust, give credit to all your sources, apply the inverted pyramid pattern (most newsworthy facts at the top, background info and other details towards the bottom) and edit and proofread your texts.
Use the Right Font to Beautify Your Content. Clearly, some of the best content pieces display a perfect balance between form and function. But what does the form actually involve? This concept basically refers to the mix of elements that influence the readability of your text, one way or another. From colors and fonts to layouts, all these factors are extremely important and should be carefully chosen to perfect your writing. You can choose from a wide range of free fonts. The key is to select the one matching your brand, products, vision, tone and approach. For instance, Amatic SC is a cool-looking hand-drawn font that would fit your artistic feel like a glove, reflecting your unconventional approach and original writing style. A Hubspot Blog post presents a list of some of the most effective fonts that you can use to beautify your writing; all you have to do is to embrace the one that makes more sense to you.
Always Write with Your Readers in Mind. The truly beautiful content pieces are the ones that resonate with your audience. Beautiful writing is both catchy and appealing; it has a long shelf life and a high utilitarian value. Therefore, instead of pursuing more or less tangible aesthetic goals, focus on the practicality of your writing: Who are you writing for? What do your readers want to hear from you? How could your writing improve their daily lives and provide timely answers to their questions and concerns? Write with the your audience’s needs, demands and expectations in mind and you will succeed in crafting high-value content that will be considered beautiful in all its aspects by your readers.
Our Perceptions are Varied, But Being Useful Is Universal
Generally speaking, we all have a different perception of beauty, influenced by our personality, background, personal experiences and way of life. Nonetheless, when it comes to writing, we all share similar etalons to measure the attractiveness and usability of a content piece and we won’t settle for anything less than stellar content that informs, educates and entertains at the same time. By ditching useless adornments, using clear everyday language and a tone adapted to your audience, perfecting your storytelling skills and making the most of a broad category of visual aids, you will succeed in individualizing and beautifying your writing style. In-depth research, creativity, a deeper understanding of your audience, an ounce of talent and a manipulative ability to play with different powerful emotions are the main ingredients that allow you to go beyond existing aesthetic canons and craft truly original, outstanding content that will always keep your readers coming back for more. Photo credit: evgenyatamanenko / iStock
Zombies. Blood. Skin falling off. Desperate survivors. You can’t turn it off, though. Is it magic? No, it’s just AMC’s The Walking Dead.
Unless you’ve been holed up trying to escape walkers, or are busy prepping for the zombie apocalypse, you probably already know that it’s simply a major hit. When AMC’s The Walking Dead returned from its mid-season hiatus in February 2015, it came back to 15.6 million viewers, according to the New York Daily News. It’s blowing television away. The most-watched TV show on cable this year, it has been consistently drawing crowds since it first launched back in 2010.
Fan demand has caused the show to grow from 6 episodes in the first season to 16 in the most recent ones. What you may have missed, however, is that their screenwriters aren’t the only talented wordsmiths on their team. AMC has some skilled copywriters working on The Walking Dead website as well.
12 Elements That Quality Content Should Have: Let’s See How The Walking Dead Measures Up
For this piece, let’s actually take a look at the 12 elements that Forbes Magazine says high-quality content should have, and then see how The Walking Dead’s website measures up.
Appropriate Content Length. The first thing that Forbes mentions is having content that’s the right length for the audience. It’s doubtful that people are trying to research and read about The Walking Dead using a mobile device, so they should be targeting 1500-2000 words for the sake of their readers and to rank well in Google. Using an online tool to verify word count, their “About the Show” page hits the spot at 1662 words. If, for instance, you decided to examine the “Daryl Dixon” page, purely for research purposes, of course, you’d find 1819 words. It seems their content writers did their homework and are delivering pieces of ideal length.
Use of Supplementary Media. The second thing Forbes mentions is the importance of including photos, images, video graphics and other supplementary media, because they increase how often a piece is shared and improve reader response. If you’re still on Daryl’s page (it’s ok, we won’t tell anyone), you already know that the copywriters have included plenty of photos and videos. In fact, the website is loaded with media on every page, including the blog. If you can tear yourself away from Daryl, you’ll see that the copywriters have nailed this aspect across the site, too.
Coherent Content and Grammar Check. Forbes also mentions the importance of not only having factually-correct information, but also in having error-free content that has been organized in a sensible way. Analysis of the “About the Show” and “Daryl Dixon” pages, plus one of the longer blog entries, returned zero spelling and grammatical errors. The website also utilizes a mixture of headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up text, which makes it very easy to follow.
Proper Formatting of Page and Text. The next concern, per Forbes, is whether the content is easy to skim, as well as aesthetically pleasing. Considering that the website liberally uses images, reading the pages is almost unnecessary for navigation. However, corresponding text is certainly there and all content flows naturally.
Attaining an Appropriate Readability Score. Forbes points out that readability is especially important when those checking out the content are children or non-native English speakers. Several pages of The Walking Dead were run through a Gunning-Fog Index tool, and they all came back with ratings between 4 and 5. An easy read on the Gunning-Fog Index is 6, while text that is more difficult to read can rise as high as a 20, though that might only be seen on a high-level academic paper. Although the median age for a Walking Dead viewer is 33.2, it’s actually the most popular show for people ages 12-34. Considering that the age span for the show’s viewership is pretty massive, and the youngest viewers are roughly in grade 6 or 7, the readability for the website’s content is dead-on.
Hire Writers who are Experts in the Field. Although Forbes says having expert writers is more important on pages that involve finances, medical advice, or life-changing information, all content should come from an authoritative source. Sadly, the only true walker experts are characters on the show, but the Walking Dead website is managed by an entire team of experts who cover AMC shows. If a group of real-life heroes can’t be rounded up, industry experts are probably the best that one can hope for.
Be Sure the Authors Have a Positive Reputation. Seemingly, reputation and expert knowledge would go hand-in-hand, but Forbes split them up for some reason. Based on a little bit of sleuthing, it seems that the noted contributors were plucked from relative obscurity to assist with numerous AMC blogs. None of them appear to have had work printed in any major publications, but being chosen by a huge company like AMC strongly speaks of their reputation.
Has the Content Been Shared? Forbes reports that Google does not officially look at social media shares to help determine ranking, though they often correlate. In any case, when an article is shared frequently, it’s generally an indication that it was written by a skilled copywriter. Speaking only of the blogs on the Walking Dead website, the overall pattern seems to be that longer articles have more comments and social media shares. One recent post had 8k shares on Facebook, but some of the shorter posts had none. Even though social sharing is not consistent from piece to piece, the copywriters did well overall.
Quality Internal and External Links. According to the Forbes article, high-quality outbound links help make a site more trustworthy, while internal ones are to be used carefully. Interestingly, the Walking Dead website relies heavily on internal links. It seems that every time a character or episode is mentioned, the text links to the corresponding area on the website. While the “About the Show” page includes only one internal link, there are blog pages with several. However, some blogs also include outbound links to reputable sites that have cast and crew interviews, so it seems to be a perfect balance.
Attached to a High-Quality Domain. The quality of the domain name can have an impact on the rank that a page receives in Google, per Forbes. If the main website is top-notch, articles posted on it are typically rated higher. Equally, even a high-quality piece can have difficulty achieving a decent rank in search engines if it’s published on a less-than-reputable site. In this case, The Walking Dead is part of AMC’s website, which presently has an Alexa Rank of 1,067 in the United States and 4,320 globally. In all fairness, about one-third of people who head to AMC’s website are looking for The Walking Dead, but it was a reputable website before the show came to fruition. AMC was wise to maintain the show as part of their website, rather than giving it its own spin-off with a unique domain.
Quality of Comments. The number of comments, the quality of comments, and even whether comments are enabled, say a lot about the content of a website. Although base pages don’t have a place for comments, the Walking Dead’s blog does allow for them. As with the shares mentioned earlier, the number of comments and the quality of them, varies greatly from blog to blog, though longer blogs tend to have more comments. Some posts have 80 or more. It’s also worth noting that the website has a forum, so it’s possible readers head there to interact after reading a piece, rather than directly posting to a page. Their forum is incredibly active, with new comments springing up continually. You can actually watch it scroll through as new comments are made while on various static pages throughout the main website.
Valuable Content. As a final note, the Forbes article speaks directly of the content itself. The article suggests that content must answer a question, solve a problem, provide entertainment, make people laugh, or offer unique, expert insight. Although the website isn’t designed for humor, it certainly does all the other things on the list. People can look up information on characters, find out when the show airs, learn background or insider info, and even watch clips or full episodes of the show.
The Verdict Is In: The Walking Dead Website Kills It with Content
Overall, the Walking Dead website meets every single guideline that the Forbes expert content article lays out. Before anyone tries to argue that it’s only because there are pictures of Daryl on it, the actor who plays the character has his own personal website, and it’s got an Alexa Ranking of 626,283 in the United States right now. That’s a full 625,216 behind AMC, which could easily be explained by the fact that Norman Reedus’ personal website contains little more than a landing page and some links. His production studio, Big Bald Head, ranks a little better, at 417,254 in the United States. Clearly, there’s more happening on The Walking Dead’s website that just star power. AMC hired a knowledgeable group of content writers who have built upon the corporate brand to further establish the company as a reputable site, with content that is engaging, useful, and relevant to fans. Looks like this show is here to stay awhile.
From the outside, content marketing might appear simple. Great writers sneeze and create compelling blog posts, right? It’s not that hard.
The reality is, however, that even the best writers in this industry have to build their skills. It’s like becoming a world-class weightlifter: you don’t just go out and do it. You work at it, for years, and you eventually get good.
One of the largest challenges for writers in the content marketing industry is learning to create engaging content readers want to interact with. It’s easy enough to write meaningless fluff, but compelling material? That’s another story.
Luckily, this is a learned skill and, like all learned skills, it just requires practice.
12 Tips for Crafting Audience-Friendly Content
So, you want to create useful content that converts clicks into customers? You’ll need to start planning for it. Here are the steps to take:
1. Start With Curation
One of the very first steps to writing useful content is learning to curate it. The more you understand what your audience likes and dislikes, the better you’ll be able to create it for them.
What’s more, discovering what is hot and trending in your industry plays a crucial role in helping you understand the needs of your audience, which will make you a better writer down the road.
To get started curating content, invest in a streamlined curation tool like Scoop.it. Scoop.it eliminates the manual labor from the curation process and can save you hours of searching for the right content.
Remember: curating content is all about finding the best content in your industry, but you can’t stop there. Give your writing muscles a flex by adding your unique commentary or perspective on the article before posting it for your readers.
2. Poll Your Readers
The next step in discovering what your audience is looking for is going directly to the source. Writing engaging content starts with answering customer questions. Before you can answer those questions, though, you have to know what they are. This is where polling your readers or searching through question-and-answer sites can be invaluable.
If you’ve never polled anyone before, start with social Q&A websites such as Quora. Quora is a popular social platform chock-full of user-generated questions on nearly every topic under the sun. Once you’ve found some questions you think would resonate with your readers, turn them into blog posts.
If you want to poll your readers, turn to your social profiles. If you’ve been considering writing about a particular topic or idea, ask your readers what they think of it. Is there something they’d prefer to read about? Do they have any questions for you? Figuring these things out in advance is a great way to create truly custom content for your readers.
3. Use Industry Tools For More Topic Ideas
Struggling to come up with catchy blog topics? Hubspot offers a free blog topic generator that is great for idea mining and can help you get out of a creative rut.
All you need to do to use the tool is insert three nouns that relate to your industry, and the blog topic generator spits out a list of ideas. As with anything, a little common sense goes a long way with selecting your topics. Not every option will apply to your industry, but the topic generator does a great job of inspiring useful content ideas and can give you a lot to work with.
4. Read Competitor Content
Believe it or not, your competitors are an excellent source for content ideas. If you’re having trouble coming up with topics that will be useful for your audience, comb through the comments of a competitor blog. When you do this, you’re looking for unanswered questions that your competitor’s customers are asking. Once you’ve found them, take these unanswered questions and run with them on your blog.
Want to take your competitor research a bit further? Browse through a competitor website and take note of what you see. What do they have that you don’t? Do you notice anything missing? This is your opportunity to fill in content gaps on your website and, thus, provide more useful and relevant content for your audience.
5. Pay Attention to the News
Another source for locating in-demand topic ideas is news sources. Depending on your industry, news topics can come from a variety of sources. A great starting point for general news is Google News, where nearly every industry has some form of news to report.
Beyond Google News, look into popular industry online magazines and other relevant publications. Reddit also contains a fair amount of news-like material, but use your best judgment with this source, since not all content is fact-checked and verified before publication.
6. Use Your Headlines as a Hook
When it comes to writing engaging content, it all starts with your headline. Even if your piece is well-written, it might never reach its full potential if the headline isn’t on point. So, how exactly do you write compelling headlines that encourage your customers to read your content?
Think in numbers. According to Moz, 36% of customers prefer “number” headlines over other types of headlines. Take this blog post for example, with X Tips for Useful, Engaging Content. Use numbers to create helpful advice pieces, or to showcase lists in ‘Top X’ format.
Solve a problem. Offering a solution to a problem in your headline will get customers clicking to find more information.
Ask a question. A surefire way to write engaging and useful content is to answer questions. In fact, 11% of readers prefer these headlines to other types.
Remember: 80% of readers will never get past your headline, so it pays to make it as useful as possible. To check your headline’s strength, use a tool like AMI’s headline analyzer, which judges your headline based on its intellectual, empathetic, and spiritual word saturation.
7. Go Long
When it comes to writing engaging blog posts, longer is better. Studies have shown that long posts that have at least 1500 words earn a higher ROI than shorter posts.
Long blog posts also keep your audience on your website for an extended period, thus increasing the chance of conversion. Be aware that writing long blog posts takes more time, and you won’t do yourself or your readers any good by rushing it. Instead, leave yourself ample time to edit, adjust, and fine-tune your post before publishing.
8. Format the Post for Maximum Readability
While most people think the writing of a piece is all that matters, it’s also vitally important to format your posts correctly. Today, people scan blog posts more often than they read them line by line, and it’s essential to anticipate this and format your posts accordingly. If you’re not sure how to format your posts, don’t despair. Here are some fast tips:
Use Short Paragraphs. Readers skip over large blocks of text. In some cases, an impenetrable wall of text can be so alienating to readers that it drives them away.
Use Bolded Headers And Subheaders. These break up your content and give readers a “road map” by which to scan it.
Keep Sections Short. As a general rule, you want a subheader every 300-350 words of copy.
Use Bulleted Or Numbered Lists. These make information easy to digest and improve the skimmability of your content.
Break Up Content With Images. Images like screenshots and custom graphics make your content more interesting and useful for readers.
The better you get at formatting your content, the easier it is for readers to engage with it.
9. Do Your Research
No matter what you’re writing about, always do your research. Research makes you look much more credible and gives your audience more information to use. Remember always to cite your sources and to link to original studies and findings.
10. Don’t Skip The Visuals
Visuals are some of the most compelling elements of content. At the bare minimum, your posts need “Featured images,” although it’s more ideal that they have screenshots, stock photos, and custom visuals throughout.
Are there topics nobody is talking about in your industry? If so, address them head-on. When you dare to write about what your competitors won’t, you become a thought leader in your industry. These hush-hush topics don’t have to be anything crazy: it can be as simple as discussing the variations of price points in your industry or even calling out gimmicky tactics.
12. Write For Your Audience, First and Foremost
Whenever you write a post, keep your audience in mind. In fact, take it as far as imagining that your reader is standing right there in front of your computer, and you’re talking to them directly.
Compelling Content Made Simple
Writing engaging content can be challenging, but it’s a great challenge to undertake. With these twelve tips, you can start crafting high-quality, compelling content your readers will love, rather than fluff they just slog through. And when you do this, your entire brand gets a boost!
Wait just a second – isn’t content for SEO purposes? What does my odd title mean? Well, yes, content is great for SEO, and SEO is just one of several reasons why you should be using content. Goodness knows we’ve talked about the importance of content for SEO multiple times. However, it isn’t the only reason. You need to craft content that reaches your audience both on and offline, and it needs to be high quality and engaging.
That said, how do you craft content that doesn’t primarily focus on SEO, while still putting out content that’s excellent enough for Google to #1 it? This blog is going to take a look at this, as well as help you craft excellent, engaging copy for your website and social media sites. Following these suggestions could help turn several of those clicks into excellent leads and long-term customers.
SEO is Just One of Many Reasons for Content
It might seem like the only reason most companies utilize content is for SEO, so why can’t you? It does look like it works, especially at the beginning. However, when you focus your content solely on SEO purposes, you can eventually lose your readership. There is nothing quite as boring as reading a piece written only to trigger the search engines and bring people to the site.
Yes, SEO is a great reason for a content campaign, but it is not the only one on the market. There are several other reasons that combine to create an incredible formula of success. Take a quick look at my blogs; I write them for you specifically without focusing too much on SEO. I do take it into consideration. I like ranking in Google searches (who doesn’t?). However, I also want you to find something of immense value and that is the true goal of content.
What Happens if You Only Focus on Content for SEO?
The main thing that can happen is you can lose your readership. This is something discussed in several blogs about SEO. “Don’t keyword stuff because readers won’t appreciate it,” “don’t write for the bots because of readers.” Your readership is vital to the success of your business. Another important reason is if you only focus on the SEO aspect of your content, you can eventually be penalized by Google. Do you see now why it is vital to your business to only use content for SEO as one reason?
How Else Can You Use Content?
Now that you’ve seen just how important it is to not focus solely on SEO, you might be wondering how else you can use your content. Let me look at two important ways to use content for your business:
To Reach Your Followers Online. One of the reasons for writing web content is that it gives the ability to reach your followers easily through the Internet. The online world gives all companies the unique ability to meet customers where they are. This could be if the customer is on a train commuting to work, at Disney Land, or as they marathon House, M.D. on Netflix. No matter where you customer is, you can use your web content to reach them quickly. When you only focus on SEO, you still might reach them, but you won’t be able to retain them, which can be detrimental.
Use it to Grow Your Business Both On and Offline. When using web content, not only can you reach people online, but you can grow your business offline. How can online web content grow your business off of the World Wide Web? Simple – word of mouth marketing. Word of mouth marketing gets your business to other people who may never have known about it at all.
What will happen is one customer likes a product or service, and they will tell their friends and family members who will then tell their friends or family members. The cycle continues until it grows into a great client base. This can also happen on social media, and, as the Forbes article I linked to says, it is one of the most important elements in your social media marketing campaign.
Tips on Creating Excellent Content That isn’t Just for SEO
Just how can you create killer content your audience will enjoy without solely focusing on SEO? Let’s take a quick refresher course on a few ways to help your company both on and offline.
Know Your Audience. One of the most vital parts of creating content that doesn’t just focus on SEO is knowing who your audience is and what they want to read. This will take some researching, but it can be done. This will help you craft excellent content that will be shared on social media, helping with one aspect of word of mouth marketing. If you truly know your audience, they will feel comfortable with your company and will be willing to tell others about it. A few ways to research your audience are:
Create specific questions to help you truly learn about them.
Sending out customer surveys for your audience to fill out.
Meeting with clients and hosting a sort of online town hall to get a feel for what they want.
Research your audience on social media and what they are saying about you.
Write for Your Readers. When you focus your content solely on SEO purposes, you miss the biggest mark for successful content – writing for your readers. You can write your content with SEO in mind, but readers are going to notice if you are trying to rank. The best way to write for them is to follow point one and research them, but to also write naturally. “Talk” to your audience by using pronouns and create a relationship. Write on topics they find interesting and give them valuable information that they don’t feel they can get elsewhere. A great way to write for your readers is to use their language or “voice” in your content. This will establish a great connection with them, but also make the content easier for them to read.
Write on Interesting Topics. Your content provides you with a chance to write on relevant and interesting topics. It helps keep your website up-to-date and fresh, which is something your readership will greatly appreciate. Creating fresh content might sound a bit difficult to do, especially since you’re incredibly busy with other business tasks. However, it is possible. A few ways to ensure you are writing quality, fresh content for your readers are:
Researching your audience as in point one.
Writing on topics that you are passionate about. Writing from the heart is a great way to connect with your client base.
Take inspiration from other great writers. This can be classic authors like Mary Shelley or modern authors like Neil Gaiman. You can also garner inspiration from films, television shows, and following trendy people online such as George Takei.
Write Content that is Engaging. A great way to write excellent content that doesn’t just focus on SEO is to write engaging pieces. Engaging content is a great way to attract more readers and convert visitors to leads. A few ways to write engaging content are to:
Write strong headlines for your pieces to get clicks.
Create unique pieces to retain the visitors you receive.
Give people answers to their questions.
Always source your material and do proper research before writing your content and hitting publish.
Add other forms of content such as images, videos, and infographics. This can help break up all of your text while giving people something easy to share.
Continually update your website and blog to keep people engaged. If your website stays the same for a long time, it will grow stale. If you don’t update your blog regularly, it too will go stale. You need to make sure to keep your content fresh.
Create Content You Want to Promote. You can easily tell your content is excellent if you want to promote it, according to AuthorityLabs.com. If you are writing content you don’t enjoy, and that you don’t have the desire to show others, then it is obviously not a quality piece. When crafting content, make sure you are creating something you want to share and always make sure it is something you would find interesting if you happened across it on the web. This goes for your web content, as well as social media content. Make something interesting that will grab your followers’ attention!
As you can see, it is vital to create excellent content and not use it just for SEO purposes. You want to convert those clicks that come from your basic SEO practices into leads and the best way to do that is have great content. Take this into mind as you start creating your content campaign and make sure that you focus on your readers along with SEO as you start crafting future pieces. You will be quite pleased with the results! Photo credit: zakokor / iStock
