creating good content

 

Content marketing is your opportunity to connect to the elusive internet scroller. Creating good content is more than just slapping some words on a page and clicking the “publish page” button, it’s a meticulous skill that requires patience, research, and understanding. For many people, writing well doesn’t come naturally and a lot of us don’t even know where to start. If you don’t have a specific content writer you can use, this means content development falls on your plate. Don’t worry, it’s not all bad!

 

If you want to learn the major components of creating good content, keep reading! We’re going to go through it step by step.

 

 

Creating Good Content

 

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There’s a lot of information floating out there on the web. As part of your content curation efforts, you need to ask yourself “so what?” before you publish a written piece. What’s the significance of your writing? Everything you write needs to have a purpose. It needs to educate, solve a problem, or better your reader’s life in some way. A lot of content gets passed over by viewers. So, if someone is actually taking the time to scroll through your content, make it worth their while.

 

 

What’s the Point?

 

Don’t let your point get lost in the body of your content. Introduce the “significance”, the theme or topic, of the piece in the first paragraph. Not only will this alert readers to what the content is about, but it will help to keep you on track while writing it as well.

 

Perhaps you have a valuable piece of information (a whitepaper, an infographic, a spreadsheet, or perhaps informational tools) that would be useful to your audience. Great! Let them have it! Your readers have specific pain points they’re trying to solve and if you’re content solves their problem, you’re increasing positive brand loyalty and awareness. And, if you continue to publish and offer significant content, you have a better chance of gaining leads without doing much work initially. Writing and posting quality content functions as the first interaction between your business and a potential customer. And we all know first impressions are everything.

 

And, who knows, if your viewers find your content helpful, they may start recommending it, or your business, to others they know. Investing in quality content has a high ROI which you’ll see in views, leads, and conversions.

 

 

Keep it Current

 

Your content may very well be what your prospects and customers are looking for. However, if it’s outdated it’s as good as yesterday’s news! No one wants to read a newspaper from several days or weeks ago. In their quest for information, your prospects are looking for cutting edge information which will answer their questions and solve their problems.

 

current content

 

Go back and regularly update previous posts and articles if a process, technology, or event has changed. Staying up to date on current events in and outside of your industry will help you know when you need to update your content. Pulling data and research from various sources is also a great way to ensure you have the most accurate information possible. Be aware of any biases a source might have and make sure to counter balance it with a contrasting viewpoint to see through opinion and get to the facts.

 

This certainly puts the burden of responsibility squarely on your shoulders.

 

Yes, creating good content and taking the time to update it takes time. But, just like I tell everyone, “You get back what you put in”.

 

 

Content Tracking

 

As you’re creating your content and blog posts, keep track of them in an excel or other document type. For your blog posts, you can record the keyword, the date it was published and last updated, the title etc. For specific content surrounding products or special events, I also recommend tracking when it was published and last updated as well. Once you create this tracking document, you’ll be able to see how long your content has been active and be made aware if certain posts should be updated or maybe even deleted if they’ve become irrelevant over time.

 

It’s better to start this process from the get go, rather than having to do a full content audit several years down the road.

 

Having a tracking document will also help you to see topic patterns in your posts. Part of creating good content is making sure you’re answering and educating your audience. You don’t want to publish the same information ten different ways. Your audience will get bored and your blogs and posts will quickly become irrelevant.

 

Information is what the internet is all about. There is literally an unlimited supply of information available online you can provide to your prospects and customers. However, I encourage you to create your own content as well, don’t just copy and paste content from other places. Unless you’re taking the time to fact check what you’re copying to your site, you won’t be sure it’s accurate and current.

 

 

The Result

 

Your customers will appreciate your consistent content and it will also help bring new visitors to your site. Creating good content is one of the most effective methods to gain qualified leads and website views. You can’t just create a website and expect people to find you on their own. You need to create content to spark their interest in your business and give them a reason to spend their time looking into your site over someone else’s.

 

content marketing

 

For example:

Site A: has several pages of information and content on the searched topic, but it’s from 2000. The viewer notices grammar errors and areas of missing information.

Site B: has less pages of information and content on the searched topic. Although the published dates are from 2000, there are more current updated dates included on the page. The content is longer, helping the reading solve their problem and giving them clear steps on how to do so.

 

Which site would you want to give your business to? Personally, I know if I seem to know more about a topic or product than the “expert” trying to sell it to me, that’s not a good sign.

 

So, a quick recap for you:

 

 

How to Create Good Content:

 

1. Make sure your writing has value

2. Introduce the topic early

3. Update your content regularly

4. Track your content digitally 

 

 

In Conclusion

 

The upshot of this part of the discussion is that in gaining access to “good” content online, you will be presented with the opportunity to think more broadly about your business model. Actually, forced to think more broadly accurately describes the situation that you face. Again I say, fear not! This is opportunity knocking! Openly sharing information is one of the foundational principles that the internet is based on.