In The ABCs of Content Marketing, we talked about the importance of constant content creation. It doesn’t matter whether you’re running a personal blog or a corporate one. If you want to dominate the content marketing game, you have to keep churning out great website content.
The problem is, it’s not always easy publishing on a regular basis, what more excellent content. But don’t worry. If you follow these 10 tips, you’ll be producing better content that appeals to your target audience and brings more traffic to your site.
1. Start Planning
Don’t have an editorial calendar? Now’s the time to sit down and make one.
Not only will it help you define and visualize your website content plan, it will also ease off the pressure of creating original ideas on the spot.
Also, when you have an editorial calendar, it’s easier to take stock of your blogging efforts from a big picture perspective.
2. Define Your Goals
Aside from aiming to create content regularly, you need to be clear about the results you want your blog to achieve.
Are you aiming to develop brand awareness? Or are you after generating more sales leads?
Whatever your objectives are, make sure they follow the S.M.A.R.T. rule. That means your goals should be Smart, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely.
3. Be Original
Yes, we know. Creating original content is easier said than done.
But with proper planning and well-defined goals (i.e. the first two tips we mentioned), the process should be less difficult.
Besides, it’s not like you have a choice if you want website content that stands out. Google specifically states that if you want to improve your site’s ranking, you can’t do it with little or no original content.
These include pages that may have a lot of words but don’t offer value to site visitors. Examples of these are auto generated content, scraped content, and low-quality guest blog posts.
4. Rethink Your Headlines
You may have good, original blog posts. But if your headlines don’t spark interest, your content will not get read.
If your headlines are not bringing in visitors to your site, it’s time to experiment. Don’t settle for the first one you think of.
Take your time and put yourself in your target audience’ shoes. But take care not to sound too clickbaity. You want your readers to want to read your posts and come back to your site again and again.
5. Give Your Readers Something to Do
Go over the last blog post you wrote. Did you add a call to action at the end of your post?
If you did, good. You want your content to be actionable. Just keep in mind that you have to do this in a way that doesn’t turn your readers off.
When you come off as too sales-pitchy, you make people feel like you’re not giving valuable information freely. You want people to be able to trust your website content and eventually, the person behind it – you.
6. Answer Questions
Now, this doesn’t mean all your blog posts or web pages should be in a Q & A format. It just means you should be able to anticipate your readers’ questions and be prepared to answer them.
Take 180fusion, for example. See how they frame their headers. It’s not necessarily an FAQ page but you can see how well they answer their target readers’ most likely concerns and queries.
A quick tip here: make sure you deliver answers/information in a way that’s easily digestible. You don’t want people scanning through huge blocks of texts just to find what they’re looking for.
7. Double-Check Your Facts
You want to appear credible so you sprinkle your blog posts with facts and statistics. The problem is if one (yes, even just one) of your readers find out that the information you wrote is inaccurate and puts you on blast, it can lead to others doubting the rest of your website content.
To ensure you won’t get in trouble, double-check all your facts. Make sure anything you cite can be verified. If you can link right to your source, better.
But make sure you also vet those sources. Never link to dubious websites and if you can’t find a good site to link to, perhaps, it’s better to rethink the point you’re trying to make, as well as the topic of your article.
8. Don’t Forget Images and Video
People differ in how they consume information. Some prefer to read articles, while others like to get information from videos.
There are also those who are okay with both formats. The important thing to remember is it’s not one or the other. You can add images to your blog posts and you can have a YouTube channel.
Alternatively, you can feature your videos on your blog with a bit or even a lot of text. No one will complain if you use different types of visual aids to drive home your point.
9. Experiment with Different Types of Content
Aside from video, have you ever tried a customer case study? How about a white paper or an infographic?
One of the best things about doing website content is you’re not limited to the formats you can use. You can even experiment with the content you already have. If some of your blog posts need to be updated, for example, you can start with those.
Just don’t be satisfied with the content you’ve produced. Keep finding ways to improve them and don’t forget to track your results.
10. Promote Your Content
Share your posts on social media and find a paid ads strategy that will mesh well with your content marketing plan.
By sharing your posts on social media and engaging with your fans, you could mine content ideas from their questions and comments. Using paid ads, on the other hand, is worth considering if you’re struggling to build an audience for your blog.
Don’t worry if you don’t have unlimited funds for ads. You don’t need to spend a lot if you know how to set an ad budget.
Ready to Publish Your Website Content?
With these 10 tips, you should find it easier to produce better content on the regular. But if you need more help, you can check out our blog for more tips, plus other relevant topics including website design, development, and tools.