Knowing how to create great content that stands out will make a huge difference for your brand
They say that content is king.
Knowing how to create great content that stands out will make a huge difference for your brand. Content creation is an ongoing task needed to stay relevant, but creating organic content that will drive traffic to your business can be made easy.
Content marketing can take many forms, from blogs and social media to video content, podcasts and infographics. As a result, your brand probably needs to create content in different formats that can be shared across multiple platforms.
While there is no magic trick to having great content, here are five tips that will help you create the best content possible!
1-Know your audience
Who are you writing to? Aiming your content to the right people can be tricky, are you looking to attract new users, retain old ones, or do you simply want to be found by the most amount of people? This is for you to decide.
Being aware of who is going to be reading your content will change the tone and the information you include. Knowing what type of content your audience typically consumes will narrow down the content you need to create which means that targeting the right audience is essential for your marketing efforts to be effective.
Are you wondering how you can find out who your audience is? There are many ways to figure this out:
-Check metrics on social media insights.
-Analyze your web traffic with Google Analytics.
-Spend time getting to know your customers better by conducting surveys and polls, taking a few extra minutes on a call or meeting, etc.
-Check what your competition is doing. Who are they targeting and how are they marketing themselves can provide insight into what attracts a certain consumer profile.
Once you have figured out who your audience is, your next step might be to create a buyer persona. This is a fictional person who embodies your ideal customer to help you and everyone involved in the business keep your target audience in mind. Check the image below to see what elements form the buyer persona.
2-Involve your Marketing goals in your content creation
Having a plan when creating your content is key to making sure your content is reaching the right people while also fulfilling your company’s objectives.
Goals are there for a reason. They should mark the purpose of the content you produce and help you to align your content with your goals. In addition, having a call to action will give your post a purpose and provides an opportunity for the reader to take action and engage.
Content marketing can be useless without goals. Did you know that more than 80% of small business owners don’t keep track of business goals?
Applying the SMART parameters can help you create the right goals for your business. To make sure your goals can be reached, they should be:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
While there are many different types of goals, your content doesn’t need to adhere to only one of them. You can create content aimed at creating awareness of your brand, increasing the number of followers, driving traffic to a specific site and much more.
Additionally, creating a content calendar can also help you align your marketing goals with your content creation and be aware of what events and deadlines are coming up.
3-Write great headlines
The title or headline of your content is what will grab people’s attention. It’s your chance to create a great first impression and get people to read the rest of the content and take action. The more impactful and relevant it is, the higher the chances of being clicked on.
Did you know the average person’s attention span is 8 seconds?
With so much going on the internet and on social media trying to catch your attention, it’s no wonder that it’s getting harder and harder to stand out. As a result, headlines that promise the exact information that people are looking for will get more clicks than more generic ones.
Here are some easy tips you can implement to create better headlines for your content:
-Use numbers at the beginning of the headline.
-Be as specific as you can to provide the information someone might need to decide to read your content.
-Use Power words to add an emotional response to your headline.
-Use your keywords in your headline to help your SEO efforts.
-Make your content accessible by using terms that everyone can understand.
4-Create unique and useful content
Producing unique content will make you stand out in a sea of content. It will provide a fresh take on your topic and stand out from others that create similar content. When done right, originality can help boost your content!
Content shouldn’t only be unique but also helpful for everyone reading it. The more useful your content is the more likely they are to come back for more, share it and improve your reputation as an expert in your field.
Keep your content simple and easy to read to appeal to a wide variety of people. The readability of your post is very important to make sure that the majority of people who find your content, can get something out of it.
An easy way to create content that is unique and useful is to try to think of topics that solve a problem for your customers. This way you can create content that provides value and will be highly appreciated. Moreover, content that is relevant to your business like offers, new product releases, and exciting company news can also be a way of providing value to your customers.
Similarly, planning your content ahead of time can allow you the opportunity to develop your ideas so you can create quality content.
Identifying your purpose can serve as a guide to help you create great content as it provides the reason and intent for your writing. These can be condensed into 5 broad categories:
Persuade readers to take an action.
Inform about your brand.
Entertain your readers so they want to come back.
Explain how something works
Describe something by providing more details.
And most importantly, share your content everywhere you can to increase views and impressions.
5-Optimize your content with SEO
SEO is a powerful tool. Using it in your content creation will boost its impact, make it easier for people to find you and improve your visibility.
Search engine optimization uses techniques that optimize your text and sites to help you appear to the right people when they search using your keywords.
One of the main reasons people create content is for it to be seen and while SEO applies mostly to online content and search engines, posting content on other platforms such as social media can also help improve your ranking.
Therefore, SEO is a great way of driving organic traffic to the right pages to boost your activity. Using the right keywords that are relevant to your brand will help you target the right people for your content. Think of keywords that will help people easily find you and use them throughout your text.
There are many tools today that you can use to optimize your content for your business, here are a few:
Google Search Console
SEMRush
Answer The Public
Google Trends
Screaming Frog
With these five tips, you are sure to upgrade your content creation game and achieve the results you want!
Need help achieving your content marketing goals? Get in Touch with Rexuniversal to help your content stand out from the crowd!