Want to get better at Content Marketing? Use these tips to stop producing shitty content
How many times have you heard the phrase content is King? Over the last few years it’s one of the driving factors behind why almost every business has a blog as part of their website.
But if you’re not doing your content right, you could be wasting your time.
Content marketing is a hot topic now and everyone wants to see if they can start leveraging content to drive more people to their website. Unfortunately for a lot of people, poor execution and the quality of the content being distributed are leading to ineffective marketing campaigns.How many times have you checked out a company’s blog to find that they only update their blog once a month, and when they do it’s a generic promotional article that doesn’t give you any real information, and can even turn customers away from your product.
What can you do to make sure you are creating content that is high quality and that your readers will love?
Here are few simple tips:
Focus on what your readers want
Listen to your audience. As a business, you have an understanding of your industry and what people want to know about – so why not tell them more about these topics.This helps you in a few ways. You are creating an online community in which by answering questions for customers, they are then exposed to your product or service, you are establishing yourself as a subject matter expert in your industry, and you are creating content containing long tail keywords that are going to be very useful when it comes to search engine optimization.
If you are talking about your product or service, make it helpful
The biggest mistake that people make with their content is that they try to make everything about themselves. It’s great to talk about what you are doing, but if you are it’s important to make it informative.How is what you talking about going to help the reader? Are there actions that can be taken by reading through the post? If not then you should consider restructuring the way you are presenting yourself.A simple walk through of a new feature or update can not only teach your readers how to use your business, but it can also get new people signing up so they can try it out for themselves.
Don’t spam people with your product!
Would you share an article that is a promotional piece for a company if you were not an employee? The aim is to create informative sharable content.I cannot state this point enough. Don’t spam your readers! Following on from our previous point, make sure that not all your posts are about you. Yes, it’s great to talk about yourself but if you are looking to grow your audience, the best long term strategy you can implement is to establish yourself as a subject matter expert.That content we talked about earlier designed to educate your readers on pivotal industry knowledge is key, and going to be the lure which draws return readers back to your website, and eventually to doing business with you.
Make every piece of content count
Now I love a list just as much as the next person, but if you are going to write about “X reasons to do X”, make sure that you have some engaging and helpful points to outline.How many times have you ready through an article and then at the end said to yourself “Well that was a waste of my time.” It happens far too often, and if when they happen – are you likely to read another article from that company or person? Probably not.When creating your lists, think of it more as an instruction manual. For each step that you walk through, is the reader getting something out of it? Make every line, and every work count. If it is not contributing to helping establish yourself as an expert, or teaching the reader something, then you can probably cut it out.
Content Marketing takes time
Yes, your content can go viral and give you a large influx of traffic and readers, but remember that content marketing is a long-term marketing strategy. If executed well your content can be a key factor in driving sales for your business, but remember that your content is only as good as it’s quality.
So, ask yourself this; If your content was king, would it be loved by the people?
Want to learn more about content marketing? Hit me up on Twitter for a chat!