How to Create Better Content
A fantastic guide to help you through challenging times
By Wiliam Wu | 4 April 2022 | Content Marketing
Consider these figures. Even though written content is employed by more than 95% of all companies, only one-third of marketers confess their content creation is either “somewhat” or “not very” successful.
In other words, there is a lot of stuff out there that isn’t doing as well as they are intended to be.
This post is intended to assist you and your team to improve your content’s quality and achieving success.
Thankfully, with some study and a little bit of practice, anyone can improve their content creation skills. To help you develop, here are the 9 elements of an outstanding article.
Headline (very important)
Assume you get 50 visitors to your blog. On average, 80 per cent of them will read your headline material, but just 20 per cent will read the remainder of its content.
To put it another way, your headlines must perform a lot of heavy lifting.
Strong headlines contain particular information and some detail to entice readers to read on.
According to research, It discovered that 65 characters (roughly 11 words) are the ideal headline length.
The length of your headline isn’t the only component to consider. The words you choose are also crucial.
Headlines that use instructive language are more likely to be shared on social media platforms. Interestingly, people always want to read materials to learn something new.
Strong Introduction
Great! Now that you have captured your visitors’ attention, it’s time to persuade them.
According to research, more than 50% of page viewing time is spent on the initial page. Once the page starts to scroll downward, the holding time drops below 20%. Only the dedicated make it further than that.
In other words, if your introduction is unable to capture the interest of your readers right after the header, they will most probably leave without reading the rest of your content.
The best method to keep them reading on is to dive right into the information promised by your title.
Write Specifically for Your Audience
According to marketing legend, Seth Godin, he mentioned that Real content marketing isn’t repurposing advertising; it’s creating something worth talking about.
Your reader should be the sole reason why you’re writing. Your material must be convincing and fascinating enough to entice your readers to stop and read.
Despite this, one of the primary reasons marketers fail to create compelling content is because they do not consider their audience while creating content.
Instead of providing content that sells, create content that delivers value in the form of knowledge or amusement. Furthermore, like with other types of successful marketing or promotion, your material must be tailored to a specific individual and their journey toward a prospective purchase.
A catchy start can help you hold your readers’ attention for a longer period, but it’s never a magic bullet. Your target audience must always be in your mind when you develop your content.
To put it another way, you need to write for a certain group of individuals rather than for everyone.
For example, consider the distinction between an article on “sedan cars” and one on “MPV”.
With those keywords in mind, we can make educated guesses about you. If you’re looking for sedan cars, chances are you’re looking for more information about them, or you’re thinking of purchasing a sedan.
In addition, you must evaluate if your material does the following:
- Address the issues that your audience is experiencing.
- Encourage the discovery of your company’s offerings.
Encourage a sale by delivering convincing facts that the person needs.
Focus
From the header to the end, each content should have a single distinct idea/goal.
Following this method may help you build more logical arguments – you will be able to write content that flows effortlessly, and deliver clear takeaways to your readers.
Unless you’re writing a page that serves as a focal point for a larger discussion, always keep your content as focused as possible.
Here’s an example:
Bad: What to look for in a luxury sedan car?
Good: What are the features of a BMW 5 Series?
Best: What are the features on the BMW 5 Series 2022 model?
By developing a strong focus, you may be able to deliver actual value on a specific issue/topic.
Engagement
Even though your headline is attractive, if your content does not rapidly captivate your viewers once they get on your page, they will leave halfway through.
Over the internet, you’ve heard of good content creation is all about employing plain language. However, according to a study, content with high readability ratings (shorter sentences and words) did not perform better than content with lower readability scores.
Hence, it’s important to develop interesting content utilizing language that your target audience will understand and appreciate. Oversimplifying or complicating to do so is likely to be less successful.
Be a Knowledge Provider
Assume you were searching for content marketing techniques on Google and came across this post, but it’s not related to what you were looking for – or, imagine if, instead of recommendations, I merely published 3000 words about why having excellent content is important but never showed you what it looks like or how to accomplish it. There’s a high chance you wouldn’t return to my website ever again.
That is why, before you begin writing, it is critical to conduct keyword research to determine what consumers desire from your content. You may use free tools such as Google Keyword Planner to assist you.
Include Research Data to Back Up Your Facts
Citing research and statistics is a simple approach to establishing credibility. This helps to persuade your audience that you understand what you’re talking about.
For instance, in this post, you might have simply included the pointers in your content to increase the quality of your posts. However, that could be enhanced with user research and statistics at various stages to demonstrate why they’re worthy of your audience’s time.
Citing relevant and respected sources is always vital.
Use Visuals
Would you read through an article without any visuals on the internet? There is a better method to communicate. All material doesn’t need to be text-based – unless it’s a storybook.
This is where images come into play.
Rather than simple text, showing folks a visual or graph of the data or process can be far more useful – it’s easier for your audience to process the information as well.
Visuals can also serve as metaphors. That stock photo is essentially assisting in the making of a point about demonstrating a point.
Additional Trust Factors
There’s a lot of information available. Even if you’re in a small niche, there are probably hundreds of other similar publications.
So here’s the question – why should readers read your material over others’?
Ensuring that your content is trustworthy is one of the best ways to help you stand out from the rest. People are more inclined to click on your material if they believe it is been well-researched.
To establish your value, you have to start someplace. Backlinks will be able to assist you in doing this.
You should do the following:
- Link to credible sources to back up your claims in your writing.
- Link to prominent media sources, government websites, colleges, and well-known companies may increase the credibility of your content authoring.
- Obtain links from reliable websites to your material. If a high-authority site (such as the CNN) connects to your content, it’d a good indication that you’re trustworthy. In addition, it can help you rank higher in organic search results.
Conclusion
Content creation, no matter how experienced you are, can be tricky.
However, the first step in creating great content is always to identify your target audience.
You can’t develop interesting content if you don’t know whom you’re writing for and what they want to hear. Sure, you can write wonderful phrases, but they’re unlikely to produce leads or sales since they’re not directed at the correct individuals.
Every time, start with your audience in mind, and you’ll most likely generate better content.
If you need help with content creation, reach out to us.
What are your tried-and-true methods for producing high-quality content? Leave your comment below.