Adding content to your site alone is not enough. What is absolutely essential is that said content represents value. If it does not, then you might as well not bother. It’s your copywriting that makes you an expert in your industry.
So how do you ensure that the content on your site is top quality and that it is good enough to make sure visitors want to keep returning and that they will consider buying from you?
How to Write Good – The Anatomy of a Great Blog Post
Your aim is to provide value but what’s also important is that you do this in the shortest time possible. This way, your blog post is an even higher value.
Why? Because for a free piece of writing, the only cost to the visitor is time. The amount of time they spend reading your post is time out of their day and time they could have spent doing something else.
So if they manage to get all the same value from your blogpost but it takes them half the time to get it, essentially they have gotten twice the value.
This is just as though they had purchased a product for half price that provided all the same value as the full-price option.
This is true of all writing and so this should clue you into the first hallmark of a good writer: brevity. Or rather not brevity so much as efficiency. A good writer will communicate what they need to say as quickly as possible with no need for fancy wording or round-about sentences.
If you want to make a sentence better, often the best way to do this is to read through it and to remove the superfluous words.
And this is especially true when it comes to the web in general and digital marketing specifically. In other words: you need to be able to convey your meaning in as few words as possible because people are in a constant rush online and have been taught to have short attention spans.
Online, we’re used to getting the information we want immediately and not having to wait around. Things are constantly flashing at us and we rarely spend more than a few moments on a website. Efficiency then is key.
Does that mean that you should be typing in text-speak? Or just keeping everything as brief as possible? Does that mean that there is no benefit to a good vocabulary?
Far from it: because a good vocabulary actually allows you to say more with less. Meanwhile, phrasing your sentences in particular ways – sometimes less direct ways – will sometimes allow you to convey less obvious meaning.
For example, choosing one turn of phrase over another might mean that your reader spends a little longer, but if it better describes the scene or better conveys the tone you want your message to carry, then those words were not wasted.
The objective here is not to make your writing as short as possible but to say as much as possible in the most efficient and entertaining manner.
Telling Stories
Writing your content in a manner that is efficient is one strategy that is going to help keep your readers on your page and keep them reading. There are others you can use too though and this is where you need to start getting strategic.
One crucial tip is to use storytelling wherever possible and wherever appropriate. Storytelling means that you are making your content much more personal and phrasing it as something that happened to you or to someone you know.
So instead of talking about a technique to earn lots of money, you might instead talk about how you earned lots of money via a certain technique. This subtle shift will make anything you write about considerably more engaging – to the point that it has often been described as ‘SEO for the human brain’.
Storytelling is powerful because the brain has evolved to respond well to stories. Stories allow us to imagine ourselves in the storyteller’s shoes which makes whatever is being said much more engaging, emotionally resonant, and interesting.
What’s more is that we like to hear how stories end: so if you start your story off in an impactful way, you can bet your audience is going to keep reading.
Telling stories will generally mean that your content adopts a more personal tone, which in turn will be more colloquial. This also lends itself well to a personal brand, which we’ll touch on in a moment.
Either way though, make sure that your content is easy to read but that it also matches the tone and the nature of the niche you are writing for. Blog content is best when it is conversational, but only if that doesn’t undermine your authority!
Providing Value
We’ve already discussed the importance of providing value, but let’s just ram this idea home a little further: if you’re going to create any kind of blog post, YouTube video, or infographic, then it needs to offer some form of value. Otherwise, you are just wasting everyone’s time!
So what does providing value really mean? Usually, this means that you will be offering information, entertainment, news, or education.
Whatever the case, it is critical that you do this in a way that is creative and that offers something unique. This is the keyword and this is the thing that many bloggers and SEOs forget.
It’s easy to share information in a blog post. You could write about how to do press-ups or how to do basic SEO.
But at the end of the day, those posts won’t offer a ton of value. Why? Because we’ve heard it all before. There are countless posts out there that are very similar and that availability drives down your value.
On the other hand, if you can provide something completely new – how about a new form of brain training that will result in greater physical strength, or what about a powerful hack that can save internet marketers money – then you will have something valuable to offer.
Don’t be generic. Don’t be derivative. Offer something completely new and that way you will be able to get people excited to read your blog posts or watch your YouTube videos.
Why Infographics Are Fantastic for Internet Marketers
If you’re looking for a fresh type of content to use on your own website, or to use for guest posts, then using infographics is a great choice. In this post, we’ll look at the advantages of infographics as well as how you can get the most from them.
What is an Infographic?
An infographic is an image that conveys data and information in a graphical way that you can understand at a glance.
One thing to keep in mind when creating content for the web is that a lot of people are in a rush when they’re online and don’t have time to sift through dense paragraphs of information.
An infographic is a perfect antidote to this reality then, as it lets people very quickly get the ‘gist’ of what you’re trying to convey at a glance.
Infographics are more attractive than simple charts or graphs though and will normally be a combination of various data visualizations alongside large typographic quotes, statistics, and other data. When combined in this way, these can be very appealing and really draw the viewer in while presenting the data concisely and effectively.
These also make ideal guest posts because they’re unique and not easy to create. When done well they look professional and elevate the site they’re on, which makes them a great bargaining chip.
How to Create an Infographic
The good news is that there are plenty of tools online that make it very simple and easy to create an Infographic and a lot of them are free. Alternatively, you can simply use some image editing software like Illustrator or even MSPaint if you tidy it up with some effects in PhotoShop afterward.
Consider this next time you’re looking for something new to add to your blog or site!
Why Your Brand is Crucial for Your Content
Good content alone is not enough to build trust and authority however and this is very important to understand.
For content marketing to work, it is crucial that you have a great website and a good brand. This brand should be represented by a strong logo and it should be driven by a strong mission statement.
Your brand should perfectly identify the type of person who should be reading your site (the type of person who will appreciate your content) and it should qualify itself by implicitly stating who shouldn’t visit your site.
In other words, don’t try to appeal to everyone but instead make a focused effort to build something that will appeal to a certain type of reader. This allows you to offer better value and it means that for the right person, your site is going to be a highly exciting proposition.
You want to create a blog that has its own ethos and principles as this is what will help to create consistency between your posts (so that people know what your site represents) and so that they feel they can get behind your message.
Say you have a health blog, you can be all about the alternative ‘natural’ medicine, or you can be all about the scientifically proven medicine. It’s up to you which you go with but make sure the audience knows what you’re about and make sure you’re consistent.
This is what a brand is after all and it is what will allow you to build the trust of a certain type of reader. You can’t please everyone, so don’t try!
Consider creating a personal brand if you are willing to put yourself out there. If you put your name and likeness to your site, then people will feel a little closer to you and they’ll feel like they know you. That in turn creates a lot more trust and means they’ll feel they’re buying from an actual individual rather than a nameless company.
The only downside? You now have to live the lifestyle you’re promoting!