How To Produce Consistently Great Content
March 13, 2015 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Featured Articles, Front Page
Content marketing can produce tremendous results for businesses that engage in it. However, in saying that, there are still a lot of businesses who are finding it difficult to create high-quality consistent content for their websites. The businesses who are most successful with their content marketing strategy is the one who still manage to write and post content on a regular basis, despite their position in SERPS. This article will show you how you can produce high-quality content on a consistent basis.
Write About What You Know
The best way to get your creative juices flowing is to write simply about what you know or what is happening in your space at the moment. It positions you and your business as a thought leader and will attract people to your space to your brand. There is little point writing about something that has happened months ago as not only is it outdated, but it may no longer be true. Best to stick to topical pieces that add value to your overall content marketing strategy. As I said, write about what you know rather than what you don’t know, as this will require extra effort to understanding and researching what you are writing.
Write about What Your Audience Wants
This point, is a continuation of the previous point as to why you should specifically be creating content that you know, but also content that your audience wants. The question is – how do you know what your audience wants? All you need to do is find where your target audience is. Places such as forums and social media networks (Facebook, Twitter etc.) are a great place to start. If you search hard enough, you can find who and what you are looking for in an audience. When you visit these websites, be sure to read threads and posts so you can get an understanding of your ideal audience’s problems. Your content is going to be based on these problems and from there you can provide a solution.
Making Content Creation a Priority
Whatever your priority might be, it will always occupy your time. Likewise, when you make content creation your priority, you will always devote enough time to it. Make a point of writing content within the time you create for it. Eliminate any distractions such as answering emails, personal social media use, etc. and write until you get it done. This mindset will hold you in good stead for being able to create content consistently. You just need to be disciplined and resist all outside urges.
Get Into a Writing Habit
Habits are hard to shake. If it’s a good habit, then that’s not such a bad thing. Again, this comes back to what I was talking about in my previous paragraph about building that mindset. When you develop a habit of writing every day, it starts to become a routine and becomes part of you. Start with a small goal of posting every day for an entire month. It might seem like a difficult task to complete to begin with, but it will become second nature if you are disciplined and stick to writing a post once a day. If anything this is going to make you a better writer, which will in turn increase the quality of your content and that can only be a good thing for your overall goal.
Mix it up
While blog posts are a typical form of content, it can become a tad boring to be using blog posts as your only form of content. Start diversifying your content by creating other forms of content such as infographics, podcasts, videos, etc. It will give your audience a few options to choose from because some might not like to read as they prefer to watch. Great! Get cracking on a video. It doesn’t have to be very long. In fact, a 1-2 minute video talking about an aspect of your industry is all that might be needed. What about those who like to listen? Too easy. Recording a podcast and uploading it onto the YouTube or SoundCloud is very easy. You will soon discover what type of content works and what doesn’t. From the responses you get for each platform, you can tailor your marketing strategy according to that.
Breaking Up Your Content Creation
Creating consistent content can sometimes be an overwhelming task. You can reduce your workload by creating a quick note, then an outline and then write out the piece. The good news is that you don’t have to finish the whole task in a specified time, and you can schedule it over a period of a couple of days. For example, if you were writing an article on the ‘7 Tips on How to Create Consistently Good Content’, and you only had a couple of days to write it, you might write the first four tips on one day, and then come back to it the next day to write the remaining three.
Employing the Services of a Content Creator
Research carried out by MarketingProfs, and the Content Marketing Institute stated that 73% of all b2b organisations have dedicated personnel in charge of their content marketing strategy. They might be doing this in-house, or they might employ the services of a content marketing agency. Regardless, it is important to have someone looking after your content creation with the necessary resources and allow them to make decisions on your behalf. It frees up significant time for others to handle other important matters in the business.