Good original content creation is a prerequisite for Content Marketing. You might wonder, what qualifies as good content? There are a large number of points that can be discussed on content, all the way from planning to deployment and monitoring. In this list, I will try to address the basic needs. You can apply these tips for a smaller startup company, or even as part of a marketing department of a large organization. For whatever the size of company that you are working on, if you are to succeed in your content marketing terms that the content you produce have to be good and get the job done.
1. Good craftsmanship
Good craftsmanship means several things. Proof read your content and ensure there are no spelling, typing or grammatical errors. Use proper headlines, and space out your text into paragraphs because no one likes to read a wall of text. You must also ensure that the text flows and that what you write is interconnected, so the reader can easily follow along. If your content is images, video, audio, or graphics as regards the corresponding requirements. It should be easy to interpret the data, the sound will not have any interference, video or images should be good quality. Always proof read and review your content one more time, so you know that the job is properly done.
2. Motivate with Emotion
To capture user interest you should be creating content that clearly points to a solution or scrutinize a problem. What makes the content involved is that it conveys the proper knowledge and shows an interest in the user’s situation. Don’t be afraid to express yourself and create an emotional relationship with the user. Content that does not involve either so thin that it is uninteresting or it tries to please everyone. You can’t please everyone, so don’t waste your energy trying. The ancient Greeks spoke of ethos (credibility), logos (the facts) and pathos (feeling) in the rhetoric, and it still works today.
3. Make it visually engaging
Did you know that the human brain processes visual information 60,000 faster than text?(Source) Content with images & infographics can receive up to 94% more total views. We are a visual culture, images and videos are interactive concepts that engage users. Remember: Don’t over do it and make sure to optimize your graphics for online use so they don’t slow your page load speed.
[tweetthis]Images and photos are the most important tactic in optimizing social media posts. [/tweetthis] (Source)
4. Consistent
Consistent Content can mean several things. That it looks and sounds the same one part, which is why many companies have graphic guidelines and a tone of voice. Another part is that the content you produce must hang together, be clear in both thought and structure. And a third part is that there must be a connection over time as well. Regularity of the publication of content is one such thing. And one last note is that there must be credibility in messages, so that your company does not say one thing one week, and something completely different the next week.
5. Simple to find
Simple to find also has a couple different meanings. Your initial thought might immediately be searchability, having your content to appear in search engines like Google. To do that you must both work with the content itself, and add strength to the optimization of the content. The first is equal to the quality of content, and that your content delivers what it promises. The second is that you are careful with things like the keywords you want to be found on are included in headings, subheadings, body text, that there is a meta-text, you use tags and categorization.
But it also means that it should be easy to find your content on your website, in social channels, in your newspaper, or perhaps even in local events your company participates in. The more difficult it is to find your content, digital or analogue, the greater the risk your users are looking elsewhere.
6. Ease of use
Content that is easy to use needs to be both in the right size, format and is adapted to the user’s needs on different occasions. It can mean that you get to work with your website so it is easy to use responsive content which is readable whether the visitor is a computer or a smartphone. Or that you split content into different levels, so that the user can quickly understand what it is about and then decide whether to proceed or not. It may be that not publish your content in only one channel, but in several, or not only as a pdf. Last but not least, you may want to consider offering your users the same content but in different formats, because where some prefer to read is listening or viewing easiest for others.
7. Focus on the user
Don’t just feed them sales pitches, offer advice or information they will find helpful. Content creation based on user needs is a cornerstone of content marketing, but still one of the hardest things is to actually live up to. There are many mistakes that you could commit that lead to content that is more on your own terms than the recipient. The wrong language is one of the most common, we use technical terms or internal concepts. That you focus more on technology than on results is another. Perhaps the most common is that we never bothered to find out what is important for our audience.
8. Keep it current
An important part of the content of the work is to ensure that your content does not have outdated or inaccurate information, broken links, or any of the other things that make it less useful. There are few things that get a user to abandon a site faster than broken links or gaps in basic information like opening hours, addresses or contact information. And some other content it can be business critical that it works, that support features, price lists and other. Therefore, make sure you include in your strategy Content Marketing that it should be regular monitoring of the content.
Do you have more tips?
If you have suggestions for additional content creation tips so leave a comment below. The more complete list gets, the better.
