Content Marketing is the art of creating content that delivers what the readers want to read, learn about, watch or experience. From a business perspective, content is an important form of information displayed on their website, application, or any other means of digital presentation. An astonishing 98% of businesses state that written content is their most-used content marketing strategy (Source: Digital Marketing Community survey)
Content Marketing can be a daunting and arduous task for businesses. One in three marketers admits that their content is not achieving what they are meant to achieve (Source: Zazzle Media). Fortunately, content writing is such a skill that one can improve with a little bit of study and implementing various strategies. This article is about 10 essential ingredients to make your writing more compelling and better to read.
1. Think Of A Compelling Title And Headings
If 100 people visit your blog, 80 will read the blog’s headings, and only about 20 will go further to read the entire blog. This implies that the headings play a significant role in customer retention and reducing bounce rates.
One important thing to remember is that the primary element of compelling writing is to make the reader read the following sentence and then the sentence after that and so on. So it’s evident that if the reader stop at a headline, it affects the bounce rates drastically.
2. Hook Readers With An Intriguing and Engaging Intro
Your headline has successfully managed to make the reader click through to read your content. Now you need to persuade the reader to read the entire blog. This is easier said than done. If your introduction does not immediately hook or grab your reader’s attention, don’t expect them to go through the entire article.
The simplest and the most effective way to implement it is to jump straight into the content as promised by the article’s title. For instance, in this article, you want to write more effectively, and in the intro, I acknowledged your challenge and provided some statistics to provide concrete proof that the article is well researched.
3. Write For Your Audience
A great and intriguing introduction might bring about a good start but is not the silver bullet. You need your article to be curated keeping your target group or audience in mind. In easier words, write for a small target group genuinely interested in the particular topic than for everyone visiting the page.
For example, it’s like the difference between writing on “Great Content Writing” vs “Great Writing”. This is because you are most probably searching for tips on content writing, and you might be working on marketing your products or services.
Whereas if you were reading an article on “Great Writing”, then you could be a journalist to a student or a struggling novelist.
4. Focus Your Article
Each article must have a single objective right from the introduction all the way up to the conclusion. This approach will assist you in making more logical arguments, write an article with a natural flow and provide clear takeaways for your readers.
Providing a valuable article for a topic too broad is very difficult, but if you narrow down the article to a focussed topic, you will be able to provide real value to a select group of people interested in the particular topic.
5. Make Your Article Engaging
Even if your headline is catchy and people start reading the content, the reader’s retention is solely based on their engagement in the article. As a marketer, we have heard multiple times that good content writing is to use simple language but to remove redundant words to convey our message.
This is not always true. Instead, it solely depends on the target group the article is meant for. It also depends on which platform the article is viewed. So good content is well-curated for the target group and keeping the language level according to the reader’s level.
6. Use Your Unique Brand Voice
If you observe, some brands seem to stand out from the rest through their content. Once you have figured out whom you are writing for and who your specific target group is, stick to it. Writing’s all about consistency.
If you’ve got a single person managing the entire content or if a team is so that there are no discrepancies arising due to conflicting tones and style, here’s what your brand voice document must generally include:
Your brand’s values and mission statement
A description of your audience and their style of speaking
Your ideal relationship with your audience
Examples and tone of the way you write (or don’t)
7. Provide Knowledge That The Readers Want
Imagine if you searched how to write better content, google recommended this page, and you find a bunch of information on how to improve your Graphic Designing skills.
Or suppose instead of giving tips, I wrote 2000 words on why Great content is important and not any examples and pointers on how to do it.
You would probably never visit the site. That’s why it is vital that you do research on what content your readers want before searching for keywords.
8. Have A Well Structured Outline And Follow It
Once done the research and finding out what your audience expects from your article, it is time to devise a well-thought-out outline. Why bother with the time and hassle of creating an outline? It is because it helps you write a well-structured article with a natural flow.
Adding to the benefits, it helps you research and find useful statistics and images to support your article and strengthen your arguments. The process is simple. Just take the subheadings decided through keyword research and place them appropriately. For instance, “What is SEO” would come before “What is the importance of SEO?”.
If you want to place multiple points in a sub-section, break it into bullet points. For example:
Why is SEO important?
Increasing Organic Traffic
Local SEO improves conversion rates
SEO offers long-lasting results
9. Include Actionable Tips
The goal of creating great content is to provide readers with a comprehensive set of information that they wanted to read about. Providing the readers something valuable increases the chances of them revisiting your site. They might also share the content and sign up to your mailing list.
The most effective way to teach and provide some information is to include specific and simple actionable tips which the audience can learn and practice on the go. In other words, don’t create hypothetical situations, but instead, teach how to tackle real-world problems, the tools you use, and how to find references and articles to support the article they write.
10. Add A Trust Factor
There’s a plethora of content present out there. Why should a reader choose your article over any other? One of the best ways to stand out from the crowd is to provide trust to your audience. This trust should be such that this website offers genuine content, well-researched, and comprehensive. This consistency will drive the trusted traffic to your website whenever you publish an article.
Some pointers which help in creating high-quality content are:
Linking out credible sources: These could include links to mainstream media, government sites, or authentic web surveys.
Get credible sites to link your content: If a famous and credible site like HubSpot links some survey of yours, it would improve your credibility and drive massive organic traffic to your page.
Comments