Gone are the days when we can dole out volumes of mediocre content with just enough useful information to trigger a modest level of interest. Today brand marketing involves a high degree of communications skill and highly distinctive, energized, value added content that stimulates informed decisions quickly.
Our readers’ time is valuable, often affording minimal website visit time to determine first of all that they have clicked through to information they are searching for and secondly to confirm whether you have what they are looking for…mere minutes before they choose to remain on your site to find out more or click out as fast as they arrive.
As content marketers we are pursuing increased SEO rankings, great traffic flow and leads, engagement and conversion to sales. Exceptional content is a MUST for all blogs and websites. Original content is imperative. Search engines are now showing more favorable response to sites with highly engaging, quality and original content more so now than ever before. You can anticipate search engine penalties where poor quality or duplicate content is apparent. The higher your site page ranking the greater the positive impact your business will surely experience.
Whether a business or personal website, high quality content is essential for visitor engagement. What follows here are important elements of your content to follow for best results.
1. Develop Quality Content
Keep your content original rather than attempting to copy or closely recreate what someone else has spent a lot of time and effort to develop. It is not only unethical to copy the works of others but is serious frowned upon by the search engines. Establish your own credible authority level.
Generate highly informative, inspired content that offers a unique perspective and tells the reader you have something to offer that no-one else is or can offer themselves. Stand out from the crowd!
2. Attention-Grabbing Headlines
Run of the mill headlines just don’t cut it anymore. Spend a generous amount of time developing distinctive, attention-grabbing headlines that immediately promote reader interest and tell the reader clearly what your article is all about. Without those two key elements working naturally in tandem your visitor may quickly lose interest and click out, never to return.
Use effective keywords within the context of your headlines for best results with search engines. Always remember that the headline content is as critical as the body text that follows.
3. Deliver Actionable Content
Your readers come to your blog or website with one clear objective: to take away information that is immediately usable by them to their own benefit. Your readers must understand the practical application of your product or service as it applies to them. Your readers will have a need or a problem that you can solve…your content must convey that message clearly.
4. Your Content and Search Engine Queries
In order to find your article and website people most often submit a specific question and if your article effectively answers that question your article has a greater chance of visibility on search engine results pages. Be sure to optimize your body text content with relevant keywords and keyword phrases within a reasonable keyword density in the order of 3% of overall content volume.
Search engines are an extraordinary research tool where millions of people each day seek answers to their important questions, problems or needs.
5. Content Reliability & Sourcing Authority
Accuracy of information is paramount to effectively reaching your readers in a compelling, trusting way. They want to feel assured that the information they are receiving is fully accurate and that they will truly receive what they are seeking in a product or service. Research information you convey carefully…your business depends on your established level of authority and reliability. If in doubt with a particular source refer to another, several more until certain the information you are relaying is informed and proven. Never attempt to fluff on material fact nor mislead your readers.
6. Engaging, Stimulating Content
As with a nail-biting suspense/thriller novel, write your content to capture immediate and sustained interest and the desire to keep reading. Effective content should stimulate questions in the reader’s mind and a sense that they want to find out more. Through your words allow your readers to visualize how they can apply your information, product or service to their best advantage.
Opening your article with an attention-grabbing first sentence or paragraph is as critical as the quality and consideration put into your headline. Unless you can get your readers’ attention right away and keep their focus throughout your article they will surely click out in frustration or on the assumption you haven’t got what they are looking for. Be clear, concise and keep your content flowing for an easy read for their actionable follow-up. Tell the reader right away what your article is about and how it will help solve their problem…and make sure you deliver on that promise.
How you convey your message is equally important. Keep the language simple and use an appealing style that is easy to read and apply what they have learned for their own benefit. Be anecdotal with relevant storylines. Help the reader relate to their own needs, visualize their problem and the solution you offer.
7. Dynamic Visuals Are All The Rage!
Statistics today point to a rapidly growing visitor response and engagement through high quality, relevant images and also video elements. Visual aids are a powerful learning tool. People love pictures. Photographs invoke emotional response and the results are incredibly telling. It is only natural for our attention to eventually wane sifting through page after page of nothing but textual elements.
Introduce a carefully selected visual that makes an effective connection with the subject matter will ultimately have your readers’ full attention. The critical focus here is that the image must add relevance and value. Be consistent with using high resolution, quality images that really draw the reader into the overall story.
8. Brief Content Wins the Day
Readers’ time is critical. Keep content as clear and concise as possible. Readers’ time is valuable and condensed…just as your content should be. Avoid attempts to fill your content with ‘fluff’, flowery language used to try to impress your audience. Stay on point with your message that is information rich and solves problems, makes the reader’s life better. Oftentimes less is definitely better.
9. Keeping Content Fresh For Sustained Website or Blog Appeal
Industry news can get stale quickly. Ensure that as a product or service provider you are constantly staying in touch with current practices and trends so that what you convey in your blog posts or website articles is always ‘the latest and the greatest’! Be consistent about your frequency of posting new updates and articles and always maintain that critical focus on quality. Statistics reflect that frequent, consistent posts will generate more website traffic.
10. Your Website and Blog Content for Effective Marketing
It is important to recognize that your website or blog articles are a critical element of the success of your business as an integral marketing tool. Use your posting effectively and in conjunction with current day essentials such as compliance with search engine algorithms and associated guidelines in addition to high quality presentation for best results.
Remember to trim the fat…remove excess wording that is not key to the message. Always proofread your content to ensure that is reads well and is professionally convey and constructed. Ensure clean copy that is free of spelling errors and grammatical issues, sloppy composition and inconsistent flow of ideas.
A great, free tool to take advantage of is the built-in Microsoft Word ‘Spelling & Grammar Check’ tool. At the top of your Windows screen click on ‘Review’. Then look to the far left corner beneath the ‘Office Button’ and click on ‘Spelling & Grammar’. Then simply make necessary changes when cued for identified content issues, quick and easy. Do not fully rely on this tool as there are elements of content issues that the tool cannot detect. It’s a great start though on the way to a clean, well-presented article that fosters results.
Most importantly…be objective about your own content. Read it back slowly and intently. What do you take away? Is it highly informative? Does it come across as believable, compelling? Are you inspired with further questions and the desire to find out more from the writer or their company? Do you sense that you would be comfortable doing business with this person or company? AND…have you effectively optimized your content for search engine visibility? If the answers to these questions are less than positive perhaps some revisions are in order.
© Lasting Impressions Editing 2015; Penticton, BC, Canada
Lasting Impressions Editing © 2015