Are you publishing daily fresh pieces on your blog?
Going crazy for guest posts? But not getting the kind of response you were expecting?
I understand. Yes, I really do!
Don’t worry, there is no need to panic.
Because this is very common and a lot of content marketers face this issue. Not all content gets the desired response.
But this is not something you should be casual about!
There are also millions of other content marketers who create content which immediately converts and brings high traffic.
The trick is to construct a content strategy which makes your content compelling and viral.
Now you must be wondering, ‘How’?
I’m going to give you some basic rules today after which you just can’t stop crafting great content.
Here are 9 Ground Rules for Crafting Compelling Content:
- Have a Group Brainstorming:
We often think that creating good content is just one person’s thoughts and his writing style alone. However this is not the truth.
A group of minds work way better than a single mind can. Why?
Because:
- More brains work in a higher capacity
- Produce more ideas
- Have a variety of thoughts
Hence,
Before finalizing the topic and writing your post, just sit with group of writers and editors or the whole team to discuss the topics and generate great ideas.
- Try Content Curation:
The second step that you have to take is to curate the content. Curation means collecting the content from the right places, gather it and edit it before publishing it or sharing.
Curation ensures that you havethe right content and you know where you are heading. One important thing that you should make sure is to get the content from a platform which creates similar content.
Remember,
Relevance is very important. Because if you are curating irrelevant content then there is simply no use of it and your audience will not be interested in sharing it with their circle.
Here are some of the tools which helps in content curation:
- BuzzSumo
- Scoop.it
- Feedly
- Quora
- Trap.it
These tools give you some top content in many niche areas which means it can work for your audience engagement as well.
- Use Unique and Original Content:
Then, once you have curated good content for reference. The next step should be creating extremely useful content which will be beneficial for the audience.
You see, readers are there for getting value. So providing them value, and quality should be your first priority.
Along with being useful, your content should also be original. You can get the ideas and some writing style from good blogs of your niche, but just don’t go copying because that will ruin your reputation and your site’s distinct personality.
As Google’s webmaster guidelines reveal:
“It’s worthwhile to take the time to create original content that sets your site apart. This will keep your visitors coming back and will provide useful search results.”
Original content doesn’t really mean original ideas. You can take an idea while curating the content and through your research you can use those ideas to make your very own content. So learn to innovate and always give value to your audience.
- Be Precise and Comprehensive:
Your readers are skimming through the content. Always try to say the important things first and don’t ramble.
If you write to-the-point content, it will also be easy for the readers to grab it faster.
Writing brief is an art and it can only happen if you know the topic well. It helps eliminate dragging the words. Try to give the information to the fullest with the use of concise words.
We often try to impress the audience by writing complicated stuff but it doesn’t work, instead it drives the readers away.
Having comprehensive content is the best strategy to increase traffic and create loyal audience.
Read more on How to Create Comprehensive Content.
- Share Success Stories:
Success Stories always grab good audiences!
Why?
The success stories are more than just the customer reviews and testimonials from some of the best clients. These help in getting a competitive edge over the competition and to persuade your audience in converting.
Because people like the real-life examples. They want to see if something happened in real or is it some made up story. When brands represent some amazing success stories, the audience start believing the brand. They feel that it really happens and can also benefit them if they use that brand.
So be it any kind of site, whether you are selling or you are just running a social blog, try sharing some great customers (or any stakeholder) stories in your content, that will really boost up your traffic.
Check out this very useful PowerPoint Presentation on How to Create Success Stories.
- Work Hard on SEO:
Apart from creating captivating content theme and stories, you also have to take care of the writing style you are using. The optimization of your content is very important as well.
Compelling stories without SEO (search engine optimization) simply turns into failure. If the content doesn’t appear in front of the audience then how will they like or share it?
The research reveals that content marketing and SEO overlap each other, content marketing can’t be done without SEO and vice versa.
Here are some of the quick SEO tips which should be incorporate in your content:
- Make sure your content pages are indexed.
- Use internal linking
- Use long tail keywords
- Enable social sharing
- Check meta-description and titles
For more details, go through this Powerful SEO Guide, this will guide you on how to create content that is properly optimized.
- Add Visual Content:
The other trick to make your content appealing is to add interesting visual content in it. And when I say visual content, what I mean is use of images and videos in your content. Try putting in relevant and eye-catching images.
Especially the featured images!
Because featured images help in:
- Grabbing the reader’s attention
- Making the visitors to click the blog post
- Promoting the content on social media
- Giving an idea what the post is about
The designers have so many ideas nowadays, they create extremely interesting post images and featured images. The best part is that now easy-to-use software are available which help you create the images by yourself.
Take Canva for example. It’s a super easy and user-friendly image editing software in which you can create your own posts and images.
Other than the images in the post, even when you are using the content for ad campaigns, use creative and attractive posts on social media, because other than the words your creativity and the selection of images count a lot too.
Use of videos or small slideshows also add in variety in a blog post.
- Construct Strong Headlines:
The headlines play a vital role as well. In fact your headline acts as a gateway between your post and the reader.
If your headline isn’t attractive enough, the visitor will simply skip it thinking that it’s not worth it, no matter how good the content is.
According to a research, 80 percent of the blog traffic only skims through the headlines or the post titles. This shows how important the headline is and imagine if a chunk of these visitors pass the headline gateway it will improve your conversion rate too.
So, decide on your headline after a proper thinking process and make it as a trailer for your article.
Check out this Infographic on How to Create Powerful Headlines.
- Update your Content Constantly:
Remember that your content need a constant update. You just can’t write your content once and then leave it forever.
You see, there are different kinds of content. Some are blog posts, some are ads, some are videos and podcasts, while some are just web content. For instance your website content will need to be updated as you make changes in your offers, your team or your general information.
If you have put in some ever green content, making few changes to the data and publishing the updates can bring a lot chunk of traffic to your site and get improved engagement rate from your old blog subscribers.
So make sure you keep a constant check and freshen up your content in order to remain up-to-date!
As it turns out,
It is very important to be sure that you are using the right content strategy and taking care of all the issues related to content.
This is because of the competition in the market, there are thousands of other names which are creating quality content, so you have to be fast and in fact the first one to break the news.
I am sure these ground rules would work for your content and you will do great after implementing these!
About the Author
Hammad is a tech entrepreneur with a passion for technology and online marketing. He’s currently on a challenge to build a $100k/month recurring revenue business. Check out his blog HammadAkbar.com