Content King (or Queen)
Are you wondering how to write great content? Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Writing for success
There are millions of people creating content for blogs around the world. You want to cut through the noise and be heard, and to do that you need to add something extra that attracts the reader to your blog. People want to read something funny, something that helps them do something, something they are interested in, or simply a what's new on a particular topic.
You need to make it worth your time to write it and worth it to the reader to read it.
There are key questions to ask yourself
Who is my audience? Who am I creating this for? Are they local or global?
How would the reader benefit from reading it?
What are my goals for writing this?
What is unique about me, or what I am saying?
How will I know that both my and my readers goals have been achieved? How am I measuring success?
Ideas for topics of interest to your readers
Think about topics first of all and make a list, then put them in order of interest to your reader. Is there anything happening at the moment that would make it more relevant?
Are you hosting a book club or book signing?
Attending a literature festival or a get together in your genre (think Romance Authors of America).
What are you writing?
Where do you write?
Have you met any other authors you can chat about?
Does your cat like your keyboard?
Do you have any wins you can share.. Think - ‘How I Sold 100 Books on Goodreads in One Week’.
Where can your readers buy your books? Or sign up for your services or workshop?
Anything you can share from your personal life is interesting, whether you are known or write under a pen name.
Now do a quick Google and Bing search and see how popular that topic is. If there are lots of blogs on the same topic, then it is probably not worth your time, unless you have something unique to add that only you know, or some additional expertise.
You could try putting a spin on it. This would add something unique to the post, and be of more interest to a wider audience.
Write a compelling headline
Once you have your list of ideas noted down, decide what you want to write about. You will need a compelling headline to grab your audience and get them to click through.
Once you have decided on a topic, jot down a few headline ideas first and make sure you keep your content about that title. If the Top 10 is too many, make it the Top 7. If Five Ways To is too many, make it Three Ways. It is much better to go with quality over quantity, as it is obvious when an article is padded out.
See the Top 7 Most Popular Headlines page for ideas.
Formulate a structure
You want a structure that is clear and concise, and sets out what people want to know about that topic. This is the what is it, who is doing it, when (any relevant timing) and why - as in why is it relevant.
You need a beginning, an opening statement that grabs the reader and tells you simply what the article is about. The middle contains the what, when, why points, and a closing statement that sets out what was learnt or achieved.
Are there any action pointsto add or links to other pages on the Internet? Website links to other pages will increase your Google rankings and SEO. An example, you could add on the bottom of your page.
What adds that extra special something?
This is where you think about what you bring to the table. If you researched the topic first, you may already have this. If not, then do a bit of research to add that additional content that makes it stand out, or add a link that others may not know about.
If it is something extra special, consider adding it to your headline and opening statement.
All done?
Once you have written your article, run through the following checklist.
Is the headline compelling?
Is the beginning interesting to read? Will it make the reader go on?
Have I provided enough evidence or covered the topic well enough to cover the points I needed to make?
Have I made a closing statement, or added a summary of the points covered in the article?
Is it easy to read?
Then check the look and layout of the article for the following.
Spellings and formatting
Numbers and facts
Have I added links to my website pages or other useful websites.
Make sure everything looks good and works, and the website click-throughs go to the right pages.
Maximise your content through marketing
Once you have written your blog post, then publish it on your website or landing page. Copy the link or using a tool like bit.ly to make it shorter if you need to.
Write a short sentence or two for your Social Media accounts. Make sure you include key words you have used in the article.
Create a pin or banner using the templates in Canva. They will need a different size for each social media account. Could you add a relevant photograph to make it more interesting?
Ask friends and family, colleagues and groups to promote your Ad or website link to their network, or in their newsletter.
If you have a newsletter, either write a summary and add the link to your website or take the introduction or the first couple of points from the article and add a call to action such as 'Read more on my blog'.
Add a call to action
Remember to add why you were writing the blog. If it was to ask people to sign up to your mailing list then say so. Or if you want them to read more of your website, then add that as a closing statement. Did you want more followers, then say something like, Follow Me on Instagram for more. Add that Call to Action.
Hopefully now you have written some great content for your blog. Try to write something at least once a month for your audience, and write additional blogs if you are launching a new product or service or if you want to increase sales.
I hope this article has been useful for you or at least given you some ideas.Sign up to the newsletter for more.
