Unplug Your Greatest Content in Just 15 Minutes

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If you are not a copywriter or content generator by trade, then empowering content on an ongoing basis can seem a daunting task. Just the thought of sitting down and writing in any depth immediately transports us back to our school days when writing articles and essays consumed vast quantities of effort and time. Now we are in business, time is even more pressing and it’s easy to put off creating great pieces. But we know that Google likes and rewards fresh ongoing content, tagged and primed to take your website higher up the search ladder.

Within our blog series, the content maker team will take you step-by-step how to write and keep on writing, engaging and compelling content that adds true value to your online and marketing efforts.

Let’s start at the beginning with Five Simple Steps to follow for content to be proud of - whether creating new articles or refreshing existing content:-

1.     Do your Research on the Problem the Content Addresses – This may sound an obvious start point, but make sure you are not writing for the sake of writing and that there is a real need for as many people as possible to read your article. If you are in doubt, a good idea is to take direction from Google Analytics to really understand which search terms are currently most popular and trending.  

2.     The Power of the Content Lies within an Effective Title. This is the single most critical item in the entire process as it literally makes the difference between your content being opened, consumed or not. Within one sentence, you will need to identify the content topic, break it into manageable chunks and point towards solutions. You will see experienced content generators using titles like:-

·       Top 5 Reasons why you need to Show Great Content!

·       How to Quickly Troubleshoot your Existing Content and Gain Results!

·       How to Achieve Content that Users Want in 15 minutes!

·       3 Bad Content Practices that you should stop doing now to gain increased web leads.

·       A Ten Point Content Healthcheck that every website owner should use!

A good practice tip before you develop your article is to run your content title by someone outside of your organisation to see if it resonates with them. Whilst they may not understand the technicalities of the piece, they should still be able to associate with your headline.

3.     Remember Your Structure – take your readers on a content journey in each and every article. Once you are confident you have developed the most compelling title possible, start on the body of the article. Use a fixed structure of telling a story that relates to the reader. Using a fixed structure also gives you confidence to repeat content generation on an ongoing basis. Cover these simple steps; identify the problem; relate the problem to the reader; suggest solutions that solve - where possible using real life examples (e.g. testimonials from case studies). Personify yourself so that the reader can see the whole you.

4.     Show your Expert Status – no-one knows your business like you do and no-one is better placed to write compelling content than you! Let your passion flare, enjoy writing and reading your work and write with regularity (at least one piece of fresh content each month for small businesses, each week for mid-market businesses).

5.     Check, double check and then make it a treble. This one is obvious but frequently overlooked, in haste to have the article published live. Accurately tag and attribute your work and for placement tips, check out our “3 Part Guide to Content Placement that Truly Sticks.”

 

About the Author:

Sharon Munday is the owner and lead content maker for On Your Case Ltd and for the past ten years and has authored and presented extensively on all aspects of ‘Expandable Content’ across the European IT vendor circuit.  She is the proud owner of one crazy Weimaraner puppy; two beautiful children and one large Australian husband.