The blogosphere is filled with trillions of information competing for space and ways to satisfy a diverse pool of audience. What's most important isn't the existence of the numerous information we have access to, but how useful they are to our daily lives, businesses and growth.
If you're a blogger reading this, I'm sure you understand how time consuming it can be to create valuable and sharable content. No content creator wants to spend hours working and end up getting very few views or sales even one month later. Sometimes, you might find yourself doubting if your content is worth it and probably get exhausted at some point.
However, it's possible to create content that gets hundreds and even thousands of views and shares on social media while improving your blog's visibility. But what's most important is producing quality content that creates the best possible experience for your target audience and opens avenues to build stronger relationships in the process.
There are series of planning and creation processes that eventually convert your readers into sticking with your tribe. Here are five vital steps you can take towards creating useful content for your blog and audience.
1. Purpose
Before planning your content, it's important to consider the purpose (the why) behind it. Consider how your articles add value to your readers. What essential information are you passing on to them?
Effective content takes hard work and some heartwork. You'll need to engage your thoughts, energy, time and resources towards creating evergreen content that would leave your audience craving for more and hopefully converting to customers. Furthermore, content creation from a place of purpose will need to involve your interests, values, expertise and beliefs about a certain topic or niche. By connecting these core values, you'll create a process for effective flow of ideas that will also help you grow.
Ultimately, once you find a purpose behind your blog, most of the other ingredients like content will work together. Focus on creating content that is worth reading, has a long lifespan, drives a message, and provides a solution.
2. Topic Ideas and Brainstorming
Once you've figured out your purpose, it's time to start brainstorming on topics that would fit perfectly with your core message. Make a list of ideas around your content focus for the month and do some additional research where necessary. Use platforms like Buzz Sumo, Google Alerts, Google Trends to analyze blogs in your niche that have written about similar topic ideas. Note that some of your ideas might require you to step outside your comfort zone and use platforms like Youtube videos, conduct interviews, partner with other bloggers/experts, do periscope sessions and more.
Take it a step further by using an editorial calendar to plan your finalized ideas and track progress using tools like Google Analytics.
3. SEO and Keyword Search
Choosing the right keywords for content on your blog builds the foundation for an effective Search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. Ranking high for the right keywords can literally transform a website. Research the target keywords and phrases frequently used in your market/industry. By using the right keywords, you'll position yourself in front of your potential customers and visitors.
Using keyword tools such as Google Adwords keyword planner tool and Google Trends are great starting points for SEO keyword research. Such tools help suggest essential keywords, track performance and also provide an estimated search volume for those words. The more useful content your content is, the better ranking you'll get for your keyword use.
Furthermore, understanding SEO goes beyond just a keyword search. In order to create a consistent approach towards SEO, and the general ranking of a blog, it's important to also understand the essential SEO reports needed to measure your ROI.
By connecting your content goals to essential metrics, you'll be able to evaluate the progress of your blog's success. Such tracking methods also pinpoint threats and opportunities for better decisions and continuous growth.
4. Write Sharable Headlines
Writing great and share worthy headlines serve as an essential aspect of content marketing for your blog. Each great headline acts as bait to lure readers to click on your link.
Once your blog headlines can create a favorable emotion in the mind of your potential readers, it becomes clickable and drives them towards taking action. This also leads to getting your content shared not only by your readers but also experts in your niche.
Great headlines alone do not automatically make your content go viral. But meaningful content backed up with magnetic headlines that are intriguing and add value to your audience, will most likely make your posts go viral. Always make sure your content delivers on the promise of your headlines which will eventually encourage your readers to recommend your content to others, thereby creating a pattern that encourages a viral effect.
In a study of over 3.3 million paid headlines performed by Hubspot, it was found that headlines with bracketed clarifications - [Interview], [Video], [Podcast], etc, performed 38% better than headlines without such indicators. With such facts in mind, it's important to add them where necessary, to create an efficient clickable vibe for your content.
5. Choose the Best Type of Content
While most people start off by writing blog posts, there's always room for expansion. By producing new types of content beyond just blog posts, you'll be positioning yourself in front of new set of targeted visitors including advantages like improved SEO and new traffic.
Successful content creation requires an open eye for trends that have the potential to build credibility. There are different types of content to consider, including videos, infographics, podcasts, interview formats and more.
Once you're done with brainstorming on ideas, figure out the content types that work best for each idea and create a strategy towards building useful content that will pass on the core message and also lead to increasing your conversation rates.
In order to keep planning and creating useful content for your blog's audience, there are different ways to add a touch of creativity and uniqueness even while following digital trends. It's important for content to provide solutions for a pain point that your readers might be experiencing. The more your content provides value for your readers, the more credibility your blog will have in the long run.