n our days, the internet has attained almost the same level of importance as the air which we breathe. We constantly spend time on our phones, tablets and computer screens, smiling or chuckling over something someone miles away in a place we have never been to said in passing, thinking about making purchases online, making plans for an outing with a group of friends or searching for information.
It goes without saying therefore that if you are into a business that requires a little more than the average exposure, as most businesses do, then your business website, blog or social media accounts must provide great content. Here, we break down the characteristics of awesome content into itty-bitty pieces, making them easily digestible and easy to put into practice.
What Makes Content Great?
Content is simply information. Great content is information that is valuable, actionable, memorable, quotable, and readable.
Great content is evergreen, standing the test of time and maintaining high interest that keeps people coming back for more. Certainly, what is considered great content by one reader might not have the same impression on another. It is important therefore to understand your target audience and tailor your research and writing to suit them. If your blog is business based, you can still streamline content to help different kinds of business people. The kind of information you provide for entrepreneurs seeking the right business loan through companies such as LendGenius would differ from content for B2B companies. What matters is that you are providing current information in an organised way.
Finding Your Audience’s Tickle Spots
Can we just get this out of the way? Without your target audience, all the time and effort put into research, writing, sitting on your backside till it is numb and staring into your computer screen till your reading glasses fog over would all be for nothing. Nothing!
The first step to creating content that would leave your target audience in awe at the products, services or other information you want them to focus on is to learn as much as you can about your audience persona(s). The best type of content is the one that shows a confident understanding of what the readers want, and provides exactly that. Adequate and organised research needs to be carried out even before you sit down to create content for your website or blog. This saves you from throwing your valuable time down the sink pipe, which is what happens when none of your audience cares to read what you’ve uploaded.
What should your research focus on? Find out what their biggest problems are, what it is that they want the most. Content that fills in the gaps in those areas will make you vibrate at the same frequency as your audience, gain their attention, and give you the results you need.
Characteristics of Awe-inspiring Content
As incredible as it may sound, great content really does promote itself. Understandably, keyword ranking and other useful search engine optimization nuggets are useful for making your content findable. But then, locating your website is one thing, sticking around to read content available on the website is another. Whether your content is intended to educate, convince or delight, incorporating these six characteristics will raise the impact of your content.
Great content is
Valuable
Memorable
Quotable
Readable
Actionable
Great Content offers Information that is VALUABLE
Valuable as a content trait is the mother of all the others. I’m sure we can agree that content that is actionable, quotable and readable will have the most value for most readers. When people go on a search engine to find information, they will click on the title that promises the most useful information for their current requirements. From title to main content, your readers should be able to get exactly what they are looking for.
Avoid shallow content that does nothing to add to the knowledge already available about your current topic or that lightly skims the facts. As much as possible include details where they would be helpful to improve the worth of your content. Other ways to offer valuable information is to provide highly interactive content. The effect of well thought out and highly organised content can be amplified with infographics, animated videos, podcasts, sliding galleries and so on.
Make your Content MEMORABLE
A picture is worth a thousand words. Clichéd maybe, but only because it is fact. Pictures, videos, infographics and other visual aids are necessary for memorable content. Copywriter Lucien Joyce believes that using visual content engages the “visceral psyche of your audience”, allowing them to find out more about your brand and we couldn’t agree more.
If you need any further convincing, consider the following statistics from thenextweb:
90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual
40% of people respond better to visuals
70% of your sensory receptors are in your eyes
The brain processes visuals 60,000 times faster than text
Interesting and well-designed content can be made even more so with memorable pictures and videos. A relevant picture depicting a clear idea of the context under discussion does more for your content than rambling on paragraph after bland paragraph.
Awesome Content is QUOTABLE
Certain lines get stuck in a person’s head after reading a great blog post or website article. They have that quotable characteristic that makes content powerful and quite difficult to overlook. There are lots of tools online to make your little bits of wisdom and insights available for others to benefit from, but first you need to make them so. Regardless of your reading audience, no one completely ignores great information so aptly shared.
Twitter is a powerful tool for utilizing quotable content. Even though you are given only 140 words to play with, you can still do a lot with that. Simply create small pieces of text to accompany your content that you can post on twitter, with well researched hashtags and link to your main content for your followers to check out.
READABLE Content is Great Content
A great many heated debates have been had about whether long or short form content is better. Content can be as long or as short as it needs to be to achieve your goals. Some information are best presented in details and end up being very long. In such cases, making the long content easy to scan and read through is important.
Readable content is not restricted to good writing alone. The way content is structured is also important. Organise your content in a way that it is easy on the eyes, and easily captures reader interest.
To make content readable, consider the font you are writing your content with. Your font of choice should be one that is clear and legible and can be comfortably viewed on all types of devices. Other factors to be considered include the text and background colour, column width and number of lines per paragraph.
Writing for on-screen reading is a lot different from writing for hard copy books. Some good tips for readable content you can use when writing include adding lists to your content, writing in easy to scan chunks of sentences, writing in a clear and concise manner.
Lists are easy to digest and make for quick reading, which is always a plus as far as busy readers are concerned. They are a great way to structure your content and make the most important points stand out from the rest.
Breaking up your text into as many blocks as possible improves readability. Headings and subheadings, bullet lists and so on make your content easy on the eyes.
Be as clear and concise as possible with your content. Avoid rambling and get to the point as quickly as you can. Of course some ideas need can be explained better with a relevant story or two, but the key word here is “relevant”.
Create ACTIONABLE Content
If writing awesome content is what you are aiming for, then you simply cannot afford to let your readers go without providing them with some sort of idea for applying the information you just provided. Some readers get inspired and spurred into action after reading a great piece, others need a gentle nudge in the right direction, which you need to supply. It is as easy as including tips for application.
In the first place, having a website or a blog positions you as an authority in your chosen niche. You are providing helpful content which is the gateway to getting moretraffic on your website. When you can provide people with information about what they need, you’ll build a reputation for being trustworthy and dependable – two traits a business needs to grow and sell. The next time they need information they will remember your site name (this is why choosing your domain name is incredibly important, but that’s a topic for another post), and come back for more useful content.
Creating actionable content isn’t rocket science. Give your audience something they can do as soon as they are done reading. Share a relevant resource or two, or provide step by step instructions on how to do something that is generally perceived by your audience as tasking, and you are well on your way.
The next time you are creating content for your website or blog, consider incorporating these characteristics for awesome, impactful content. How about that for actionable content?
