The web is full of strategies for writing great content but the best strategies are those that help you write content that is informative, unique and useful.
It doesn’t matter whether you are writing content for your blog, website or articles, always make sure you:
- Understand and know your target market
- Grab your Reader’s attention
- Provide value to the reader
- Include a call to action
Great Content Writers Know Their Audience
You’ll lose readers if you can’t connect with what they feel and think.
For example, if you’re writing to someone with acne, acknowledge how they feel, an acne sufferer may feel embarrassed, ugly or even freakish. Mention those things in your content. Connect with how they feel.
If you’re writing to someone trying to learn how to golf, what are their frustrations? What are their desires when learning how to golf? What are their goals? What tools do they need?
If you have more than one demographic, write separately for each group. Not knowing who you are writing to will suck the essence out of your content and leave it dry and lackluster.
Great Content Grabs Your Reader’s attention
When writing content for the internet you have a very small window of opportunity to grab a reader’s attention. If you bore your reader or turn them off with your choice of words or dull writing style, they’ll simply move on to something else.
- Craft catchy headlines. Write a headline that attracts attention using your keyword phrase. Also write short paragraphs that get to the point quickly.
-Avoid writing long blocks of text. Smaller paragraphs will make your content scanable to the eye making reading a lot easier.
- Write in an active, conversational tone. Write to your readers as if you know them. Use phrases that you would use when talking to a friend. The idea is to make your reader feel as though you are talking directly the them, as opposed to writing an editorial for a magazine.
Is Your Content Providing Value to Your Reader?
Why would someone want to read what you just wrote? Is it educational? Perhaps it’s entertaining? Does it solve a problem? Is it information that someone can actually use or does it simply state the obvious or mention why someone should do something?
Content that educates, entertains or solves a problem is powerful.
Great content goes beyond justifying its topic. Great content demonstrates a solution. This could mean taking original ideas and putting an interesting spin on the topic, adding personal advice or telling an unusual story to make a point.
Great Content Includes A Call to Action
You’ve written your content to whet your reader’s appetite so don’t leave them hanging now! Give them a call to action.
Offer them something free that will impress them or ask them to sign up for your email list or ask them to consider reviewing your product. Whatever it is you want your reader to do, ask. Whatever the point is for writing your piece of content is, ask them to take that specific action.
Include a link that says, “Click here for more info!” or “Subscribe to my blog for more helpful tips!”, “check out this product“, etc.
Your reader will appreciate the information and if your content did its job, they’ll be receptive to taking you up on your call to action.
And Finally…
When completing your content, look it over with objective eyes and ask yourself this question:
“Is this something you would read and find interesting?
If you can’t be objective enough, ask a colleague, friend or relative to take a look .
And of course it goes without saying; check your spelling and grammar. There’s no bigger ‘turn off’ than misspelled words, poor grammar or sentences that the reader has to work at to make sense of.
