The web is full of strategies for writing great content but the best strategies are those that help you develop a writing style that is informative, unique and useful.
The best strategies will also increase your chances for getting your content read, define you as an expert in your field and ultimately draw traffic to your business.
Here’s a formula designed to maximize your potential with the written word.
When writing web content for blogs, websites or articles make sure you are doing the following:
• Providing value to the reader
• Grabbing the reader’s attention
• Understanding and knowing your target market
• You including a call to action
Are You Providing Value to Your Reader?
Why would someone would want to read your article? Is it educational? Is it 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?
Chances are people coming to your site already understand why they should do something, it doesn’t hurt to elaborate on that a little, but they also want to know how to do something.
Content that educates, entertains or solves a problem is powerful.
Great content goes beyond justifying its topic. Great content helps a reader find a solution or 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 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 continuous 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.
Know Your 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 Includes A Call to Action
You’ve written your content to whet your reader’s appetite so don’t leave them hanging now!
At the close of your content make an offer that will satisfy their hunger.
Offer them something free that will impress them or ask them to sign up for your opt in or ask them to consider reviewing your product. Whatever it is you want your reader to do, 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 readers will appreciate the information and if your content did its job, they’ll be receptive to taking you up on your link suggestion.
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 . A second pair of eyes can be very enlightening.
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.
You May Also Find These Interesting...
