Here is a secret that a lot of content companies don’t want you to know…you can create engaging web content yourself! There is no trick involved, with a certain level of knowledge you can increase visibility of your website at no additional cost. Sounds great doesn’t it? The only thing you need to bear in mind is that you cannot wait for an amazing idea to fall into your lap, you need to get creative and quickly if you want to start reaping the benefits.
Today we are going against business etiquette to give you some of the best tips to help you create great content for your WordPress site. Give us 5 minutes of your time and you won’t be disappointed, here goes:-
1. Background Knowledge Required
To achieve the desired result, you need to know who you are targeting. Knowing your readers and what they will be looking for, whether it be a service or product, is key. It is great to have returning visitors to your website, but to grow your business your aim should be to have a steady flow of new visitors and to optimise your website in a way that also brings them back to you time and time again.
Gaining knowledge about your target base requires a step back, you may have been in business a long time but now you need to put yourself in your potential customers shoes once again. What are your potential customers looking for? Do they have issues they need assistance resolving? How can you assist them to resolve their issues? What would a reader type in Google to locate what they are looking for? Jotting these answers down will give you a solid foundation to begin your masterpiece.
Extra tip: Don’t forget that a lot of new visitors will not be knowledgeable in what they are looking for. Therefore, content on your website should be suitable for even the most novice of readers. Clear content written in an understandable way will help to capture your audience without requiring them to do hours of pre-reading.
2. Link the Content to Something Topical
Throughout the year there are different subjects creating a stir in the media spotlight, if you can find a way to link your content to these topics you are likely to attract audiences as a lot of people are reading up about the topic online.
For example, if you run a marketing company you may have noticed a slight downfall in business due to the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) that came into force in the UK on 25th May 2018. The result of such downfall is not because businesses are no longer able to market by telephone, email or post. The downfall is most likely attributable to the fact that other companies are not yet familiar with how the changes implemented by GDPR affect them and what additional rules they must comply with. Therefore, your priority should be to produce content focusing on this area, set the record straight and keep doing this in exciting ways until the message gets through.
Extra tip: Linking to topical subjects is a great technique and often works well, providing your content is relevant to the topic. If you are creating a tenuous link you are wasting your time, the quality of the content will suffer. It is better to have less content on your website which is all high quality than poorly written and irrelevant pieces.
3. Become Comfortable with ‘Home Schooling’
As businesses become more established it is easy to forget how you built that business in the first place. Reading a small amount about topics that benefit your area of specialism on a regular basis provides fantastic inspiration. Not only will your knowledge of these areas improve but you will automatically find yourself thinking of original content you want visitors to your website to know about. You may even find articles or blogs that are just ‘ok’, the subject matter is perfect but the content isn’t quite there…if you know you can do it better than do it! Strike whilst inspiration is hot.
Reading each day or even every other day will also keep you grounded as to what is changing in your marketplace, this will give you the opportunity to regularly assess how you operate and ways in which you can keep ahead of your competition.
Extra tip: Broaden your reading for even more inspiration, a topic may not directly relate to what you do but inspiration can be found in the most unlikely places.
4. Recycle More Than Food Packets
Without a doubt, one of the quickest ways find exciting content to write about is to read your existing content, improve and expand. Look at what content on your website has generated the most interest and create a whole new article or blog on this topic area.
If your existing content is lacking or of a limited amount, why not check out your competitors’ websites? See what they are doing well and see if you can do it better. Think in-depth about what would improve your website visitors’ experience and how you can create content that relates to them.
Extra tip: You must ensure you are creating new content, not merely copying it. The purpose of this exercise is inspiration not plagiarism. Any form of duplicate content on your site is likely to be penalised by search engines which is certainly not the desired result.
5. Facing the Dreaded ‘Writer’s Block’
If you are following the above, the dreaded ‘writer’s block’ shouldn’t visit you very often but it will happen so you need to know what to do when it does. Our first piece of advice is to trace your steps backwards, go back to point 1 of this article and start working your way through…it wouldn’t surprise us if inspiration strikes before you even make it to point 2.
Retraced your steps and still stuck? Move away from your computer and grab a pen and paper, yes we are taking this ‘old school’. Write down some things about what you do, what you want to provide your customers with and what you want for the future. On the face of it, there will be a jumble of information on one page but if you take some time out and come back to it later you will be fresh and ready to expand on it. A blank word document can be the worst to look at when you are brainstorming your next project.
