At the end of the day, content is all that really matters for bloggers and online marketers. You can build links and plaster your material on social media boards all you want, but if the content is terrible (or even just mediocre) you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle the entire way.
On the other side of that coin, if you’re able to create genuinely valuable and compelling content, then chances are that your material is going to do a good job of marketing itself.
If the content is good, people will naturally want to link to it and send it to their friends and family who might also find the insight and ideas helpful or meaningful. So the question quickly becomes: how do we create that kind of content? What do we need to make that happen?
It’s not easy to create this kind of content on a regular basis, and for that reason alone, blogging is a difficult game to get into and even more difficult to stay in.
Yet those who can figure out how to produce quality articles on a regular basis will have every opportunity to succeed and to see their content show up on other sites and make a difference in the lives of those who read it.
If this is your goal and you’re looking for some practical application, here’s what to think about when you’re getting ready to write.
1. Your own interests — It’s extremely difficult to write about something that you aren’t interested in, or care little about. There’s just no way to get excited or enthusiastic about it. If that’s the case, you can bet that it’ll come out in your writing and cause your content to be average at best.
That being said, the best way to avoid this trap is to focus on establishing yourself in a niche where you’re interested and enthusiastic about the subject matter. If not, your blog is going to be a lonely and boring place for both you and the few readers you’re lucky enough to have.
2. Offering your own experience and a new angle — Compelling content doesn’t always have to be a brand-new, never-before-thought-of idea. Yet it should stem from unique personal experience, or an original angle that offers something new and interesting to the reader.
So a good way to think about it in simple terms is that you want to combine your own experience and knowledge with common knowledge and established fact, in order to create something unique and valuable.
3. Details and Thorough Writing — People want to be informed, especially those who visit blogs. That means the best thing you can do for them, is to supply them with information. It sounds simple, but the problem with stopping there is that there are plenty of sites that already provide basic information on just about every topic imaginable.
So why would they come to your blog instead of those sites? A lot of them won’t, but the ones that do will come for the details.
Bigger sites like LiveStrong.com and About.com are giants of information, but one thing they do not excel in is presenting the reader with thorough and detailed explanations. There are plenty of readers who want those details, so if you can provide them that, either through personal experience and anecdotes or thorough research, that’s an area where you win out over the bigger sites.
Taking advantage of this opportunity means better content and a major selling point for your blog.
4. Know your stuff — To do all these things we’ve already talked about, there’s no question that you need to know your stuff, and be at least somewhat of an expert in your field. The body of knowledge that you’re able to bring to your blog’s niche will enable all of the things we’ve already talked about to come into play a little bit easier.
While there’s certainly nothing you can do to make blogging “easy” coming at it from a position of knowledgeable authority will help the cause.
Marketing Something of Value
Such a high volume of what is marketed online has little or no real value to it. That’s a shame, but at the same time, it’s an opportunity for those of us who are committed to creating great content and providing it to the online community in whatever way possible.
Before you start marketing content, make sure it’s something of value, with actual worth that will make people glad they spent the time reading it.
image credit: 1to1media.com
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Hermine
Hey Marcela,
This post is timely and oh so true. The one thing you hit on here that I think really is the make or break point for a lot of people is interest in your topic. It’s the people who stay in if for the long haul that really reap the rewards so you better be sure you like the topic you’re talking about.
The one thing I’d have to contest here is being an expert in your field. I don’t think that’s absolutely necessary in most cases. Most times, just having a strong interest is enough to build up expert status with time.
Jane
Good points Marcela. From my experience I’ve learned that writing on a topic where the author is not personally interested in or where the author has no experience will not go on for a long time. May be the author can research and write posts initially; but as time goes on this task will become tedious.
Even if you don’t have to be an expert, it is necessary that you have some sort of interest and at least a little bit of experience on the topic you write about. Or you should just hire writers to do the job and this will get pretty expensive over the time!
Marcela De Vivo
Jane, thanks for your comment! I agree that you really have to be truly passionate about the topic you’re writing about; otherwise, it can get dry and readers will certainly notice.
Love these tips. Hopefully beginners find this blog. There’s a lot of good links in this article alone.
I especially like the last point about value. Content marketing is NOT ad copy. We’ve all seen enough of that.
I just wrote a post about how to use the Dewey Decimal System to categorize your writing topics. Once you have a general area defined, it is easier to drum up relevant and related topics to your product. I’d love to hear what you think.: Content Marketing trick you learned in school
I’ll enjoy looking through your other links. Thanks for this Marcelo.
Marcela De Vivo
Christine, I’m glad you find these tips helpful and I do hope that this piece finds its way to those looking to improve their writing.
I really enjoyed your article! I really never thought of the DDS that way…
Yes I agree with the fact that if you’re not interested in any topic then you should not write on that topic.
Savannah Parker
Hi Marcela,
A very awesome article, creating a very compelling contents is a must if you really want that contents to be read and shared by people and I’m sure that this post will lead many people especially the newbies on how to achieve that.
Thanks for the sharing,
Savannah
Jeevan Jacob John
Great post, Marcela.
I do agree with you – content is really important. And valuable content can market on its own. But, never forget marketing. It’s just as important as content creation.
What’s the use of creating valuable content if no one sees it? Sure, we could be happy that we helped one or two people, but is that enough (we could certainly help more by promoting our content :D).
As for content creation, our unique experiences and perspectives can make our content stand out. But, we must be willing to be ourselves and add our personality to our content. Some people refuse to do that – they want to mimic successful bloggers (mimicking is never good, sure, learning and using their strategy is good, but mimicking – never).
Anyways, thank you for sharing your insights on the matter 🙂
Hi Marcella,
Great post. Putting our experience into the topic is smart ways to make our content more compelling than others. Readers like to find perspective on stuff to compare to their situation.
Osho Garg
Hello Marcela de Vivo,
I think for a blogger the main thing is to enjoy blogging. Then he should choose topic according to his knowledge. He must have some sort of knowledge according to that topic. Another thing, he must follow recent trend which attracts more the readers.
Naveen Mayura
hello marcela!
As a blogger always its great matter of creating and presenting quality content to their readers, there are many experts in every field, it really hard to get newly a different matter to the readers, even the content is new the effective promotion is required to reach the big audience. You tips is given some knowledge thanks for sharing. I hope to learn more from you
Danny
Very simple yet powerful advice, Marcela.
Not having a genuine interest or being passionate about the topic can make it far more difficult to complete even the most basic of tasks.
There is a saying that goes: “Everything that could be said has already been said” or something like that……
So, basically we are looking at “putting a new spin” on the already available information, or showing it from a different perspective by infusing our own unique perspective on the topic….
suryabhan
Hi Marcela,
thanks for great share really creating a compelling content is always be a tough job for any blogger so thanks for the tips
Richard Truitt
Hey,
Content is the most important thing while writing the post.You should use the words which can easily convey your message to the readers.
Thanks,
Richard Truitt
Great article And you’re spot on with including curation into the mix. Using 3rd-party content to help tell your story not only provides credibility but additional perspectives and helps push you as a thought leader.