12 Bases You Need to Cover with Content
When creating content there are some bases you want to make sure that you cover. These same bases can also give you some great ideas and direction for creating content.
Services
Your content marketing should break down each of the services you offer, who needs you services, why people need your services and how these services are performed.
Choose a direction or angle to write about that your competitors have missed and create content that fills a gap. You should also look at what your organization has failed to explain about each of your services, in both online and offline marketing, and fill in those gaps.
Skills
Why is your company the best and most trustworthy? You have to explain this and one of the best ways to do this is to explain what skills are needed to perform a service and how you have acquired these skills. How has your company focused on education, skill training and experience to ensure your staff is the best of the best? Explain this to people and you will help them quickly see how competitors in your field are lacking in skills and experience.
If you are the best explain why.
Benefits
What are the benefits of paying for the services you offer? I think the wise way to handle this one is to create a list of benefits and then create an article that focuses on each of the benefits (per service).
Next, you can publish an article or page with the benefits of “service A” listed and link to each of the articles that clearly explain the benefits.
Negatives and What to Look Out For
People research services before they invest in them. Many have saved a lot of time and money by learning what how to avoid negative outcomes. Sometimes they find warning signs of a bad service provider or they learn how something they do can negatively impact the success of a particular service.
When you are creating content, make sure you educate your readers on the negative aspects of your industry and explain how what factors help ensure a positive outcome.
How-To
How-to articles are very popular and are so needed. If you can educate your targeted audience on some things they can do on their own, the right way, you really solidify the trust process. Another benefit is that this type of content can increase traffic from people who are searching for an article that will help them complete a task.
Ad Support
If you have online and offline advertisements that are promising or stating anything in particular you need to have content, that can be found by a site search at the least, that supports the individual advertisements you have in place.
Example: If you say that on Thanksgiving Day all kids at your restaurant get to eat for free you need to have content on your site that supports this offer.
Meeting Needs/Answering Questions
I know this is a topic I have written a lot about before, but I am going to keep talking about it. Your content needs to meet the needs of your current and potential customers. You need to think about all the questions and concerns you hear from your customers and you need to create content that will help answer questions on a larger scale.
These pieces of content can be used in the sales and after-sales process. Answer questions and meet the needs of those that will invest in your services.
Current and Long-term
You need content that meets current needs and long-term needs. If you have an offer for customers that lasts only 2-4 weeks then write about it. If you have specials or deals that are always available then write about them. Make sure your audiences know what is available to them at all times.
Your how-to articles, education on potential negatives and meeting needs/answering questions can serve multiple audiences for the long term. They can also send you steady traffic month-to-month.
Current Customer-Focused
After you have provided a service your customers can often contribute to the maintenance of whatever services you have performed. Write content that can help them do this and include this information in your newsletters.
New Customer Focused
What do new customers need to know about you? Explain it and don’t be afraid to toot your own horn and brag about what you have to offer. Remember you are trying to convert the reader into a customer. What do they need to hear/read to begin to trust you?
Social Share Focused
Creating content that does well on social networks is an art and this type of content is often created with goals in mind. You can try to share all content with social networks, but your followers will most likely get irritated because you are boring and only “tooting your own horn”.
Create researched and planned content that your social audiences likes and would share.
Email Share Focused
There is a large group of folks out there that do not share with social networks and still use email to share information they feel is important. This is a distinct audience that is often not as tech savvy as others. If you have a targeted audience, such as this, create content that will attract them and encourage them to share.
So Get to Work!
There are 12 bases you can cover in content that can keep you busy for a long time. What are some other bases you feel should be covered in content?
Melissa Fach has been in the SEO industry since 2007. She created her own agency, was the Managing Editor at SEJ, worked as an editor for Moz with their community team, she worked at Pubcon as the Community Manager for 5 years, and is an editor for SEMrush US Blog.
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