When Creating Content, Ask Yourself Why? Then Focus on 3 Things
Everything any business does to market themselves needs to be based on “why?”.
The “why” should come from goals that are researched and decided upon. Without “why” and goals, you will fail.
When it comes to writing page content, blog posts or any other forms of content marketing, you have to constantly be evaluating why you are writing what you are and make sure that whatever is written accomplishes a minimum of five things.
Kill At Least 5 Birds with One Stone
I know normal folks can only kill two, but you have to be better than that. You need to meet multiple goals with each piece of content.
You need to brand, create trust, convince, impress and sell at the very least on every piece of content you create. (That was 5 things birds, FYI, read them again). You can add to this list as well! You could educate, entertain, meet a need, answer a question…you can do a lot, but make sure you meet multiple goals.
You are wasting time, effort and money if you cannot ensure that you are accomplishing multiple tasks with your online marketing. Take the time to do it right.
Forget Being Memorable – Become Unforgettable
Memorable is OK, but being unforgettable is critical today because the human brain is ingesting so much information non-stop that being memorable isn’t enough. You want to get passed the short-term memory part of the brain (a lot of what enters short-term is eventually forgotten) and push yourself right into the long-term memory of the brain.
How one accomplishes this is really based on researching your audience and knowing what they really love and are impressed by and then kicking it up 4-5 notches. Create graphics that are outstanding and that they want to save (make sure your name is on it!). Include humor that appeals to the masses and is a perfect match for the audience you are targeting. Become an interesting educator, not this guy. Everything you offer needs to be outstanding! Offer things that will stick.
Say things that no one else has heard, give the reader things that are easy to remember and give what makes you someone the reader doesn’t want to forget. You want to create an interesting addiction/adoration with people.
Always Be Focused on the Future
I recently heard Brian Clark (aka Copyblogger) speaking at a conference. He explained how he created Copyblogger and factors that helped him become successful. He said that before he started writing he considered the audience he would be selling to 2-3 years in the future.
You should take this idea and run with it! Let’s say, as an example, right now you sell pool cleaning services, but in the future you are hoping to sell pool pump installation services and maintenance agreements. Let’s say right now you don’t have the funds or staff in place, but you know a ton about pool pumps and maintenance. You should be writing and giving people helpful tips and information about keeping their pools clean and healthy, but you should also start educating your current and future audience on everything they need to know about their pool pumps and what it will take to maintain them. Educate them completely, give 101 data, create guides, tell them who they can trust and who they can’t. You should be the ultimate teacher.
By doing this you are creating the belief that you really know what you are doing. You are creating trust in people who really see you as nice person trying to help them out. More importantly, if you wrote consistently weekly/monthly with unique content, you are setting yourself up for future success in the search engines to rank for the terms you will need to meet your goals. Ranking isn’t easy, but for small businesses, especially, content is critical to ranking and competing locally.
Remember
First, plan and research goals. Always ask yourself why when writing and accomplish at least 5 things in every piece of content. Become unforgettable and aim for the long-term memory. And lastly, throughout all your content always be focused on how it will serve you in the future.
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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