Your blog should be a treasure trove of valuable content. The kind of content that will attract your target audience to your website and set them on the road to becoming paying customers.
But how do you know what kind of content will be valuable to them?
Keep reading and I’ll reveal all.
But first, an overview of the objectives.
The objectives of blog content
When you’re creating blog content, keeping these objectives in mind will help you stay on the right track.
To attract
One of the main things your blog should do is attract your target audience. You can do this by creating the content they’re searching for and search-engine-optimising it so it shows up on Google.
To engage, inform and inspire
Once you’ve attracted your target audience, you need to keep them on your site. You do this with engaging content that gives them the information or inspiration they’re looking for.
To show expertise
You’re the expert, and your blog is where you demonstrate that. With articles that show you know your stuff and helps to build your target audience’s confidence in you.
To build trust
People buy from brands and businesses they know, like and trust.
Your blog is a great place for your target audience to get to know you, get to like you and start to trust you. So everything you write should be geared to becoming known, liked — and, most of all, trusted.
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You’ll notice I haven’t included ‘To sell’.
That’s not because a blog can’t sell or convert prospects into customers.
But selling isn’t one of the direct objectives. Instead, it’s more of a by-product. Something that will happen as a result of all of the other objectives your blog satisfies.
People who are just looking for information won’t appreciate being sold to. So unless you’re writing a sales post, selling is best avoided here.
10 Ways to create more valuable content
These 10 pro tips will help you create content that’s more valuable for your audience, your brand and for ranking well on Google.
Create the content your audience wants to see
If you want your target audience to come to you, this is the best place to start. By creating the kind of content that will attract them to your site and search-engine-optimising it so they can find it.
To do this effectively, you need to think about the searches they’re doing online.
- What questions are they asking?
- What problems/challenges are they having?
- What do they need help with?
- What advice are they searching for?
- What how-tos are they looking up?
If they’re searching for it, that means they want to read it.
Use the best media for the job
When you’re considering the content your audience wants to see, you should also think about the media that best suits that content and will provide the most value.
For example:
- Style guides —> photographs + text
- Travel posts —> photographs/video + text
- Technical instructions —> illustrations + text
- Product demonstrations —> video
- Case studies —> video interview + photographs + text
- Interviews —> audio/video + text transcript.
Create better content than what’s ranking
If you’re creating your version of content that already exists — and you want it to rank well — it needs to be better than what’s already on page one.
By ‘better’, I mean more in-depth, more valuable — and possibly more current.
When you’ve created or planned out your own piece, look at the content that’s already ranking. Look for what they’ve missed, or what they could have done better, and apply that to your own piece.
Maybe they haven’t fully explored the subject matter. Maybe they haven’t answered all the questions. Maybe they’re using old data.
Wherever there’s an opportunity to do it better, you should take it.
Create content that doesn’t exist yet
If there’s content that doesn’t exist yet, there’s a golden opportunity for you to create it. That content will be extremely valuable to those who need it and haven’t been able to find it anywhere else.
To find these opportunities, try looking at:
- Content creators in your niche
- Your audience’s questions and needs
- Emerging and upcoming trends/tech.
Look for what everyone else seems to be missing or create a new trend of your own.
Be objective and impartial
A lot of businesses struggle with this one. Because being impartial means you sometimes have to point out the downsides of your own product — or say why a different solution might be more suitable.
And that seems counter-intuitive, because you should always be promoting your own stuff, right?
Err…no.
Because your stuff won’t be what’s best for everyone.
If you do end up selling, you want to sell to your ideal customers, because they’re the best fit for what you’re offering. Selling to bad-fit customers could mean leaving those customers unhappy, which can lead to bad reviews.
Plus, promoting your own stuff will make it feel like a sales pitch, which isn’t the goal and will be off-putting to your audience.
The most valuable content gives the best and fairest advice for different situations. And this will also help to build trust in your brand.
Be consistent
Consistency is important for building trust. And having the trust of your target market is something that’s valuable to your brand.
What do I mean by ‘consistent’?
Show up consistently
Be present and dependable. Post new blog and social media content regularly. Talk about current issues that are relevant to your industry and don’t be afraid to have an opinion.
Have a consistent message
Your brand message should always be the same, with no deviation or contradiction.
Use a consistent tone of voice
Your brand should always sound the same, with the same personality and tone of voice in every piece of content you put out there.
Make your content accessible
To give the most value, your content should be accessible to everyone who needs it.
For example, you should use:
- Plain language your audience will understand
- A light background with dark text, for easy reading
- A clear, legible font at a reasonable size
- Short paragraphs and lots of white space
- Relevant and meaningful headings
- Subtitles and transcripts on video/audio content
- Meaningful alt tags on your images
- Descriptive text links for linking to other content.
Support your content with credible information
Content is instantly more valuable when it includes credible information from official and trustworthy sources.
For example, you could use research findings from:
- Respected media publications
- Universities and other institutions
- Large companies and corporates
- Professional bodies and organisations.
Wherever possible, link to the original source. Google will also see your content as more valuable if you include high-quality external links.
Link to other relevant content
The most valuable content is helpful to your audience and anticipates what they’ll want to do next.
For example, will they want to:
- Learn more about the subject?
- Find the answer to a new question?
- Watch another tutorial?
- Read a complementary article?
- Learn about your product or service?
In your calls to action (CTAs), you can link to other relevant content that may be of interest to them and will help them on their journey.
Repurpose your content
You can get the most value out of your content by repurposing it in different ways for different audiences.
For example:
- Turn your blog post into a video or SlideShare
- Discuss your blog topic in a podcast
- Tweet stats or nuggets from your blog post
- Use a section of the blog post to create a LinkedIn post.
Do you need high-quality blog content?
Allow me to introduce myself.
I’m Jenny Lucas, a freelance copywriter and content writer based in Leicester, UK.
Check out my blog for more articles on Content Creation, SEO and Working with me.
Photo by Matt Glover Photography
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