According to Chartbeat, over 92000 posts are published every day. This means that there are a lot of people out there trying to compete for getting ranked on Google.
You want your content stand out so that people can like and share it. This will attract back links which will help your content rank on the first page of search engines.
But the question is how to create content which will be liked by people and search engines both?
Here are 21 tips to help you create great content.
#1: Do A Proper keyword Research Before You Start Writing.
Starting a post without keyword research is like starting a journey without knowing the destination. After all, you want to create content which can attract search visitors, get liked and shared by them.
Keywords research will give you an idea about the demand of your product or service.
It is no use spending time and energy on creating a product or service if there is not enough demand for it.
The success of your website totally depends upon whether you can find high volume, low or medium competition keywords and create awesome content around those keywords.
Suppose you are a social media expert. You want to search if there is enough demand for your services. Here is an example of high volume low competition keywords you can target using Google Keyword Planner.
From above screenshot it is clear that a lot of people are searching for the term “Social Media” and the competition for this keyword is low.
This clearly shows that if you start a blog around this keyword chances are you can hit Google first page if you create awesome content around it.
#2: Start With A Cracking Headline.
It does not matter how awesome your content is if people are not going to click and read it. So the first thing is to come up with a click worthy headline.
You must be asking yourself, how to come up with attention grabbing headline?
Websites like Buzzfeed, Upworthy and ViralNova had mastered the art of creating headlines which immediately grab the attention of its readers and entice them to click on it.
You have two options, you can either brainstorm for ages or do it the easy way.
Head over to Buzzfeed, click on trending, then click on Top Posts This Week.
You will get results of headlines of top viewed posts.
What does this tell you? This shows that following headlines are clicked upon, liked and shared by people.
You can choose one of the titles and replicate it according to your niche.
Look at following headline, ” 21 very real struggles for everyone who grew up with thick hair”
Now imagine you have a photography blog. You can write a post highlighting struggles faced by people who are not expert at photography. For example, “21 Very Real Struggles Every New Photographer Face”
This headline is almost guaranteed to attract people who are new into photography.
#3: Write Your Post In A Structured Way.
No one likes reading clutter. In order to make sure that your audience remains glued to your content, you have to make sure that your content is properly structured.
And it is easier for your customers to understand.
Let’s say for example that you want to write an awesome post on how to make money on Youtube.
How will you structure your content for maximum engagement and exposure?
Here is a tip,
Go to a website called Udemy. Udemy is one of largest providers of online courses.
On homepage search for your keyword, in this case, “Youtube” or “Making money from YouTube”
You will get a list of top courses on your topic.
Chose the course with best reviews and lots of students.
This shows that this course is liked by students and people are spending their hard earned cash to get the information.
Look at the structure of course.
I would not suggest you copy everything in the course and steal someone else hard work.
However, you can use this as an example to properly structure your own post.
#4: Write Like You Are Having One On One Conversation With Your Audience.
Humans love conversation not lectures. When you sit down to write a post. Imagine yourself sitting in front of your customer.
Write like you are having a conversation with your customer and you are trying to explain him the solution to his problem.
How would you talk?
Imagine the conversation and write it down. That is how you should write to keep your visitors engaged.
#5: Use Professional And Relevant Images.
You must have heard that an image is worth thousands of words. It certainly is true. The above image clearly shows that human brain reads images faster than text.
A Skyword research found out that articles with an image get 70% more views than content with no image.
Images in content also boost credibility and engagement.
#6: Quote The Industry Experts.
If I tell you, contrary to popular belief guest blogging for link building is not as effective as it use to be.
You might not believe me. Because the internet is full of SEO gurus claiming otherwise.
But if I quote Matt Cutts who is head of web spam at Google. You will instantly believe me.
Why because I had quoted someone who is at the position of authority at Google.
By the way here is what Matt actually said.
Yes if you are using guest posting as link building tool. Stop now because it might be adversely affecting your SEO.
#7: Tell Stories In Your Content.
We are emotional creatures we love stories. Numerous research over the years shows that your brain craves stories.
It immediately draws attention and connects you with your readers.
Story telling websites like Viral Nova had gained millions of visitors in the very short span of time by making use of head line art and good visual story telling.
A research by Harvard Business Review found out that your brain loves good stories.
Here is an example of a good post which got thousands of shares on social media.
#8: Give Your Readers Step by Step Instructions.
As soon as visitors land on your website. They are looking for reasons to leave it.
One of the main reasons visitors abandon your website is because the solution or content is too complicated for their understanding.
Here is what you should do to make your content really easy for your visitors.
- Break down your content into smaller, digestible and easy to grasp information.
- Use a lot of headings and sub-headings.
- Break content into paragraphs.
- Explain every thing in detail.
- Use screenshots to demonstrate your point.
For example, lets assume that you are recommending your audience to try a website called SkillShare.
You must give a detailed overview of what that website is about.
Step by Step enrollment process along with screenshots.
And what to expect during studies and how will it benefit your audience.
#9: Write Longer Content For Top Ranking.
Have you ever wondered, if you should write a long post or a short one?
According to research done by SerpIQ for over 2000 keywords. They found out that longer content ranks better than the short one.
Here is the result they got.
Yes, that is right. The average number of words of content on Google’s first page is just over 2400 words.
What can you learn from that?
This shows that long, detailed & thoroughly researched content ranks better in search engines.
So next time you sit down to write a 500-word article. Make it 2000+ words for better search engine ranking, shares and quality backlinks.
#10: Use Case Studies To Engage More Visitors.
Give a man a fish and you will feed him for one day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a life time.
Your customers are hungry for few things. Learning, knowledge, better products and solutions are some of them.
This is where case studies come in. Case studies are taking over the internet. They are a brilliant way to teach people something practically.
According to a research conducted by UK Centre For Material Education case studies are useful pedagogical tools.
Why? Because your customers can relate to real life examples and learn a lot quicker.
Websites like medium had built up a huge following. People write their stories and experiences on the Medium which are widely read and shared.
If you look at the top posts on Medium. You will find out the most popular stories are often cased studies where people explain why their business succeeded or failed.
If you have ever built a successful product or business and want to share the recipe for your success create a case study share it on your blog or Medium with good copy writing and watch your audience grow.
#11: Use Infographics To Get Lot Of Social Shares And Backlinks.
According to Hubspot, an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than text article.
But the question is how to come up with an attractive infographic. Not everyone is creative, right?
Here is a small tip.
There are many Infographic directories like Infogr.am, Picktochart and Visual.ly etc which have lots of templates available.
But in order to pick an infographic which is already liked and shared by other people. Go to the Visual.ly directory where people submit their work.
In search corner writes topic of your niche, let’s say for example “Healthy Food”.
You will get results like these.
As you can see above the first graphic has lots of views and hearts for the first one. This shows that people had liked this infographic.
This will give you an idea of what type of template you should use for the viral infographic.
You can either hire a professional designer or you can design an infographic yourself by a revolutionary drag and drop online design tool at Canva.
Canva allows people who are not designers to design anything without technical skills. Let it be a Facebook cover or Twitter post. Canva is there to save you lot of money and time.
#12: Create A List Style Post.
List based posts perform very well in search engines. Search any term and you will find at least one list style content on the first page of Google.
Why? Because people like reading lists. List style posts give their viewers an idea of what to expect in content.
If you wondering about how to create an awesome share worthy list style post. Please visit ListVerse where you can see how they generate millions of visitors using viral lists content.
Other than using lists to gain higher rankings. You can also use viral content to bring thousands of customers to your website just like ListVerse.
#13: Use Video To Increase Your Chance Of First Page Spot.
You must have heard. The video is future of the internet.
A study by Forrester blog found out that pages with videos are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google results.
Whether it is an explainer video or educational. It will always help your business make more sales and rank higher in search Engines.
#14: Use Gifographics in your content for maximum engagement.
Although gifographics are new however they have taken over the internet by storm.
They sit somewhere in between Infographics and Video. You can call them animated Infographics.
Please do not confuse gifographics with gifs.
Gifs can also be used for better engagement in entertainment niche but in most niches gifographics work better.
#15: Brand Your Solutions And Gift It To Your Audience.
This is one of the great tips you can leverage to prove your credibility.
Here is how it works.
Lots of time you will come across a problem to which you cannot find the solution online. But somehow you manage to find a solution on your own.
Whoa! That is it. You have found a solution. You can brand it.
For example. I was struggling to bring quality traffic to my client’s blog. Although I was reading and implementing almost all the techniques and tricks which all these marketing gurus tell online. The result was minimal.
Guess what happened next? I binned all the advice from so called gurus and started doing my own AB testing.
After few hard months, I managed to figure out a systematic approach to bringing high-quality profitable traffic to my client’s blog.
So what did I do?
I branded and named it Rapid Search Traffic Acquisition Technique. I will show you this highly actionable result oriented technique in one of my next posts. So don’t forget to Sign Up.
#16: Keep The Curiosity Of Your Readers Alive.
People have short attentions spans. According to a research conducted by Microsoft. 90% of your readers will leave your website in 10-20 seconds if they do not engage with your content straight away.
One of the proven tip to increase engagement is by invoking curiosity. I often do this by using how phrases like,
- “But the question is HOW to do it?”
- “You must be wondering HOW?”
- “HOW can you figure it out?”
- “What if I told you, You can do this by using my HOW TO guide”
- “Guess what”
These are some of the examples. You can use your own questions to keep the curiosity of your readers alive according to your niche.
#17: LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing).
Google uses Latent Semantic Indexing algorithm as one of tool to judge the quality of your content.
So What is LSI?
According to Wikipedia,
“Latent semantic indexing (LSI) is an indexing and retrieval method that uses a mathematical technique called singular value decomposition (SVD) to identify patterns in the relationships between the terms and concepts contained in an unstructured collection of text. LSI is based on the principle that words that are used in the same contexts tend to have similar meanings. A key feature of LSI is its ability to extract the conceptual content of a body of text by establishing associations between those terms that occur in similar contexts.”
As you know search engines hate keyword stuffing which is a black hat method for obtaining the top ranking.
Therefore it is necessary that you use related words and synonyms in your content so that your post does not appear spammy to Google’s LSI algorithm.
#18: Give Lots Of Great Examples To Clarify Concept.
What is the difference between a good teacher and a bad teacher?
A good teacher makes sense to you and clarifies your concept whereas bad teacher doesn’t.
Good one clarifies your concept by using a lot of examples.
Examples are one of the most effective tools you can use to make your audience easily understand the point you are trying to convey to them.
The more you help your audience, the more your audience will help you by sharing your work.
#19: Give Actionable Result Oriented Tips.
People hate difficult stuff unless they are really really desperate.
To keep your audience engaged and interactive the tips you give to your readers must be highly actionable.
For example, if you are explaining 21 content promotion strategies.
Your 21 strategies should be insanely actionable and easy to follow. If possible experiment strategies yourself to make sure they are will provide your audience with positive results.
#20: Encourage Your Audience And Influencers To Share Your Content.
If you don’t ask you don’t get it.
Whenever you create awesome content do request your readers to share it. Normally this is done at end of your content.
One of the ways to get mentioned by influencer is to mention them. Whenever you mention a website or someone important. Contact them by e-mail or social media and encourage them to share.
#21: Promote Your Content.
Publishing great content is only half of the job. The rest half and the most important one is effectively promoting your content.
You can do this by,
- Sharing it on social media.
- Emailing it to people you have mentioned.
- Emailing your subscribers.
- Reaching out to other bloggers and requesting them to share.
- Content distribution.
I am writing a post on most effective content promotion strategies where I will explain step by step strategies I use for my clients in order to bring thousands of targeted visitors to their website as soon as they hit the publish button.
So don’t forget to subscribe to my e-mail list for result oriented content promotion strategies which will help you obtain thousands of visitors and customers.
Conclusion:
Did you find any of my tips helpful? Do you want to add another tip?
Please comment below and let me know. And please do not forget to share these tips so that your friends can benefit too.
