Why it is important?
Content is important because all of your online efforts will resolve around it. High quality content leads to:
1. Google love
2. Backlinks (People share it on their sites)
3. Viral opportunities - Content that goes viral can bring in massive traffic.
4. Your visitors love it - people will come back to your site.
5. Attraction - Content attracts social media audience, search engines and traffic in general.
What you need to create great content
Anyone can create content you just need a couple of basic things to help you along the way:
The right atmosphere - This is up to you, you need to figure out what atmosphere helps you feel creative.
Drinks and snacks - When you site down to create content, you don't want to have to get up. Keep some clean and healthy snacks and drinks at your desk.
Do instructions - Make sure you can set aside some time you know you won't be distracted. Let your family or partners know you need no distractions. Turn off phone, email, cell, etc.
Time - You need to dedicate time to creating content. Don't rush, set some time aside purely for content creation.
Music/quite - If you need complete silence to work, then find it! Some find that instrumental music helps spur them on creatively.
Inspiration/ideas - Of course you will need inspiration and ideas on the types of content to create. Check the next sections for more information on that.
Kinds of Content
There are many types of content you can create for your website. having a basic knowledge of the types of content you create, will make it easier for you to create it on a consistent basis:
Question and answer - This makes for an easy way to add content to your site. Simply answer questions from readers.
Borrow - Look for similar websites and borrow ideas for content from them. Do not plagiarize simple borrow ideas and create your own content.
Interview - Self explanatory.
Review - Review a product related to your niche.
Quotes - Compile some of your favorite quotes, or use one quotes and create content based around it.
Videos - You don't have to only write content - consider creating videos.
Audio - Same as above, save the time of writing by recording audio.
How-tos - Teach people how to do something that is second nature to you.
Best if list - Simple! Just create top ten/five or whatever lists of your favorite things.
Take a stance - Don't be afraid to be controversial. take a stance and defend your opinion!
How to get inspired
Inspiration is the key to content creation. Inspiration is the spark of an idea - the most sparks you have, the more content you can create. To generate these sparks try the following:
Free writing - If you ever feel like you need to generate some ideas, then site down and just start writing. Don't have any rules, don't correct spelling, just go ahead and write. Sometimes as you let yourself fall into the act of writing, ideas will emerge.
Walking - If you just can think of ideas, go for a walk. A walk will let you blow off restlessness while you are alone with your thoughts.
Keep a journal - You can write down dreams in it, things that happened, interesting thoughts, or whatever else you want. Many great ideas come to writers who are pursuing their own journal.
Reading - reading is a great way to get inspiration. Read topics related to your website, but don't focus solely on those, you never know when inspiration will hit.
Writing buddy - having a writing buddy is a great idea. Whether it is online or offline, having someone to bounce ideas off and discuss content creation with is priceless.
Content creation best practices
Create a schedule
Sit down carve out some time you dedicate solely to content creation. Don't choose a time you will be rusted. Adding content creation to your schedule is a great first start to consistently creating content.Be flexible
Don't miss out an inspiration, if something strikes you as a good content idea, you don't have to wait until the schedules time. Your schedule is a great idea but remember you might have to strike while inspiration is fresh!Add accountability
The easiest way to do this is have a content creation buddy or partner. Letting yourself down isn't nearly as traumatic as letting down someone else, so if you work with a partner you are likely to make sure you meet deadlines. You can also add accountability by announcing release dates of your upcoming content .You can tell family, friends or use social media. Once you have committed to a date publicly, you will strive to reach it.Keep success log
Anyone with any type of goal should keep a success log, and creating content should be your goal if you work online. A success log will allow you to see a timeline of your accomplishments at a glance. This is helpful to diagnose problems (i.e what days am I most effective one?). It is also helpful as a moral boost. When you feel like you're not accomplishing anything you can look back and see exactly what you really love have accomplished.Compelling content creation 16 steps to success
Think like a journalist
Before getting too bogged down with the meat-and-veg of the content, remember that you'll win or lose about 90% of your target audience with your headlines and intros alone. Win them over here and you'll have a much easier job with the rest.Inspiration
If you're in the midst of a dry-spell, try finding out what pearls of wisdom are floating around the brains of those around you. Family. friends and colleagues alike - even those with no interest in your niche can offer new and interesting perspectives.Bite-Sized
If you think they'll be willing to read ream after ream of text until they find something of interest, think again. A few lines is all you've got before they get bored and do a runner, so be sure to keep when you're saying concise, to the point and ideally in bite-sized chunks.News-Jack
The nature of the news world has always been one of poaching other people's stories and headlines - the key is getting their first and making it your own. As such, never underestimate the importance of keeping one finger on the pulse of your niche at all times, sharing anything you hear of interest before it goes stale.Related link: Small Business's Guide to Content Creation
Keep it conversational
English that's over-formal is a big turn-off for most as you quickly feel like you're being lectured, rather than informed. So, be sure to keep the tone always at an appropriately conversational level, without crossing the line into inappropriateness.Don't oversell it
Your audience already knows that you think you're great, so there's really no need to keep blowing your own trumpet and going for the hard-sell. If you do, anything you say will lose its sparkle and be interpreted as pure sales spiel.With photos, Keep it real
If planning to use any images whatsoever to back up your text, don't fall into the habit of using those oh-so easy and readily available stock photos. Sure they look nice, but they don't tell your readers anything about you and what make you tick.Invite guests
Guest posts not only allowed for new angles and new inspiration, but also show readers that you're welcoming and open - hugely attractive traits. Whether it's a guest blog, a comments section or a simple open-invite to share a few views, you can't go wrong when they're doing the graft for you!Also read: B2B Content Marketing facts
Reach out
If you seem to be constantly striking out in terms of figuring out what interests your audience, why not take the bold and brave move to actually ask them? Send out a few emails, make a few calls or even post few questions online - quit assuming you know what they want and find out for sure.Memory lane
If you struck gold in a big way with an amazing piece of content you wrote a few weeks or months ago don't go depriving your new and highly valuable readers of its glory. Instead, re-post it for those that haven't already read it - curate you content, reuse and recycle at all times!Honesty policy
Don't pretend you know what you're talking about if you don't and worse still, don't pretend to like something you hate. Your content will stink to high Heaven of fabrication and send readers packing - stick with what you know and love.Do your homework
You don't have to guess what's hot and not right now in your industry - you can count on Google and Co. to give you all the info you need. Look into plenty of up-to-date statistics and analytics to find what the masses are into and give it to them!Don't miss: Tips to boost your on-site content
Navigation
Make it clear, easy and fast for readers to find what they need where they need to go to find it. There's really no point promising them the world on your homepage if they then can't find where to click to move forward - millions of conversions are lost this way every minute of every day.Keep 'em separated
Topics with their own landing pages have much better conversion rates than those squeezed in on other non-dedicated pages...Fact! As such, it is vital that you give every topic you consider to be of importance its own landing page - this is a great way of conveying its importance to readers.Timelessness
When it comes to the permanent content on your pages, never include anything that can or will go stale in a matter of weeks. Or in other words, don't make permanent content relevant only to today - make it 'ever-green' so it's still as relevant in a year.Transcribe
Last up, don't forget that not every reader will be in a position to listen to your audio and video transcripts to be accessed when and where needed. The added bonus here is that these transcripts will be picked up and indexed by search engine spiders - video and audio content will not.Recommended for you: Get more eyeballs on your every post
Bottom line - People will discourage you on your work. Say "Welcome" and keep moving with your content creation process.
Now it's your turn - Please let me know in the comments how you get your content creation ideas and your best practices, inspiration and tips.
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Check out: Insider Secrets Of Contagious Content
Image sources: vdesigns.co.za | writtent.com
Infographic sources: amazonaws.com | websearchseo.co.uk
