When you create content for your website, it needs to attract search engines by using the right type of keywords. But, it also needs to be engaging for your audience. After all, remember that humans are reading the content, not robots. Therefore, even though you need to use keywords in the text, it doesn’t mean the content should be boring and generic.
Your website should be at the center of all your online marketing activities, which means the content you put on the website, and in other places, is vital to the performance of your website. Without content, you have nothing. Content is still king, and always will be king. Make no mistake. While content types change, the value of content never changes. When you realize the value of the content that you create, you’ll take the time to create it right.
Check Out Your Competitors
How often does your competition post? Do they write it all themselves or do they have guest authors? Do you know whether they’ve hired a ghost writer or if they’re all self-written? How do they share and promote their content? Understanding how your competition operates can help make you better because you can find a way to make yourself different.
Create Unique Content with Value
Every bit of content you create for your website or blog should be unique. There is a place for private label rights (PLR), if you make it original with your own words and thoughts added, but most of the content on your website/blog should be unique to your brand and provide value to your audience. This doesn’t mean you can’t curate content – on the contrary; if you curate content well, your content will still be valuable and unique.
Answer Questions
You don’t have to have people emailing you questions to answer them. Go to where your audience is: forums, message boards, other blogs, and find questions that are relevant to your niche and answer them on your blog. It’s a great way to find content to write, and your audience will feel like you can read their mind.
Ask Questions of Your Readers
If you want to be more interactive with your audience, end every post, article and video with a question to the viewer. Invite them to answer questions, even give them incentives to do so such as random prizes or a special call out on Twitter. The more you interact with your readers over the content that you provide them, the more engaging your content will be. One thing feeds off another.
Finally, don’t forget to promote your content via social media. Due to the social nature of social media such as Facebook and Twitter, you can use social media in a way to elicit engagement from your followers. You can do this by continually sharing important content that you’ve created with them, answering their questions, and promoting those questions and answers as hard as you promote the content that prompted the questions and answers.