If you run an online business, one thing that can set you apart from your competition is the content you’re able to create. If you don’t already have a blog that you’re updating regularly, now is the perfect time to start. Although content marketing is a long-term marketing strategy, it has the potential to bring you a lot of success. However, you have to actually be contributing something worthwhile to the conversation to have your content be noteworthy. So to help you reach this goal, here are three tips for writing more useful content for your readers.
Know Your Specific Audience
Just like with other forms of marketing, you’ll actually find more success as you hone in on the specific group that you’re trying to target. While you might think that a general, generic piece of content would resonate with more people, a pinpointed piece of content will hit that small group of people much harder. To help with this, William Morrow, a contributor to the Huffington Post, recommends thinking about the specific people you want to target and then having your content address specific concerns they might have. For example, if you’re in the housing industry and want to target people actively trying to sell their home, you may want to write a detailed piece of content about appraisals and how they work.
Supply Data or References
For a piece of content to be considered useful, you should be relying on more than just your own opinion. To do this, Lindsay Kolowich, a contributor to HubSpot.com, suggests using a reasonable amount of outside research and data to help support your claims. If you can’t find anything out there that could help support the claims you’re making in your article, you may find that your advice may not be as pertinent as you may have thought. So when writing, look for credible people that can help qualify your statements and make your content more trustworthy and useful.
Give Your Topic The Time and Space It Needs
One of the worst things a reader can encounter when searching for useful information online is either being given too much or too little. When you’re glazing over topics that you should be delving into, your reader can’t get the handle they need on the content. But if you spend too much time on unimportant content, you’ll lose your readers and their attention. To keep this from happening, QuickSprout.com suggests being careful that the length and depth of your content match. This means that if you only have space for a short article, keep that content high-level. But if you have more time to dig into something, really give them the meat of the information.
If you’re trying to make your content more useful to your readers, use the tips mentioned above to help you do just that.
