I am sure that you have heard it over and over – content is king. You get it. You understand it.
But you don’t want just any old content just for the sake of having content, you want it for a reason. And you want it to be good, whether it’s written, video, or podcast.
Here’s a list of some of the necessary elements that make for good content:
Content has to have a purpose for you.
If you’re just looking at it as filler for your blog because you haven’t posted anything in a while, you’re missing the boat. This is your chance to show your expertise, build trust, gather more traffic and followers, build your list, convert readers to buyers, etc.
It needs a hook.
People are here and gone and you don’t have long to grab their attention so they’ll read, listen or watch your post. Take some time to insert your hook right in the beginning.
And following closely on the heels of the previous tip, it can’t be boring and it can’t be long. People don’t have time for boring or long.
Content has to have a call to action.
Yes, you might want to educate people or tell them your experience, but send them somewhere after that. It could be to a link for your product or an affiliate tool, join your list, check out another post you’ve written, tweet the post, comment, etc. Don’t forget links to helpful resources or other posts in the body of your content too.
Google has to like your content.
That means it has to read well – no stupid keyword induced poor excuse of a headline and no keyword stuffing. Bottom line is Google will like it if it’s relevant and you wrote it for people, not for Google.
Your content needs images.
Graphics break up the text and are friendly for the eyes to read. Think stock photos, graphs, screen captures and infographics. Naturally they should be relevant to the topic at hand.
Good content absolutely needs to be shared.
This circles back to your purpose for posting your content. Take the extra time to email your list and share it via your social media channels. In fact, do the social media thing more than once per post. Encourage your readers to share it as well.
Above are what I consider to be some of the elements of good content. One could argue that content has to be well-written with good grammar and no typos, but readers tend to look past that as long as it makes sense and there is perhaps some passion behind it.
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