Finding Out Which Content Is Unacceptable For Your Website

Memorable domain name? Check. Really cool color scheme and navigation? Check. Content that your audience loves? Uh-oh. No worries this is where most website owners go wrong. They slave away on building the unique look and feel of their website, but can’t find or create the actual content that pulls in unique visitors.

Sound familiar? Content marketing is in full swing with no signs of slowing down. Most modern websites have a blog component to build authority in their industry or niche, which pulls in audiences and helps guide prospective clients and customers through the sales funnel.

That means entrepreneurs are now wearing more hats and marketing teams have much busier schedules to account for the extra workload that comes with content marketing. The extra workload usually includes content creation, curation, and promotion. Even outsourcing some or all of this doesn’t usually lift all the weight from your shoulders. Arguably, the toughest part of content marketing is knowing what content is going to serve your audience the best.

Knowing the difference between high-quality content for your readership and content that is completely unacceptable for them is the key to achieving solid ROI from your content marketing strategy.

First Things First: Get Yourself A Strategy

You can’t run before you can stand. A solid, well-researched content strategy is the strongest leg your company can stand on when it comes to publishing content. Why is this so incredibly important? It gives you and your marketing team the insight and data-based direction needed to create, commission, and curate the delicious content your audience will love as well as provide you with baseline goals you can use to track your reach, engagement, lead generation, and conversions.

Adam Draper of Gladiator Law Marketing For SEO says that your website should be designed well and have personalized content for both your current clients and any potential clients visiting your site. But don’t take my word for it. He also preaches the importance of content marketing and building an aligned marketing strategy in general, stating that content marketing strategies are a great way to keep your content aligned with your campaigns and long-term goals.

Now, wait a minute. Before you go hunting for freelancers and ordering blog posts from a wholesaler, you have to create a plan for your content that:

• Aligns with your marketing goals and your long-term company goals and objectives.
• Aligns with your company’s brand, mission, vision, etc.
• Capitalizes on the content and the following your brand or company has already created and built.
• Reaches your customers in new and exciting ways, where they spend most of their time.

Taking the time to develop a dynamic content strategy based on data and research will save you from the horrible doom of churning out content that never moves the needle for your business. To remain relevant, businesses have to feed the beast. But feeding it piss-poor content is a good way to get yourself chewed up in the dog-eat-dog internet world.

Say Something Interesting: The Art of Picking Topics Without Losing Your Sanity

So how do you pick the perfect topic? Everyone wants the magic bullet to this big, hairy question. The truth is, this isn’t as scary or complex as folks tend to think. Sure, if you get it wrong it could mean wasted money, energy, and effort. But getting it right is as simple as understanding the two biggest distinctions in content topics and how to use them. It really all comes down to evergreen and trending topics.

• Evergreen Topics: These are like the Internet’s version of timeless literature. These are topics that won’t get old anytime soon and will continue to perform for years. These topics are the backbone of any good blog. They’re pillars that keep the roof over your head.
• Trending Topics: Trending topics are really short-term and won’t hold up over time. You’ll typically see a surge in traffic writing about these topics, but they’ll become dated as soon as the news cycle changes.

What savvy content marketers do is use the short-term traffic to enter fresh leads into their sales funnel, or direct users to more closely related evergreen posts that can help them. In short, use the trendy pop-corn content to put more eyeballs on the content that supports your long-term strategy. The important thing to remember is that you can’t neglect either one of these content types. Focusing too much on one will imbalance your content strategy and place unnecessary limitations on your content’s reach.

To ensure content is tailor-made for your audience, there are three useful questions that you can yourself or your team to keep your content on track:

1. Who is our target audience?
2. What topics are on the tips of their tongues right now?
3. What topics are they talking about now that they will still be talking about years from now?

What’s High-Quality Content Anyway? So who the heck decides what quality content is, anyway? Well, you do. So does the lady sitting next to you. The guy that handed you your morning coffee? Yup, he decides, too.

We all vote on what high-quality content is or isn’t when we look at a piece of writing online and either close the tab or keep reading. Let me reduce this to a tweetable soundbite you can feel free to start using.

Quality converts

Whether they’re signing up for a free trial, or entering their email on a squeeze page, the rule holds: any piece of content that gets the reader, viewer, or listener to take the action you want them to take is high-quality content.

So How Do You Make Content That Converts?

Great question. That depends on your audience. Great high-quality content isn’t spun out of hazy dream sequences, magical muses or any of those mythical things you’ll find at writer’s retreats. In content marketing, quality is created by data. And a few talented wordsmiths who may or may not frequent writer’s retreats.

At any rate, the best way to see what will work for your audience is to look at what works for them already. Do you have any high performing blog posts? Start with finding out what about those posts worked so well and then double down on those topics. If ain’t broke, well…you know the rest.

Last Things Last: Get Yourself in the Game

Website? Check. Content Strategy? Big. Fat. Checkmark. Now what? Get in the game, kid.

If you’re just starting out, look very closely at all your competitors in the market. Pay even closer attention to the ones who are crushing it with their content and see where you can compete. Just remember marketers screw up when they make huge decisions based on little more than a feeling. This isn’t an action movie and you’re not a knight in shining plot armor. Those guys can make decisions based on smoke and feelings. You’re a real life content marketer, which means you’re practically a Spartan. You don’t have room for luxuries like feelings.

I’m not saying you should never trust your feelings, by all means, please do so. After they’ve been verified by the data.

You should only ever base your understanding of high-quality content off of cold, hard, unbiased stats. That will show you better than anything else which content is acceptable for your audience and which content isn’t. What are the kids saying these days? Facts don’t care about your feelings? Yeah, those are great words to live by for marketers.

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